Keywords: Sustainable development, solvents, environmental pollution, Life Cycle Analysis, ecology.
This document aims to raise a discussion and reflection on the future challenges faced by the paint industry for the development of paints and coatings that exert less and less impact on the environment, projecting an approach of Sustainable Development, instead of an approach of profit and economic growth only.
It is about achieving the best balance between cost-benefit, although today we know that both not only refer to price and performance, but that the new orientations bear in mind that a good performance of a painting is also obtained when it exerts the least impact on the environment, thus providing a low cost of environmental impact.
The difference between environmentally friendly and so-called ecological products is established, and the LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) is presented as a modern and more accurate tool for the analysis of the impact caused by a product on the environment.
Part of the discussion raised is traced around volatile organic compounds (VOCs), because they are considered the type of substances used by the paint industry that have caused the most environmental damage, due to their important role in air pollution. For this reason, stronger legislation has emerged that regulates the use of this type of compounds in the paint industry.
Although we indifferently speak of environmental impact to refer to a negative impact that is exerted on the environment, that is, that causes deterioration, reduction or destruction of it, we can also speak of positive environmental impact, which causes an improvement in the environment. In this work, when we talk only about environmental impact, reference is made to a negative environmental impact.
The Environmental Problem of VOCs: Discussion
Since the 70s, greater attention has been paid to the environmental problems caused by the paint industry, mainly caused by the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or volatile organic solvents.
Based on current knowledge about the impact that VOCs cause on the troposphere (place in the atmosphere where life on earth develops), it has been established that VOCs play an important role in global warming ("greenhouse effect"), the weakening of the ozone layer, photochemical "smog" and acid rain. Due to this, legislation has been generated to reduce the use of this type of compounds, which has forced paint companies to focus their research on the development of coatings with low solvent content. This has meant that, in recent years, the growing development of "new coating technologies" has been appreciated, including powder paints, water-based paints, U.V. curing paints, high solids, among others.
If we analyze carefully we will realize the irreparable damage caused by the development of the petrochemical industry, but it would be unfair to say that hydrocarbons or other substances in themselves represent or cause a risk to the environment. Rather, it is the unplanned and uncontrolled action of human development that has caused the exploitation and use of these organic compounds to contribute so significantly to the current environmental problem.
To tell the truth, it is clear that not due attention has been paid to environmental problems, due to the fact that the environment (and this is an important lesson of the science of ecology), is tolerant to certain levels of stress or polluting substances. This is possible because most of the materials that we consider as contaminants in high concentrations, have low levels in nature, as is the case with some extracts (natural oils and resins) [1].
The existence of ecosystem tolerance thresholds for various pollutants makes the cost-benefit argument very important: Which of the three criteria should have greater weight: Ecology, cost or performance? A company that takes excessive control of pollution will be less profitable and will risk losing some market segments (particularly global markets); Where then is the benefit of respect for the environment, and whether your customers will accept it over a cleaner competitor? [2].
Obviously, you would not want to sacrifice too much the quality of the products for the benefit of the environment, since a paint that presents too poor performance would only lead to an increase in maintenance schemes [3], which represents an environmental impact due to the greater consumption of resources.
Low VOCs: Ecological paints? [1]
By employing alternative technologies, in order to reduce the content of VOCs, many companies in the coatings sector have used this argument as an advertising tool and some of them have called these products "ecological paints".
The term ecology was created by Haeckel in 1880 and refers to the balancing relationship between the natural environment and the living things that inhabit it. Being even more rigorous, there is also the so-called human ecology which is the science that studies the mutual relations of man with the environment. In recent decades it has had an extraordinary development, based on the awareness that various sectors have progressively taken, in almost all countries, in relation to the deterioration and destruction of the environment due to the uncontrolled application of technological progress. In this sense, the problems of atmospheric and water pollution, the effects of chemistry on plants, the systematic destruction of the natural landscape for the benefit of the expansion of the automobile, etc., are all elements of a perspective of human ecology that is gaining increasing strength.
It is therefore curious to find companies that self-designate as ecological, because they have processes or products under the label of ecological for the fact of exercising actions aimed at reducing the impact of these on the environment. The important thing, really, is not the fact of paying attention to the type of denomination that is given to the products, since in many cases by trying to achieve greater marketing of their products, some companies end up causing a "greater damage" to the environment.
Although it is noteworthy that in different parts of the world, especially in European nations, local regulations have devised "ecological seals" or "green seals", which highlight that a certain product allows appreciably to reduce the environmental impact, compared to other products of its kind, less friendly to the environment.
Find the second part of this article in our next edition of INPRA LATINA
*INVESA S.A., Colombia. [email protected]
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