By:
Víctor Hugo Isaza*, Julián A. Restrepo R.
Bearing in mind that the paint industry contributes significantly to the global environmental problem of VOCs, and although there are other sectors that pollute in this regard as much as the paint industry, this has been subjected to particular attention and regulation by environmental authorities. This is because, thanks to his versatility, he has always found solutions to the problems he faces. The paint industry today has developed (though not completely), alternative technologies that allow the consumer to use very low or zero emission products (technologies mentioned above).
Although the industrial development of paints and coatings, at its roots, was characterized by thinking only about economic development, today we know that the ideal scheme is to achieve that painting companies achieve economic, social and environmental development.
The chemical industry, although speculative by nature (It is spoken in general terms, since it is not intended to qualify all companies as speculative.), realized that an approach where economic growth is intended, by itself does not allow sustainable development. This is due to the effects it generates on ecological relationships, which over time, become environmental liabilities which in turn have an impact on environmental costs, such as respiratory diseases in living beings, climate changes, species affectation etc., to mention a few cases.
An approach that takes into account only social and environmental development does not become economically sustainable either, since poverty is a major cause of environmental deterioration and increased social unrest. In the words of Indira Gandhi: "There is no worse form of pollution than poverty", a famous phrase with which she shocked the world at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972.
Sustainable vs sustainable development
The approach in which companies strive for economic, social and environmental development, as a whole, was called Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development can be defined as "a development that meets the needs of the present without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". This definition was first used in 1987 at the UN World Commission on the Environment, created in 1983.
In fact, at first environmental scholars considered that the theory of Sustainable Development established the appropriate guidelines to obtain the best balance between economic production and environmental impact. But in a short time, these same scholars realized that the most appropriate theory to use was that of "Sustainable Development", since although it also involves economic development, it does so in a more planned way, where a better type of economic and environmental development is proposed. That is, Sustainable Development achieves a balance between economic profitability and environmental impact, but only allows to favor limited sectors of society, while the theory of "Sustainable Development" allows to cover a broader portion of society.
Because the current technological development was cemented without taking into account the environmental factor, when the industry faces environmental legislations, it is necessary to develop "alternative technologies", which would not be necessary in a framework of "Sustainable Development".
Certainly, being able to establish the difference between Sustainable and Sustainable Development is difficult, not only because of the diversity of theories about it, but because in English, both terms merge into the word Sustainable and it is worth mentioning that currently, in part of the literature on the subject, there is indifferent talk of Sustainable, Sustainable, Continuable or Enduring Development.
In the context of "Sustainable Development" it is also important to mention the set of activities called "Cleaner Production" and "Integral Responsibility".
The "Cleaner Production" starts from the principle of sustainability of the anthropic activities required to meet basic and supplementary needs (quality of life), incorporating elements such as minimum emissions, good production and operation practices, proper management and use of by-products and waste, decrease in the consumption of inputs, etc.
The concept of "Integral Responsibility" is a voluntary initiative of the business sector worldwide in which companies commit to work together to continuously improve the performance in safety, health and environment of their products, processes and services, throughout the life cycle, thus contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.
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Life Cycle Assessment
The challenge of developing products under a Sustainable Development scheme implies the development of products that present the same performance and in turn are less polluting or better yet, that do not pollute But it is very difficult to expect that a product manufactured by man is not polluting, because in different places of the "chain", whether during the stage of production, marketing, use or disposal of packaging, the product will exert a negative impact on the environment, as discussed above.
In modern terminology, this analysis of the "chain" is called LCA (Life Cycle Analysis), and refers to the complete analysis that is made of a product, not only in its manufacturing process and use, but also in relation to the type of raw materials it uses, commercialization of the product, disposal of waste, among others (in fact, the subject of the LCA deserves a broader extension that is not among the objectives of this article). In other words, the LCA makes it possible to establish the complete impact that a product or process exerts on the environment.
This approach is what has shown that, for example, hydrogen cars are not as low polluting as you think, since while they do not emit carbon dioxide, the current hydrogen production process is not very environmentally friendly (since at present, most hydrogen is produced on a large scale through the conversion of hydrocarbons, mainly natural gas – the fossil fuel that currently pollutes the least – through a process called "steam reforming". That is, hydrogen technology, although futuristic, depends today on fossil fuels.)
The LCA has also made it possible to establish that, although water-based paints emit a much lower proportion of VOCs into the environment, the operations involved in the production of aqueous resins and achieving the stabilization of compounds incompatible with water, involve the employment of more unit operations and compounds (surfactants and stabilizers). This has led some authors to think that, perhaps if analyzed rigorously, the use of solvent-based paints of high solids may be less polluting than the use of water-based paints.
This is where you have an important challenge, have we not always had water-based paints as environmentally friendly products?; well, they are, but only if you analyze a part of the life cycle ... So what is the paint industry up against? to the fact that you must have an integral responsibility to offer the customer a true environmentally friendly product. This process also includes the stages of research, design and development, manufacturing, quality control, logistics and use, among others.
It would be paradoxical, for example, to think that paper is an ecological product only because it is of natural origin, if in the process of obtaining the pulp (raw material), trees have been cut and if the production process is an important pollutant of the environment, since it uses chlorinated compounds and others (which will be more ecological, a polyethylene bag or a paper bag?). Even that biodiesel is the alternative because it comes from vegetable products, if in this process large areas of productive land must be sown and does the combustion of biodiesel not also emit carbon dioxide? In this sense, man has only found an alternative to the sources of fossil fuels for diesel and today there are biological sources (that is why it is called biodiesel), but the issue of emissions from the combustion of said fuel is not being addressed. Something that does happen in the case of the "combustion" of hydrogen (combustion that occurs in fuel cells), but as already noted, currently there is dependence on fossil fuels to obtain hydrogen.
Ecological paints
Regarding the denomination of ecological paints: Technically no product manufactured by man can be considered truly ecological, by the Life Cycle Analysis. For example, if a paint is called ecological because it does not use lead and chromium compounds, could it also be called an ecological paint that uses, instead of a lithographed container, a paper label?
The responsible manufacture of paints in the environmental field must contemplate at least the following elements during its cycle: Make sustainable use of the natural resources it uses (raw materials and inputs), use raw materials that are not harmful to the environment, use production processes that involve lower energy consumption or make use of renewable energy sources, or both. Consider aspects of recyclability, reuse or biodegradability; use packaging materials, preferably recyclable, reusable or biodegradable and in minimal quantities; use clean technologies or that generate a lower relative impact on the environment and guide consumers on the best way to dispose of them.
Although more advanced environmental analysis methodologies will be developed in the future, the LCA is today the most successful tool for the analysis of the impact that a product exerts on the environment.
Conclusions
There is no product manufactured by man that can be considered as truly ecological, since in its production process an impact is exerted on the environment, altering the balance of the environment. Thus, when companies make efforts to improve the environment and reduce the impact of their production processes on it, they tend to manufacture environmentally friendly and non-ecological products, since if they were ecological it would imply that they would be in complete balance with the environment. Strictly speaking, companies that call themselves eco-friendly seek to have a lower impact on the environment and offer environmentally friendly products, but they cannot offer truly eco-friendly products.
The manufacture of environmentally friendly products must be analyzed from a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), where a whole set of environmental policies that paint producing companies must have must be considered, where a product is considered from the very stage of development (such as contemplating the use of less harmful materials, more biodegradable, more compatible with the environment), going through the production process (where all the processes are standardized and a maximum use of the materials is intended). Counting on the packaging of the product (packaging of easy disposal, safe, manufactured with more environmentally friendly materials) is intended. In reality, environmental considerations include many more areas, such as transportation, marketing, customer utilization, waste disposal, etc.
The challenge starts from commercial awareness: Only the development, manufacture and market acceptance of environmentally friendly products can allow a "Sustainable Development" that refers to devising a way to exploit natural resources and employ technology in such a way that we can allow future generations to enjoy such resources. "Sustainable Development" is to take into account the ecological factor and that the use of environmentally friendly products has environmental advantages, achieving economic advantages.
Establishing that a product is environmentally friendly can be established today more accurately through a Life Cycle Analysis and it is not enough to exercise isolated actions to reduce the environmental impact of said product, since these must be analyzed together.
It should not be forgotten that the benefit of environmental protection has much more importance for future generations: We must do our best to achieve the development of products manufactured under precepts of commitment to survival, environmentally friendly products (environmentally intelligent), which tend to the conservation and sustainability of natural resources. That is, the industry now has the important challenge of working under Sustainable Development schemes and the commercial areas the challenge of developing "green markets" for these products.
References
[1] Julián A. Restrepo R. "Ecology and VOCs: Development of environmentally friendly products". Revista Inpralatina, Vol. 11, No. 4, July/August 2006, pp. 34-36.
[2] Hazel, N. J. "Using LCA to select coatings for optimum environmental and cost performance". JCT, Vol. 68, No. 861. Oct, 1996.
[3] Hofland A. "Ecology at any price?: Ecological balance of some water-based paints". Conference presented at the EUROCOAT 94 congress in Sitges, Barcelona.
*INVESA S.A., Colombia
* [email protected]
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