GREEN NEWS: Green Seal Releases Recycled Paint Standard
Green Seal Releases Recycled Paint Standard
The Product Stewardship Institute (PSI) and Green Seal, Inc., have announced the completion of a national Green Seal environmental standard for recycled-content latex paint. The standard is aimed at assuring purchasers that recycled paint, in addition to being environmentally beneficial, can perform as well as virgin paint, in terms of ease of application, quality, and longevity of finish. The standard will be available online at www.govinfo.bz/5966-308.
Concern over paint performance is one of the major impediments to increasing the use of recycled paint. The Master Painters Institute (MPI), a nationally recognized paint performance certification organization, worked with Green Seal and PSI on the performance portion of the standard. The paint meets the same MPI performance standards used for virgin paint in any given category. The final standard takes into account the quality, performance, and safety of recycled paint, as well as environmental attributes.
The agreement to develop the recycled paint standard was one of 11 projects that resulted from the
national Paint Product Stewardship Initiative (PPSI), a dialogue facilitated by the Product Stewardship
Institute that includes more than 60 stakeholders, including paint manufacturers, recyclers, painting contractors, and federal, state, and local government agencies. PSI organized the initiative in 2003 to address the issue of reducing paint waste. The project to develop the recycled paint standard was funded by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, San Joaquin County (CA), Portland Metro in Oregon, and the Dunn-Edwards Corporation.
Recycled paint incorporates unused paint collected from consumers as well as excess paint from the original manufacturing process, thereby reducing the disposal of paint. Americans generate between 50 and 130 million gallons of leftover paint each year. Creating a Green Seal environmental standard for recycled paint could have the two-fold effect of increasing the demand for recycled paint and saving taxpayer disposal dollars. In addition to consumer applications, this effort is likely to boost the use of recycled paint by federal, state, and local governments.
“Green Seal is looking forward to certifying recycled paint that meets the standard, which will expand markets for this product,” says Arthur Weissman, Ph.D., Green Seal’s President and CEO. “A Green Seal certification assures users that the product has been thoroughly evaluated, performs well, and is environmentally responsible.”
Green Seal will now begin product evaluation for paints submitted for certification by manufacturers. Paints that meet the standard will earn the Green Seal of approval, and will be able to display the Green Seal Certification Mark, which is a registered symbol.
