If your walls are starting to look a little shabby, or if you're just looking to give your home a little make-over, then a new paint job is probably on your agenda.  And if you want your home to be a little more eco-friendly, or if you just don't like the pervasive smells that usually accompany a fresh coat of paint, then environmentally friendly paints are for you.  Using these eco-friendly paints are not just good for the environment, but in the long run are beneficial to your health.

SafeCoat

American Formulating and Manufacturing (AFM) has spent 25 years developing a healthier, safer product for painting your homes. SafeCoat offers painting products that help reduce the amount of indoor pollution by removing dangerous chemical elements from their products.  SafeCoat claims,

 "Our products are structured to literally create a "safe coat," with a unique molecular formulation designed to seal surfaces (from wood to metal to concrete, carpets, and much more), thus reducing "offgassing," or the emission of toxins into your environment."

 
Not only do SafeCoat products create a safe seal, they also use natural ingredients to help reduce the chemicals found in normal paint products.  For example, SafeCoat sealers use natural mineral pigments instead of dyes and have no formaldehyde.

SafeCoat offers a variety of different painting products, such as paints, primers, stains, sealers, and clear finishes among other products.  Their products use low toxin ingredients to reduce the level of offensive odor and VOCs.¹ 

Painting your home

When painting your home, the look and feel should not be the only thing you consider. Perhaps you have heard about VOCs, or volatile organic compounds.  According to the EPA, VOCs are gases that can be bad for your health, with effects that range from the minor: irritation to your eyes, nose, and throat, to the severe: damage to your central nervous system.¹

These days, it's easy to find paints free of VOCs.  When looking for paints for the interior or the exterior of your home, look for paints that use low or zero VOC. Unfortunately, "zero-VOC" means up to 5g/L of VOCs (5 grams per liter).  Though this is significantly lower than most of the VOC pumping oil-based paints, but if you want to avoid VOCs completely, along with the offensive smell associated with conventional paint, you should switch to eco-friendly paints.  Companies like Green Planet Paints  believe that using the simplest ingredients is the best way to keep your home chemical free.  Green Planet Paints use soy-based alkyd resin instead of the hazardous petrochemical resins found in most paints today and minimize the amount of harsh chemicals used in their paint.  This paint is a great alternative to the modern paint on the market today.

Green Planet Paints is just one of many great, environmentally friendly paints on the market.  Old Fashioned Milk Paint  offers a variety of colors and is also free of dangerous components such as VOCs, lead, mercury, and solvents among other things.  Old Fashioned Milk Paint is made from milk protein, lime, and earth or mineral pigments.  Not only do they carry paint for your walls, they also specialize in paint for your furniture.

 
Another company that specializes in environmentally friendly paint is American Pride.  This Green Seal Certified product contains zero-VOCs and avoids ingredients that are carcinogenic.  This latex-based paint performs as well as,  if not even better than, conventional paints.

 
YOLO Colorhouse is an eco-friendly acrylic paint that is also Green Seal Certified, using no added solvents (VOCs - though trace amounts of VOCs may be found in the paint.  However, these are so low that this is definitely a desirable replacement of those old, VOC wafting paints) and a minute amount of offensive chemicals while remaining a premium paint that is low-odor and long lasting.

 
There are a variety of different natural paints that are a safe alternative to the modern paints on the market today.  Check out our database for the paint that would be right for you.

Make your own paint

Bill Steen from Mother Earth News wrote an interesting article  in 2006 about making your own paint.  In it are different recipes on how to make several different natural paints. 

Aside from this article, there are different books on the market on how to make your own paints.  As mentioned in Steen's article, Lynn Edwards and Julia Lawless have produced The Natural Paint Book  which offers in depth explanations on how to make your own paint.

Making your own paint is not only a safer alternative to the conventional paint on the market, but is a creative and fun way to paint your home.

Oil vs. Latex

The two most common household paints on the market today are alkyd paints (oil-based paints) and latex paints (water-based paints).  Both have their pros and cons, but you should be especially wary of alkyd paints.  Many alkyd paints on the market today produce a high amount of VOCs and put off a strong odor that contributes to indoor air pollution. Health-wise, latex paints win compared to the conventional alkyd paints.

 
If you don't use all of the conventional paint you've purchased, don't be so hasty to throw it away.  Oil-based paints are considered a hazardous waste and should be disposed of at a household hazardous wastes site.  Instead of immediately throwing away your paint , store it away for later use.  Separate non-reusable paint from reusable paint, which you may convenient at a later date.  However, if you don't envision yourself needing that leftover paint, look for places that might benefit from your donation.  Many places would accept and appreciate your unopened cans of paint.

If possible, avoid purchasing more paint than you need.  The Local Hazardous Waste Management Program offers a calculator  to estimate the amount of paint needed for each room.

Breathe easier

There's nothing worse than being driven out of your own home just because you wanted to give it a little make-over.  Your home should be a place of comfort, not a source of health problems.  Using eco-friendly paints not only reduces negative effects on the environment, but will also make your home a happier place to live.

           
¹ AFM SafeCoat.  "AFM Safecoat." <http://www.afmsafecoat.com/index.php>

¹ EPA.  "Indoor Air Quality."  Organic Gases (Volatile Organic Compounds).  14 November 2007.  <http://www.epa.gov/iaq/voc.html>

³ Montgomery County.  "How to Recycle/Dispose of: Paint - Oil Based." <http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/dpwt/solidwaste/collectionservices/material_detail.asp?categoryID=25>