Paint Me Green

Or blue. Assuming my usual cell phone-talking position in my office, I leaned against the window sill and watched a train go by. The only reason this was different from any other time is that it had just been painted - a dark blue gray color. It hides surprisingly well on my jeans.

This latest of many acts of braindeadedness reminded me to talk about environmentally friendly paints. We all know the strong pungent odor of a good oil-based paint, including the odors from the gasoline or mineral spirits we used to clean them up. Now most people use the latex or other "water-based" paints for interior and exterior painting. But, you say, those paints still stink. Yes, they do. They still contain a lot of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which are the solvents that carry the paint and then evaporate away during drying (and into the air in your home). You can read on the side of most paint cans what the VOC content is in pounds per gallon (lbs/gal).

The VOCs in paint are generally bad for people, like xylene and toluene, among others. They are also petrochemicals, which cause more than environmental harm these days (the chemicals themselves and the oil they come from).

The last 10 years, and especially the last few years has seen an explosion of low or no VOC paints, or even recycled paints. In fact, you can find them in most paint stores, although I have not seen them in Home Depot or Lowe's stores yet.

If you're looking for some interesting options, go here or a lot of other places easily found with a web search. Some ideas that have peaked my interest are the clay-based paints. The clay is completely non-toxic and will actually regulate the humidity in your home - it absorbs water slowly when humidity is high and then slowly releases it when humidity drops. Other cool ideas are milk paints and recycled paints. There are little operations around the world springing up that will collect unused paint and mix them together, and resell it usually quite affordably.

Warning: when buying low or no VOC paints, make sure to ask about the coloring. Often, the base is very low in VOCs, but the added coloring (who buys base color?) is quite high in VOC.

And .... yep, you'll usually pay more for these.