Color Me Bad
Composited from photos by Getty Images (watch out, kid!)
The state of New York has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not revealing the levels of toxins that paint manufacturers are able to release into the air.
From Reuters: “New York sues agency, seeks air quality files.”
The dispute stems from an EPA law regulating the amount of volatile organic compounds that can be used in certain paints, stains and varnishes that contribute to smog, which in turn may harm human and plant life, [State Attorney General Eliot] Spitzer’s statement said.
The law allows paint manufacturers to exceed limits if they pay a fee to the EPA. The “pay to spray” fees range from hundreds of dollars a year to more than $5 million paid by Sherwin-Williams Co., the statement said.
What that means is that corporations are able to pay EPA a “sin” tax for exceeding limits that are considered safe, and then continue along their merry, polluting way to circumvent those preset boundaries.
Many commercial paints release organic compounds that evaporate readily into the air. These volatile organic compounds (VOC), which include benzene, toluene, naphthalene, methyl chloroform, and formaldehyde, have been fingered for contributing to Sick Building Syndrome and assorted short- and long-term adverse health effects. (Formaldehyde has been classified by the EPA as a probable carcinogen. Not possible, mind you. Probable. As in, “Playing chemical Russian Roulette will probably kill you. Why don’t you just run headlong into traffic instead?”)
If that’s not nasty enough, VOCs also emit smog-producing pollutants into the air as the organic solvents in the paint evaporate. Nitrous oxides produced from fuel combustion mixes with these organic compounds to form ozone, which may sound great in light of global warming, except that our friend O3, when it’s not minding its own business in the stratosphere, has been linked to higher death rates, according to an EPA-funded study:
“This research shows that ozone may indeed kill people,” [American Lung Association] president John Kirkwood said in a statement. “Early death would join the long litany of harmful effects of ozone exposure: shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing and coughing and greatly increased risk of respiratory infections, asthma episodes, pulmonary inflammation, and the need for medical treatment and hospitalization for asthma. More may come as new studies are raising the possibility that ozone may cause asthma to develop in children.”
Ozone pollution is also damaging to tree and plant foliage, wrecking havoc with their ability to photosynthesize and store food, while leaving them vulnerable to disease, insects, and inclement weather. Plant casualties cost the U.S. crop-production industry 500 million dollars each year.
All that from a few cans of Avocado Green or Pebble Beach. Well, times a couple of billion.
Are you holding on to the last crumbling shreds of your sanity yet? Pour yourself a few drinks, pop a Xanax, and hold that thought. More tomorrow.
Next: Low-VOC solutions that won’t paint you into a corner (hur, hur).
Further resources:
1. ‘Smog: Who Does It Hurt? What You Need to Know About Ozone and Your Health,” AIRNow/EPA
2. “Ozone: Good Up High, Bad Nearby,” AIRNow/EPA
KathyB said,
March 23, 2006 at 3:11 pm
This article ran today in “my” newspaper, you may dig it.
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