How to Be Green With Painting

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By Granath Color Works
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Painting Green can help

There are green paint products available today that are environmentally friendly. These green paint products are in early stages of development, but are improving quickly regarding their performance and durability.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Desire to think green
Willingness to sacrifice some level of product effectiveness

Step 1

Painting with environmentally friendly green paint is essentially the same as painting with conventional paint. You will not need any special tools.
Step 2

U.S. Green Building Council - LEED

For commercial painting applications, most new buildings are now required by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) regulations to use paint that is within certain specification parameters. The main focus is on VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) levels and they can usually be satisfied with latex paints. Regulations are constantly tightening for new buildings and sustainability is always considered.

Existing buildings can also participate and owners can earn tax credits for their efforts to make their buildings green.
Step 3

For residential painting, there is little regulation and environmental consideration relating to paint is generally accomplished by regulating the paint manufacturers and retailers. Each year the acceptable VOC levels are reduced, which is resulting in more R & D by the paint manufacturers for green paint products.
Step 4

Benjamin Moore "Green" Paint

Environmentally responsible, green paint does not yet perform or last the way conventional paint does, but it is improving. Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams, and most of the other big manufacturers have green paint offerings, which perform fairly well. It becomes a question of what is more important for you personally.
Step 5

Green Planet Paint

There are also smaller paint manufacturers that are developing green paint products, some of which are very creative. Green Planet Paints is one such company and their product offering achieves a new level of sustainability by using plant resin and mineral pigments to produce their paint.