That no-VOC claim you see on the paint you recently purchased? Turns out that may not be the whole story.
The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus recently recommended that Sherwin Williams discontinue its no-VOC claims for its Harmony line of paints. The complaint against the company was issued by competitor Benjamin Moore. What's their line of argument?
Well, according to standard limits, a company can distinguish its paint product as having "zero VOCs" or "no VOCs" if the VOC content of the paint contains less than 5.0 grams per liter (g/L) VOC. In this case, both NAD and Benjamin Moore assert that, based on Sherwin-Williams' Material Safety Data Sheets and Technical Data Sheets, "certain colors in its Harmony line would exceed the 5.0 g/L VOC threshold when its 'deep base' paint was mixed with conventional colorants." So basically, the no-VOC claims don't hold up to all the colors you can get in the Harmony line.
Sherwin-Williams responds that they're "disappointed that the NAD did not agree with its position that both consumers and the industry understand zero-VOC claims to pertain only to the majority of colors in a paint line, as opposed to being a 100% ‘'line claim.' However, out of respect for the self-regulatory process, Sherwin-Williams will accept the NAD’s decision and will take the NAD’s findings into consideration in its future advertising for Harmony."
Read the full press release here.
This is likely the case with other no-VOC paint brands as well, so it's something to be aware of the next time you're shopping!
(Image: Flickr member Jinx! licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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What about the Olympic line that claims to be no-VOC?
All I know is that I came home from work the day they painted my kitchen with a low-VOC paint, and you couldn't smell it AT ALL. It took me a second to realize that the paint was barely dry! Definitely something different about it.
I used PP&G's line of no-VOC paint to paint our whole house and while it may be only low VOC as the Sherwin Williams brand is now categorized, I could smell (or not smell) the difference. Before I would need to stay somewhere else while we repainted but the no VOC gave me no headache
I have the same question as HernandoHouse. Does anyone have info on the Olympic no VOC claims? I'm planning so far on using them for my new apartment but want to be sure.
I'd like to set the record straight here. For my job as a Chemist, I monitor various environmental regulations and the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Los Angeles has some of the strictest VOC requirements for paints. Per their regulations (http://www.aqmd.gov/rules/reg/reg11/r1113.pdf), the VOC content is calculated minus the colorant. And any paint manufacturer is required to list the VOC content on their labels without the colorant. I don't believe that Sherwin-Williams did anything wrong.
We used Olympic no VOC for our whole house. I don't know if the claims are true, but the house didn't smell at all.
Also, keep in mind that the definition of "VOCs" is based on the compound's ability to contribute to the formation of smog only, which means that "zero-VOC" doesn't necessarily mean "healthy." From an environmental perspective, a focus on VOCs entirely disregards a host of other issues, such as the amount of energy it took to create the paint, and the waste that it generated. Natural paints are the greenest and healthiest paints available. See our website, www.unearthedpaints.com