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Car Manufacturers Use Green Paint Techniques

In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of progress in technology and ideas for reducing the amount of air pollution generated by our love affair with the automobile. But exhaust fumes aren’t the only way cars pollute the environment.

Even before they hit the road, cars are creating dangerous emissions that foul our air. The process for building – and especially painting – cars can be a significant source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). But now some auto manufacturers have found a way to reduce this form of pollution and save money at the same time.

In Japan, Mazda has found a way to combine three stages of painting into one, saving the company money and reducing VOC emissions by about 45 percent. It’s also looking at another technology that would allow it to cut emissions in half, by dunking cars into paint tanks and using electric currents to make the paint stick.

Through a business partnership with Mazda, Ford plans to try out some of these new technologies at its new plants in the coming years. Toyota is also working to reduce VOC emissions at its North American plants. But the new technologies are only being used at new or refitted plants, and it will likely take many years before older plants are converted to cleaner, greener processes.

If Ford, Mazda and Toyota show they can save substantially with the new technologies, it could go a long way toward motivating other automakers to get on board.

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To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org