Car Paints Are Turning Green to Comply With New Mandate : Law will force licensed auto body repair shops to use environmentally safe sprays.
The local industry devoted to repairing dented cars goes green this year. Not a lot of people think to ask if the body shop they take the car to for repairs is “environmental.” But, according to George Inzano, owner of Inzano Motorsport Carstar Co. in Westlake Village, it’s starting to happen.
“People who live close to the beach are beginning to ask,” he said. “They’re on top of environmental issues.”
Inzano is president of the California Autobody Assn. chapter that serves our county and encourages customers hereabouts to raise environmental questions before getting their cars fixed.
The usual talk about repair shops filling the air with toxic fumes doesn’t faze Inzano.
“Starting this summer in Ventura County, and already this month in Los Angeles County, the industry is switching to waterborne paint,” he said. This refers to a mandate by our county’s Air Pollution Control District that shops phase out use of paints and solvents based on chemicals called “volatile organic compounds.”
Sounds like something to do with bombs, and almost is. VOCs, as they are called, can harm workers in the shop and hurt neighbors who breathe the stuff as it floats off the premises and then heads skyward to eat holes in the ozone layer. It is so bad that, if shops go on using it, they can be shut down and folks could even go to jail. “By the year 2000 100% of licensed shops here will no longer be using it,” said Inzano.
Note he said “licensed” shops. “Once they’re licensed, they’re regulated. If they’re not licensed, you can’t regulate them,” he said.
These unlicensed people he calls “back-yard operators,” and they are currently responsible for almost half the release of VOCs into the air. The other half have been coming from vehicle manufacturers, plus, until now, licensed body shops.
The car makers nationwide are switching to waterborne paint for new cars, company by company. Saturn’s done it first. It stands to reason that consumers will help clean up the air by patronizing local licensed shops rather than non-licensed one. But, according to Sean Castenada, service manager of California Truck & Auto Body in Oxnard, it will cost them. “Waterborne paint takes longer to dry, takes extra training to use, costs more to buy,” he said. It will also cause licensed shops to raise their prices.
The dilemma for environmentally conscious consumers is thus compounded. It’s not just that Sean and George are going to be raising prices by about 10%--it’s that, as licensed operators, they have already situated themselves in what Sean calls the “higher dollar” price range. So, one is further tempted to go with a back-yard operator’s bid.
Alas, if we want to mitigate the pollution problem commonly associated with body shops, we’re going to have to accept the added costs. We’re going to have to ask bidders if they are members in good standing of the appropriate state and national trade organizations and whether their staff is trained in the latest environmental practices. In the current issue of the national trade journal BodyShop Business is the editorial lament: “It’s getting tough for shops to be ‘green’ and still make ‘green.’ ”
In a series of reports over the last year, the magazine has repeatedly confronted shop operators with harsh realities about “the amount of waste from the automotive industry, (which) is enormous. Each year we must dispose of 250 million scrap tires, 15 million batteries, 400 million used oil filters and 800 million gallons of lubricants, plus antifreeze, solvents, sealants and aerosols, not to mention used parts. Zero waste should be a goal. . . . Inspectors don’t typically bother a shop that recycles everything.”
If a shop operates legally, or “in compliance,” as Inzano claims his members do, that clearly costs more than illegally sending used motor oil to the landfill or pouring it down the drain. The point is that we, as consumers, can practice something that might be called “point-of-sale pollution prevention” by asking the right questions when it’s dent-fixing time.
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* FYI: When choosing a shop for auto body repairs, be sure to ask if the operator is a member in good standing of the California Autobody Assn. For referrals: (800) 454-3368. Members display certificates from the association and, often, the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair.
