Not much news today.  Thought I would post a picture from THIS web site.  Most of you readers know I deal with paint.  I’ve learned quite a bit about this product over the years and based on what I know, I am a strong opponent of oil based paints.  The trend of all manufacturing is going green and in the paint world, this is actually a very good thing.  It’s not just environmentally friendly, it is economically feasible and an important step in reducing the availability of products that can indeed cause a great deal of harm.  Without fail, I will get customers who absolutely insist on using oil based paints for their projects.  Most of these customers are older and they just get hysterical when I inform them that we don’t have much oil to sell and they don’t like it when I encourage them to look at acrylic, most have only ever used oil and most are quite resistant to change.  We sell very few oil products at work and as a result it is in my best interest to try to discourage typical DIYers from purchasing oil based paints with very few exceptions for very specific projects.  Oil still has it’s uses (your car would just die if it were painted using an acrylic) but they are very specific.  The picture below explains why.  This year, Ohio will join a growing list of other states outlawing the sale of many types of oil based paints, Michigan will not be far behind and thanks to our Legislature, we are actually ahead of the game in this country when it comes to eliminating higher content VOC (volatile organic compounds) from the hands of irresponsible consumers.  The biggest push is simply the aforementioned fact.  Consumers in general are very irresponsible.  How many of you reading this, have had an oil spill from your car in the driveway and decided rather than take the time and make the effort to clean it up right, you grabbed the hose and blew it off into the lawn?  How many of you have just tossed that old can of paint into the trash without thinking about where it might end up?  Did you know that the Great Lakes suffer greatly because people carelessly dump their unused paint into the lakes?   Nobody thought of these things years ago and in many cases, my generation is now paying the price for that irresponsibility.  So, think twice about what you are putting into your garbage, especially if it was a liquid at one time (or still is).  A good rule of thumb for being a responsible consumer:  If you can not, or are unwilling to dispose of your product properly, you should not be purchasing it or using it in the first place.  I’m not terribly tolerant of people who refuse to take this sort of thing seriously.  Had people taken responsibility in the first place, I woudln’t have to tell you that because of you and your irresponsible behavior, you can no longer buy the product you want so badly.

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