The 1990s
Meeting the EPA (1990)
For the UK paint industry the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) had an enormous impact. It required coatings to be invented that would create the same aesthetic finish, with much lower total solvent pollution. Technologies such as waterbased were still in their infancy and one approach was to use waterbased stains and EPA compliant coatings.
Waterbased stains were notorious for swelling the woodgrain and causing a rough surface finish when compared to solvent based finishes. Intercoat's version was very successful but some wooden substrates still required the smooth result obtained by the solvent based versions.
Compliant coatings, and there were many variants of these, were dependant upon the size of the finishing company, how the resultant pollution was calculated and the impact of solvent removed as waste. The paint formulations required lower viscosity, higher solid resins and these still had to be developed by resin manufacturers. Health & Safety legislation was also moving ahead with the introduction of the 1992 "Six pack" legislation which put equal pressure as the EPA on paint manufacturers and their Customers in terms of administration and extraction efficiency - working against the demands of the EPA.
Towards the end of the 1990s, high solvent single pack pre-cat materials were used much less and higher solids acid catalysed versions were taking their place. This was a large change for finishing companies who had to change from the easy "one pot" coating to a 2 component finish which when mixed then reacted slowly and thickened up until it was totally unusable.