Automotive Refinishing Partnership
About This Project | Findings & Accomplishments | Publications | Partners
Highlights
DfE is collaborating with EPA's Community Air Toxics Collision Repair Campaign, to drastically reduce auto body emissions at the national level.
Learn about the Campaign and upcoming workshops on best practices and the new EPA regulation for autobody/refinishing paint shops. For related information, visit the Small Business Environmental Homepage.
Did you know...?
Did you know that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) issued two Alerts on diisocyanates? Visit the NIOSH and OSHA web sites on isocyanates for more information.
Automotive refinishers, who spray-paint cars, use harmful chemicals, including:
- Diisocyanates, the
leading cause of occupational asthma.
- Organic Solvents, such as toluene and ethylbenzene, which have been linked to numerous health effects.
- Heavy metals, such as hexavalent chromium, which causes lung cancer; and lead, which has been linked to nerve and brain damage.
The DfE Program is working with the auto body/refinishing (collision repair) industry and career/technical schools to increase awareness of the health and environmental concerns associated with refinishing activities and to encourage the use of best practices and safer, cleaner, more efficient practices and technologies. Best practices and the use of safer alternative paints and solvents (e.g. waterborne technologies (PDF) (4 pp, 284.3K, About PDF)) will help prevent pollution before it is created, and appropriate protective equipment and control technology will reduce workplace and environmental exposure and risk.
The DfE Best Practices Outreach Kit, developed for site visits and train-the-trainer workshops, contains excellent resources for shops and schools.
The DfE Best Practices Self-Evaluation Checklist (PDF) (18 pp, 374K, About PDF) is a tool to help businesses and schools evaluate current practices and technologies and identify areas where improvements can be made to protect workers, students and surrounding communities from toxic chemicals. An Excel version (560K) that allows automatic calculation of evaluation points is also available.
The Emissions Reduction Calculator will estimate emissions and material use reductions achieved through implementing DfE best practices.
A virtual auto body shop,developed with CCAR®, the Coordinating Committee for Auto Repair, provides easy access to valuable health, safety, environmental, and technical links.
For more information, contact DfE.