A highly-respected leader
of the country’s thriving paint industry cited the unique collaboration by
government, industry and civil society players as a crucial element in the
historic phase-out of lead-containing paints in the Philippines.
Johnson Ongking,
Vice-President of Pacific Paint (Boysen) Philippines, Inc. and erstwhile
President of the Philippine Association of Paint Manufacturers (PAPM) hailed
the multi-stakeholder collaboration for enabling the phase-out of lead paint, a
major source of childhood lead exposure.
At a recent forum held in
Jakarta, Ongking impressed upon the Indonesian audience the good results of the
tripartite partnership involving the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR), PAPM and its member paint manufacturers and raw materials
suppliers, and the non-profit EcoWaste Coalition and IPEN, which both advocate
for a toxics-free future for all.
The said forum was
organized by Balifokus and IPEN as part of the groups’ campaign to establish
effective laws and standards eliminating lead paints to safeguard the health of
children, women, and workers, and protect the environment.
“The key to the success in
the Philippine experience was the trust and cooperation between industry, civil
society and the government in working towards a common goal – to eliminate lead
paint and protect future generations of Filipinos,” said Ongking, who
encouraged the Indonesian paint industry to take the lead in working with other
stakeholders to having legal prohibitions against lead paint by 2020.
“Having a law prohibiting
lead paint is one time where regulation is in the industry’s interest, and it
is much better for the industry to work together with regulators to prove to
all stakeholders that the paint industry is a responsible one, and to prevent
potential future costs for the industry and to society.”
According to IPEN,
“children who are exposed to lead in paint suffer irreversible neurological
damage that limits their future success and happiness, and limits their ability
to be positive, contributing citizens to their countries.”
Studies have also shown
that children with high lead levels in their blood are more likely to suffer
from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), underperform in school
and more likely to become adult criminals.
Loss of IQ due to lead
exposure results in an overall loss of lifetime earnings, which leads to a
significant economic impact on a country.
According to the report “Economic Costs of Childhood Lead Exposure in
Low-and Middle-Income Countries” by New York University School of Medicine,
Department of Pediatrics (NYU), lead exposure costs the Philippines more than
US$ 15 billion (almost PHP 700 billion) annually.
Ongking, who is also a
member of the Advisory Board of the UN-backed Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead
Paint (Lead Paint Alliance), emphasized that phasing out lead in paint requires
full industry cooperation to keep a “level playing field.” Some paint companies
are afraid that if they switch to lead safe paints and their competitors don’t,
they will lose sales to those that don’t make the switch. So it’s important
that all the paint companies make the switch together.”
Moreover, he pointed out
that this traditional industry focus on lower cost may not accurately reflect
consumer preferences with regard to lead paint. “It’s probably a mistaken
assumption that if you gave a homeowner the choice to buy lead paint for a
lower price or lead safe paint for a higher price, that they would choose the
cheaper product. I don’t think there’s too many homeowners who would spend
their hard earned money to expose their family to lead. On the other hand, I
think many people would be willing to pay a premium to make sure their families
were not exposed to lead poisoning. It’s an opportunity for paint companies to
move not just to safer products, but higher value paint products. Switching to lead safe paints is a win for both
manufacturers and customers.”
“Lead paint is a small
component of total paint sales yet has the potential to completely destroy
customer trust and confidence in our industry,” he added. “We industry people
know that water based paints, which is the majority of our sales, has no lead,
but consumers don’t know that. If they hear about lead paint in the news,
they’re going to think all paints have lead, so even sales of paint without
lead will suffer too.”
He also pointed out that
unless lead paints were eliminated, their presence would overshadow all the
eco-friendly paint innovations that the industry has developed – from low odor
paints to paints that help clean the air and reflect sunlight to lower carbon
usage. Thus, it is in the industry’s interest to take a pro-active stance to eliminate
lead paint just as the Philippine paint industry did.
“PAPM’s 23 member paint
manufacturers, which cover over 95% of the country’s total paint production,
understood that continued use of lead in paint would damage the reputation of
the whole industry and that the phase-out had to be an industry-wide endeavor,”
he said.
In 2011, the Ecowaste
Coalition, with support from PAPM, petitioned the DENR to develop a regulation
on lead in paint. After a series of
consultations and technical working group meetings, the DENR in 2013 issued the
Chemical Control Order for Lead and Lead Compounds, which provides for the
phase-out of lead-containing paints used for decorative as well as industrial
applications. He informed the audience that one tool they could use to assist
their process was use the Model Law that the Lead Paint Alliance has provided
for countries like Indonesia to use as a template for their regulation to phase
out lead paint.
To further ensure a level
playing field, PAPM organized a series of technical workshops to enable paint
formulators of all its members to be equally informed of safe and
cost-effective alternatives to lead based raw materials. This was a key part of
capacity building that he hoped the Indonesian paint industry association would
likewise provide its members.
“The Philippine experience
shows that the paint industry doesn’t need to be the bad guys. If all paint
companies works quickly to stop making lead paint, the paint industry will come
out of this as the good guys. On the other hand, if the industry does nothing
and continues to produce lead paint that will damage the future of customers
and the industry, then the paint industry will be the bad guys,” he told his
counterparts from the Indonesian paint industry.
“Do we want to be known as
a responsible industry that did the right thing once we found out we were doing
something wrong? Or do we want to be remembered as an industry that knowingly
harmed our children for the sake of lower cost? We can choose to be heroes or the
bad guys. I think you will agree, it is an easy choice,” he said.
One of the biggest
problems regarding lead paint is that in countries where lead paints are not
banned, there is no way for consumers to know whether the paint they’re buying
contains lead or not. One way for paint companies to inform consumers that
their paint brands were free of lead was to obtain third-party Lead Safe Paint®
certification that ensured the lead content of their products does not exceed
the total lead content limit of 90 parts per million (ppm), the legal limit set
by the Philippines as well as the United States, Canada, India, Nepal,
Cameroon, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Just as the presence of
lead paint can do disproportionate damage to a paint brand, Ongking mentioned
that Lead Safe Paint® certification could provide a ‘halo effect’ that would
gain consumer trust not just for the reformulated paint products that formerly
contained lead, but for the whole certified brand. Pacific Paints’ Boysen, Nation, Titan and
Virtuoso Silk paint brands are among the first in the world to secure
certification under this first-ever global Lead Safe Paint® certification
program. Other brands certified as lead-safe under this program are Davies
(Philippines), Multilac (Sri Lanka) and Elite (Bangladesh).
He also encouraged the
Indonesian paint association as well as the individual paint companies to
become partners of the Lead Paint Alliance to signify their commitment to
eliminate lead paint.
Ongking noted the role of
civil society groups such as the Ecowaste Coalition and IPEN as “incredibly
valuable.” Among other things, the NGOs contributed to raising awareness on the
dangers of lead paint by conducting lead paint studies and organizing public
information activities, by promoting compliance to the lead paint regulation,
monitoring breaches, and encouraging corrective actions, by promoting
independent, third-party Lead Safe Paint® certification in collaboration with
PAPM, and by pushing for supplemental directives enjoining mandatory use of lead-safe
paints.
-end-
Reference:
“Lead Paint Elimination
and Lead Safe Paint® Certification: The Philippine Experience,” Johnson
Ongking, Jakarta, Indonesia.
https://ipen.org/documents/lead-paint-elimination-faq
https://www.leadsafepaint.org/
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/
