 In order to fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has issued a national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants rule to reduce emissions of hazardous materials from collision repair shops. By 2011, more than 60,000 repair shop owners in the U.S. will have to follow the new rule. We've seen it as a great American sport, and like me, we all love our cars. Not only do we want them to go fast and run smooth, we want them to look good too, but sometimes it just can't help scraping a little paint here and there. You know, racing is always going to have some element of danger to it, but keeping our cars looking good doesn't have to. Did you know that by making a few simple changes at your auto body shop, you can help reduce air pollution, protect the health of your employees, keep your communities safer, and save money at the same time? It's not hard to do. Join me in learning some easy steps you can take and some inexpensive technologies you can use that will help us all stay part of a winning team. There are more than 60,000 automobile collision repair and refinishing shops in operation across the United States. Many of these shops are located in densely populated commercial and residential communities. EPA's Collision Repair Campaign, CRC, is assisting collision repair shops to comply with the new federal rule by providing training, technical assistance, and outreach to shop owners and local communities. The CRC is helping them establish best management and pollution prevention practices to reduce the negative environmental and health impacts from auto body shop emissions. Most of the materials associated with typical shop activities such as cleaning, sanding, paint mixing, spray painting, and gun cleaning are hazardous air pollutants. They contain heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, and other chemicals of concern, dangerous to our environment and to human health. My favorite paint job ever was a 1963 AC Ford Cobra that I restored from the ground up. My grandfather was originally the first one that started out and my dad opened up his business after that. When they were painting they were just doing it all in an open shop, stuff like that. They didn't have all the boots. I had no paint booth. I had no special equipment, no frame machine. I had a small toolbox, my paint room was something I built out of telephone poles and plastic paper. In fact when I first went to work for that company there were some older people there and I was approximately 24 years old and they came up to me and they said, you know to keep all that bad stuff out of your system what you need is you need to chew the bathroom. If you go into any auto body shop and you look around and pick up containers and read the contents you'll find an awful lot of chemicals that can be pretty toxic. Isosionates found in many paint shop materials are the leading cause of occupational asthma in the United States. If you become sensitized to isosionate essentially what happens is whenever you're exposed to it you have an asthmatic reaction. I was watching all the problems my dad was having with breathing and I started feeling that heavy chest and I started getting the shakes and all the symptoms of hands peeling constantly from being exposed to chemicals. I had to stop painting about five years ago. The heavy metals and volatile organic compounds found in paint shop materials can cause lung cancer as well as liver, kidney and central nervous system damage and some VOCs can have damaging effects on the reproductive system. Being inside of a shop, breathing the fumes, breathing the dust, the primers that they spray inside the shop every day really affects the technicians. It used to give me my, personally, migraines used to break the skin out on my hands dealing with some of these chemicals, touching them in the shop. People often think of pollution as the smokestack and what's coming out of it from the factory down the street. There's also pollution that comes from smaller shops like collision repair shops and although it isn't as obvious, it isn't as visible, the heavy metals that are included and the volatile organic compounds that are included can still be very significant for a person's health, not only the people who live nearby but also the people who work in the shop and because people often live close to these shops the impact of the emissions can be significant. The new rule affects auto-refinishing collision repair shops. The purpose of the rule is to reduce the emissions of air toxics from the operations of the shops. The rule requires that the people who use the guns be adequately trained because if you're not adequately trained it's easy to defeat the purpose of the gun. Requires that shops apply the paint in spray booths. Requires that they use guns that have a high transfer efficiency for paint. And it requires that when you're cleaning these guns that they be cleaned in a way that you don't atomize the solvent or the paint and let it get into the air. This National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants or NISHAP rule requires shops to submit an initial notification to EPA or to their state or local air pollution control agency and shops must keep records sufficient to demonstrate that they are in compliance at all times. The rule will go into effect for existing shops in January of 2011 for new shops that is shops that are just opening up now it will become effective on the day that they open for business. The design for the environment program is part of one of the major partnership programs of the Environmental Protection Agency and we work in partnership with the collision repair industry, auto-refinishing industry and a number of other industries. Our goal is really to promote best practices which include use of safer chemicals and use of more efficient technologies that are cost effective to help the workers not only have a very good product when they're finished with their work but also to help them preserve their health. These unique technical tools and methodologies can reduce emissions and protect human health and the environment. For our industry it's great, I mean years ago people painted maybe with a handkerchief over their mouth, generally didn't, smoking while they were painting, I mean the industry has changed tremendously over the years and best practices kind of drive that. If we have a set of standards that everybody can work to, it doesn't matter if the rule is making you do it or not, it's the best thing to do, that's why it's called a best practice and it can be the best thing for the environment or it could be the best thing for the technician, it just depends and both are important. Good shop activities require some type of personal protective equipment such as respirators, eye protection and chemical resistant gloves and clothing. One of the most important best practices, follow OSHA guidelines regarding the proper personal protective equipment. The best practice is really go through the whole refinished process, starting with the sanding. Dust created during the sanding process may contain toxic materials such as heavy metals that are harmful to the lungs and nervous system. A lot of guys think that the compounds that we use for blend panels, they have silicates in them, they need to wear gloves because silicate is a carcinogen, you need to protect your hands. When used and maintained properly, vacuum sanders can control 93 to 98% of the dust generated from the disc sanding operation. Vacuum sanders can pay for themselves over time by eliminating expensive repaints, shortening cleanup time and extending sandpaper life. When wet sanding wears suitable gloves to protect hands from irritants and abrasive compounds. While we're doing the solvent wipe down, we need to do that in a ventilated area because the solvents are evaporating off the surface of the car as we're wiping it down and drying it off. This paint in a well ventilated mixing room. Mix only the amount of paints and coatings you need. Keep all containers shut when not in use. It is widely recognized that even experienced painters can improve their techniques and reduce paint usage and emissions. The new rule requires that shop owners certify that their painters have received hands-on and classroom training that meets certain minimum requirements. The training provision is quite flexible and can accommodate the varying types of operations. A shop can develop its own training program for painters or use a trade school, paint manufacturer or other training facility. A well ventilated and maintained spray booth efficiently removes paint over spray from the air and minimizes contact with hazardous coating materials. The HVLP gun for example is very effective at delivering paint to the surface with less over spray and less waste. These practices result in less contact with toxic chemicals for the painter, less hazardous emissions to the environment and dollars saved in paint costs for the shop. Do not clean spray guns by spraying solvent through the gun, creating an atomized mist. Using enclosed spray gun cleaning methods minimizes contact with hazardous solvents and minimizes emissions of hazardous chemicals into the air. Another best practice that can save you money and improve health and safety in the shop is the use of automated gun cleaners. These devices help you get the most mileage from your cleaning solvent and reduce shop waste. When gun cleaning, always use the proper personal protective equipment. Keep all containers shut when not in use. Use gasket sealed spring loaded covers on solvent storage containers and waste drums. By adopting these best practices and by recycling solvent, shops can reduce their hazardous waste and the costs associated with disposal. Studies have shown that safe, healthy shops are more profitable shops. MSDS is important to the technician so he can understand what he's spraying. He needs to understand he's spraying hazardous material majority of the time. Even if it's water borne, even it's low VOC, it is a hazardous material. He needs to understand the MSDS so he knows how to protect himself because everywhere in there you'll talk about that specific product and how you protect yourself against the risk. Designate a health and safety manager. Establish a respiratory filter change-up program. Have material safety data sheets available to all shop workers. These practices can lead to a healthier shop and a healthier bottom line. Some of the benefits to the shops that are implementing these best practices are that they're saving money but they're also protecting their workers and when a worker is not exposed to these chemicals, they're less apt to become sick. That means fewer sick days and more productivity for the shop. Best practices can decrease solvent use by more than 50% and reduce air pollution by 70% to 90%. And there are significant economic benefits, including reduction in paint costs by using HVLP spray guns, which have higher transfer efficiencies than conventional spray guns. Best practices can result in savings of up to $13,000 a year at a shop spraying approximately 15 cars a week. Reducing cleanup costs when using vacuum sanding systems and as much as a 95% reduction in operating costs by using water-based paint and cleaning systems. Today we have waterborne cleaners, we have waterborne primers, waterborne base coats and for the clear coats we have extremely low VOC products. The paint line is something that we should all do anyway. Going to a lower VOC will help reduce ground level ozone. It's going to make it more healthier. We have a dairy queen next door. We have a daycare center behind us. I wouldn't want to be eating food, smelling paint fumes. I wouldn't want my cake growing up in a daycare center smelling paint fumes. So we actually make our neighbors happier knowing that we're a greener facility and it's definitely different than what they had in the last 22 years. We can walk into our shop and can't even tell that we even paint cars here. We can definitely tell you that this will be a return on your investment by having the best quality equipment available. It's not something we do solely to just protect our people in our environment but there's a vested interest in producing a return on our investments and by having the best equipment we certainly can you know do our part in returning that money to the bottom line. You know what the bottom line is you know is whoever's making these decisions that we are remember because we would lack very much to stay in business and and I myself I'm definitely willing to do whatever it is necessary for me to do to stay here I'm willing to do to do that and all the help that I can get to do that is what we would be most appreciative. When it comes to clean air we're all part of the team so whether you're painting a hot race car or a little something like this for the street the small changes you've just seen today can make a big difference for you and your community. Help us all stay part of a winning team. These are the key requirements for the National emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants paint stripping and miscellaneous surface coating operations at area sources final rule train and certify all painters use ventilated spray booths with filters that are at least 98 efficient use high volume low pressure hvlp spray guns do not clean spray guns by spraying solvent through the gun creating an atomized mist submit required notifications and reports and keep records the compliance date for existing shops is january 10th 2011 and the compliance date for new shops is upon start-up after january 9th 2008 best practices for protecting workers health reducing hazardous emissions and saving money include using vacuum sanding or wet sanding performing solvent wipe downs in a ventilated booth or prep station using low voc solvents using low voc or water-based paint mixing paint in a well ventilated mixing room using computerized paint mixing systems storing and reusing leftover primers and base coats keeping all containers shut when not in use in addition collision repair shops should designate a health and safety manager establish a respiratory filter changeout program have material safety data sheets available to shop workers follow OSHA guidelines regarding personal protective equipment for more information on EPA's collision repair campaign small business environmental assistance and other sources of assistance please visit the following websites