Guest Blog - Unintended Consequences

By Stephen Falder, General Secretary of NOVA Paint Club 

Awaab Ishak died in 2020, eight days after his second birthday, as a direct result of black mould in the flat he lived in.

A coroner has said the death of an “engaging, lively, endearing” two-year-old from prolonged exposure to mould in his family’s flat should be a “defining moment” for the UK’s housing sector.

When I read the dreadfully sad headline and coroner’s comment I wondered, that whilst this is clearly a defining moment for the housing sector to get it’s act in order, do we also need to reconsider the current approach for evaluating and rejecting effective anti-bacterial agents used in a number of different household items including coatings?

Why do I say that? The current approach basically bans the use of any biocidal product that has demonstrated certain hazards. However, the purpose of a biocide is to stop bugs from growing so it seems very logical that they could have hazards. So surely the issue is managing the risk of their use, rather than simply banning them because of a theoretical risk that could come from their use at a much higher concentration?   

The consequences of the current approach of dramatically reducing or totally removing preservatives and antimicrobials from paints and coatings, particularly, but also consumer products generally, and the inevitable consequences of this have not been thought through.
It is, of course obvious, if you reduce drastically or remove completely some part of a product it will not be there and it will, equally obviously, no longer do what it did. 

Nobody would seriously suggest in the interests of weight reduction/fuel saving that it would make sense to remove seat belts and airbags from cars, the safety benefits there are well understood and valued. 

 Yet one of the safety features of paints & coatings in both storage and use is: preservatives and biocides are subject to progressive and aggressive reductions both in diversity and amount, seemingly without it being acknowledged that if you remove antimicrobials there will be more microbial growth.

Modern water-based coatings display many if not all of the characteristics of a food/carbon source for a range of microbes. The only defence against these is to add some form of antimicrobial treatment, I do not think it is wise and sensible to remove these safeguards without something that is equally effective in its place.

Once applied a paint film containing biocide at reasonable in can preservative levels will exhibit mould suppression for a considerable time. With the rare but real risk of death from mould spores in buildings anything that helps reduce the spore burden should be welcomed not abolished.

I recognise that biocides need to be used with care and sparingly, but that is already the case with paints, to reduce them more is not just a stock/shelf-life matter.