PPG Industries will phase
out lead from all paints by 2020
April 21,
2016 1:35 PM, by Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Copyright
©, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2016, all rights reserved. Reprinted
with permission.
PPG Industries today said it
will phase out lead from all of its paints by 2020.
Michael McGarry,
president and chief executive of the Downtown-based coatings and glass company, told shareholders at the company’s annual
meeting that PPG’s sustainability committee adopted the new policy to reduce
and eventually eliminate lead from its industrial paints that are used for
automobiles, heavy equipment, bridges, airplanes and other applications.
Exposure to lead-based paint
is known to cause severe health issues in children and adults including damage
to body organs, behavioral problems, and impairments
to mental and physical development.
PPG eliminated lead from its
household paints several years ago.
During the annual meeting at
the Fairmont Hotel, Downtown, Perry Gottesfeld,
executive director of a San Francisco, Calif.-based activist organization,
Occupational Knowledge International, asked the company to stop making and
distributing lead paint and presented a petition signed by more than 5,700
people.
The same petition was
delivered to coatings giant Sherwin-Williams which is
based in Cleveland, Ohio. In it, petitioners asked the companies to eliminate
all lead compounds in their products, recall all lead paint and dispose of it
through environmentally safe methods.
Mr. Gottesfeld
noted that Dutch paints maker AkzoNobel stopped using
lead additives in 2011.
In a new sustainability report
posted on its company web site today at www.ppg.com, PPG said it has no plans to develop new products
that contain lead and has developed plans to eliminate lead from products that
become part of its portfolio through acquisitions.
Mr. McGarry
said PPG is working with existing customers that use its industrial paints to
reformulate products for their specifications.
“This is a big reversal,” said
Mr. Gottesfeld, who noted that his organization had
made several earlier attempts to push PPG to make lead-free products. “I think
it’s an excellent move.”
Earlier today, PPG said
first-quarter net income rose nearly 8 percent to $347 million, or $1.29 per
share, boosted by income from six acquisitions in 2015 and cost-cutting
initiatives.
Sales were flat compared with
a year ago at $3.7 billion.
Adjusted net income, excluding
after-tax transaction charges, was $351 million, or $1.31 per share, beating
Wall Street analysts’ average estimate of $1.30 per share.
Adjusted earnings were up 11
percent over first-quarter 2015.
“We realized this improvement
despite ongoing, but moderating, unfavorable foreign
currency translation,” said Mr. McGarry.
He said sales volumes improved
in Europe, China and Mexico while U.S. and Canadian sales were flat.
Within its business segments,
PPG said sales of performance coatings -- which includes
consumer paints -- fell less than 1 percent. Industrial coatings rose by about
2 percent.
Glass sales
declined by 2 percent in part because of the sale of a glass manufacturing
plant.
Company officials were
scheduled to discuss the quarterly results in a conference call this afternoon.
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