What goes on the wall affects the indoor climate and healthy living.
Image: Getty/Editing FAS
In the best case, eco-friendly wall paints contain fewer pollutants, prevent mold and ensure a healthy indoor climate. If you don’t want to be taken in by a sham, you have to take a closer look.
Dhe is about to move into your new four walls, the living room wall has become stained over the years, the baby room needs to be nicely decorated – sometimes the apartment just needs fresh paint. But which? You used to drive to the hardware store, buy the biggest and cheapest white plastic bucket you could find, and get started. But in times when sustainable and healthy living plays a greater role, many people think longer about what they are actually painting on their walls.
Because conventional interior paints contain substances that can harm the environment and health, such as artificial pigments, binders and plasticizers. Chemical solvents, for example, make the paint spreadable and ensure good opacity. However, the volatile organic compounds (VOC) evaporate for a long time and can cause nausea, dizziness and headaches in the residents who breathe them in through the room air – they are also considered carcinogenic. “Normal water-based emulsion paints can also be problematic for allergy sufferers because some of them are preserved with preservatives from the isothiazolinone group, which often lead to contact allergies,” explains Kerstin Effers, who works as a chemist in the area of environment and health protection at the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center. Westphalia works. The result is reddened eyes, itchy skin rashes and irritation of the respiratory tract. The manufacturers of conventional wall paints also use synthetic substances that can get into the environment as pollutants or microplastics.