Impact of Coatings

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Britain’s most visible industry

a guide to the environmental, social and economic impact of the UK paint andprinting ink manufacturing industries

the impact of coatings

41530 BCF Impact reprint 7/7/03 7:33 am Page 1

A helix of paint coloursVauxhall shows off some of the 34different colour finishes produced forits car range. The skills of thedesigner and paintmaker makepossible this inspired display at theUK International Motor Show.

Protection for MPs’ newPortcullis HouseSteel rusts and weakenswithout protective coatings.Here the steelwork for anew Westminster buildingto provide offices for

Restoration task Four-and-a-half yearsof painting andrestoration, costing £37million, followed thedisastrous fire atWindsor Castle in 1992.

Members of Parliament isgiven the three-coattreatment: primercoat/intumescent (fireprotection) coat and a finalsealer.

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FBBritish Coatings Federation LtdJames House, Bridge Street,Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7EPTelephone: 01372 360660Fax: 01372 376069Website: www.coatings.org.uk

Incorporating The Paintmakers Association of Great Britain and The Society of British Printing Ink Manufacturers

The constituency ofcoatings and inks

In the House or in the house, in the

Shires or in the tower blocks, whether

you’re in office or in your office, in front

of the screen or behind the scenes,

coatings and inks are all around you.

From a modest industry of a few

hundred highly innovative companies

flow the materials that protect and

create much of our environment and

are the means of delivery of most of

our information and education.

Half of the country’s workforce would

have to go home if these vital products

did not turn up for them to use in their

jobs, yet coatings and inks are usually

taken for granted.

This brochure is produced by the British

Coatings Federation, which represents

the interests of all of the major

producers of coatings, paints and

printing inks in the UK, as a snapshot of

some of the achievements of the

industry and the wide spectrum of uses

to which these high quality products are

applied.


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Coatings are the most looked at, yet themost overlooked products around. Forexample, over 20 million people in Britain seethe world all the time through an invisiblescratch-proofing coating on their spectacles !

Outside, on the motorway, we think we areseeing hundreds of cars and lorries. In fact,what we are looking at are hundreds of squaremetres of paint.

Paint not only makes these vehicles lookgood but also makes them stay good. Withoutanti-corrosion measures, including layers of

durable and protective paint, all cars would lookidentical – rusty – and would last only a fractionof the time they do now. And all this protectionfor only about half of one per cent of theshowroom price!

Likewise, we could re-name oursupermarkets inkmarkets because all thosethousands of cartons, cans, bottles and crinklypackages are a massive display of the printingink makers’ art.

Despite electronics and the internet, life stilldepends on ink on paper for essential

QA Photos / Watson Steel

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the most visible industry

2000 AnnoDOMEini !The centre-piece of the nation’s millenniumcelebrations, the entire steel-cable and coated glassfibre Dome at Greenwich is supported by twelve 100metre steel masts. The steel masts and walls areprotected by a zinc-rich primer, a re-coatableintermediate high-build coating and a polyurethanefinish coat. The Millennium Experience Company saysthat the Dome could last a hundred years or more.

100 tonnes of ink every dayBritain’s output of 14 millionnewspapers every day needsover 100 tonnes of printinginks – ‘news inks’.Consumption of news inksfor 1998 totalled 39,000tonnes, included 13,000tonnes of coloured inks.Although now re-located,the national newspapersused to be printed in FleetStreet, which was known asthe Street of Ink.

The motor (paint) showSoon to join the 26 millionpaint-protected cars onBritish roads, these modelsbenefit from years of paintresearch giving productsthat reduce fading fromsunlight, damage from rain,road chippings, oil, petrol,ice and car-wash machineswhilst giving even greaterprotection from rust. The UK automotive industrybought coatings worth£100million in 1998 withthe re-finish market addinganother £140million.

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communication, information and entertainment.About 14 million newspapers are producedevery day in the UK. And millions more Sundaysupplements ! Add to that over 5000 consumermagazine titles and 2000 business andprofessional journals and you have a measure ofthe massive and all-pervading visibility andcontinuing role of printing inks. Over 100,000book titles – new and re-reprints – are publishedeach year, with an inestimable number of copies.

Our homes, offices, factories and publicbuildings all benefit – both inside and out – in

durability and good looks from the modern,research-based innovative products of thecoatings industry.

UK coatings and inks producers had a totalturnover in 1998 of more than £2,200 millionand a direct employment of over 15,000 peoplein plants in many parts of the country. The trueemployment implications of this industry areenormous, however, and it has been estimatedthat half the UK workforce – about 10million people – would have to go home if theircoatings and inks supplies did not turn up !

The paperless societynot so! Despite the onwardmarch of the computer andthe goal of the ‘paperless’office, paper sales continueto grow steadily, with the‘information explosion’requiring supplies ofprinting ink worth £465million in 1998. Computersthemselves have spawnedmore than 50 newmagazine titles, taking up

whole sections ofnewsagents’ shelves.Nobody escapes officialdom,which produces so muchprint that nobody has everattempted to measure it –Parliamentary Bills andpapers, departmentalbrochures and leaflets, ECDirectives, passports, tax

forms, vehicle licences,birth, marriage and deathcertificates, pension books,prescription forms (500million a year) and millionsmore. All rely oninnovative inks and coatingsfor their distinctive designsand security features.

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Airport Authority – Hong Kong / Watson Steel

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New airport structure coated 6,000 miles off-siteThe new Hong Kong International Airport ismade up of 32,000 different sections of steel –for roof and walls – and every piece was madeand coated off-site in the UK before shipment.The terminal ranks as one of the largest andmost advanced international terminals in theworld, handling over 5000 passengers and 40aircraft movements an hour.


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Around 50 litres of decorative paints andother coatings are all that is needed to providethe internal decoration and external protectionof woodwork, masonry and garden equipmentthat a new house requires for five or more years.

Just as important as the 5 million newhouses now being planned is the maintenanceof the existing 25 million housing stockthroughout the UK. Timely application of afew litres of paint to windows and doorsprevents decay and conserves resources.Masonry finishes stop surfaces being disfiguredby unsightly staining and the penetration of

water into the underlying structure.The challenge to house owners and the

coatings industry is immense and there is arenewed public interest in home decoration andpride of ownership, matched by new coloursand new techniques for applying paint,producing novel effects easily.

The media have caught the mood. In 1980there were three home decoration magazineswith a total circulation of 500,000. By 1998there had been an increase to over twenty suchpublications, with a total circulation of3,000,000. There were no fewer than eight

BBC

Crispness in KentNew paint brings out thebeauty of the fence and thisold cottage.

Professional skillsThere are now more than200,000 painters anddecorators in the UK.

maintaining our 25 m

Real roomsOne of several popular TVprogrammes now devotedto DIY and homeimprovement. Otherprogrammes include theBBC’s Home Front andChanging Rooms, withviewing figures of 3 millionand 9 million respectively.


peak time TV programme series dedicated toDIY and home improvement.

The result of it all has been a boom in DIYdecoration, with Britain now having about 30million ‘domestic’ DIY painters and thecoatings industry selling about 186 million litresa year for this market alone. Woodcareproducts, for interior and exterior use, havetaken on a new lease of life as home ownersrealise the high cost of replacing windows,

doors, garden furniture and conservatories.Even those with PVC are finding the newlydeveloped paints useful for colouring the whiteor for masking the grey ageing effect of someplastics.

Skilled professional painters and decoratorsnow number some 200,000 in the UK, workingwith the latest paint materials and techniques,with emphasis on health and safe workingpractices. 7

r 25 million homes

Doorway to successIn 1998 paint andwoodcare productssales to retailersamounted to £330m,with another £280mto trade outlets (atmanufacturers’ prices)

The outlook is improvingHome improvement has taken off. Not only arenew houses being built, but the market for homeextensions and the renovation of old properties hasopened up, creating additional sales of coatings.Public buildings, schools and hospitals, libraries andtheatres, airports and railway stations also figure inthe movement to improve the environment for thenew millennium.

Coatings can be found all around the home;

kitchen: kitchen units, food can liners, bottlecap coatings, appliance coatings – cooker,refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, non-stick potsand pans, sink enamel, floor-tile topcoats

living room: walls and ceilings and woodwork,wooden furniture (paints, stains, topcoats),electromagnetic shielding coats for TV and hi-fi

bedrooms: fire-retardant textile coatings,jewellery lacquers, toys

utility room: washing machine and dryer

outside: masonry and woodwork protective/decorative coatings, fence coatings, gardenfurniture and sheds coatings, lawnmower,

garage: car (body and internal coatings, under-body anti-corrosion coatings, engine block,silencer), anti-slip floor coatings.

Wallcoverings –complementarycustomersBritain’s £320mwallcoverings productionindustry, sometimes seen ascompeting with paint, ismore usually acomplementary partner inhome decoration.Wallcoverings form asubstantial market forprinting inks and coatings.In 1998 the UKwallcoverings industry

produced 98 million rollsand over 42 million bordercoils. The industry has animpressive export record.


The world’s fleet’s massive savingsfrom anti-fouling coatingsA fouled ship’s hull causes a 40 percent increase in its fuel consumption.Untreated by anti-fouling coatings theworld’s fleet would use an extra 70million tonnes of fuel a year,producing an extra 210 million tonnesof greenhouse gases and nearly 6million tonnes of acid-rain-producingsulphur dioxide. Drydocking toremove foulings costs almost £20,000a day for a single large vessel.

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The 110-year-old Scottish bridge that takes therailway across the River Forth is an excellentexample of how a painting regime with highquality coatings can protect vulnerable metalfrom destruction and the structure fromcollapse. Recently it has also become anexample of how new paint technologies canmake dramatic reductions in maintenance costsand frequency of painting.

It is estimated that corrosion of majorstructures and equipment, through inadequateprotection, costs the UK over £10 billion ayear (5% of GNP).

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painting the Forth Bridge –Railtrack, owners of the Forth railway

bridge, in conjunction with a major paintcompany, are applying recently developedcoatings techniques which were pioneered forthe protection of North Sea oil rigs.

The UK coatings industry has built up anenviable expertise in making highperformance coatings – in liquid form and asheat-cured coating powders – for a wide varietyof tasks. For example, anti-fouling coatings forthe hulls of ships, with formulations that enableships to proceed efficiently. A hair’s breadthspecial smooth coating on the propulsion screw

Button up your undercoatNearly seven million rivets,securing 51,000 tonnes ofsteel – all protectivelywrapped in paint to carrytrains to the Scottishhighlands.

New coating regimeA rigger at work on thenew protective coatingwhich applies oil-rigtechnology to the ForthRailway Bridge.


Aesthetic and defensivecamouflageBesides protecting the metalsof which they are made, thepainting of large structureslike this natural-gas holderoften includes a requirementto blend with the localscenery. Military camouflage,however, has special features and thepaintmakers have also developed

infra-red and radar-reflecting coatings which‘hide’ or disguise planes,tanks and ships.

of a typical tanker can save over£300,000 on its annual fuel costs.

And every such saving to the user means abonus to the environment not only in bigreductions in greenhouse gases but also inprolonging the life of our dwindling worldstocks of fuel.

In some situations, a tried and tested simplesolution is often overlooked. For example, thePiper Alpha disaster highlighted the need for afail-safe system to ensure that escape routes anddoors can be easily found in the dark. Theanswer – luminous paint. The safety

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Coatings take the strainThe Eurostar cross-channel high-speed train sports a smart livery.Equally important are theweather-resistant protectivecoatings throughout its length.The creation of 25 new trainoperating companies in the UKhas provided the impetus for bignew investments in rolling stockand the re-coating andmaintenance of existing units.

The ‘coated’ Severn crossingThe roadway surface over the newSevern Bridge is made up of 24,000powder-coated aluminium plates.

ge – again, a gaincontribution of road signs, roadmarking and anti-skid surfaces – allproducts of the coatings industry –is not always obvious.

The technique of powdercoating has a growing position in the industry,giving the benefits of using solvent-freeproducts in the workplace. Low solvent andhigh-solids products are a growing feature ofthe coatings industry’s output.

The British Coatings Federation represents 130companies which produce about 90 percent of the UKoutput of coatings and printing inks. BCF alsoadministers the Wallcovering Manufacturers Association.The Federation is recognised by government as aNational Training Organisation (NTO) which developstraining initiatives, programmes and qualifications for thesurface coatings industry.


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Our living environment is largely how we makeit. At home and at work what we seeaffects our mood and how we feel.Coatings – paints, lacquers, woodstains andothers have proved to be the way to do it.

But the bonus with coatings is that they arealso saving our natural resources – energy,wood and metal ores. Take wood, for example.Coatings preserve and protect things made fromwood so they last longer and we need to cut

down fewer trees. Coatings also

enable us to use less of the precious hard woodsand replace them with renewable-forest softwoods which would otherwise be unsuitable forconstruction purposes.

Coatings save precious metals like steel andaluminium – and the fuel needed to make them– by preventing them being eaten up bycorrosion and rust. Our cars and industrial anddomestic equipment last much longer. Thesavings to the economy and theenvironment are incalculable butimmense.

Coating metal cansat high speedIn the UK we now use10 billion metal cansfor food andbeverages. All arecoated internally toprevent contaminationand deterioration ofthe contents.

coatings are the e

To promote and protect

The packaging industry bought inks worth about £150 millionin 1998 and is a major market for inks. Coatings usage inpackaging is of a smaller order and mainly for food, soft drinkand beer cans and closures and labels for glass containers.

Some examples give the magnitude of the sector:600 million paper sacks, for cement, fertilisers and many

other products are made each year in the UK and over 80%are printed with essential health, safety and marketinginformation.

Take the printing of breakfast cereals packets: 24 million corn flake packets every year from one firm –

Kelloggs – and that’s only one manufacturer and one of theirmany products!

Food safety is a paramount issue and the coatingsindustry plays a vital part. Packaging must keep the rightthings in, whilst keeping the wrong things out. We use 10billion metal cans for food and drinks each year. Specialinternal coatings prevent interaction between the metal andthe contents thus ensuring the wholesomeness of the food.The labelling and decoration of paper, plastic and glasscontainers likewise have to take account of safety andprotection during handling and use.

Preserving the mostfamous clipperBuilt in 1869, Britain’smost famous clippership, the Cutty Sark,has been painted andrepainted over theyears and is stillearning its keep atGreenwich, visited bymillions every year.


Printing ink producers have an establishedcode of practice on the selection of their rawmaterials with attention being paid to anysubstances that have particular health and/orenvironmental effects.

The coatings industry’s achievements inthese and in other related areas are beingfurther encouraged and monitored through theCoatings Care programme, details of which areavailable separately.

Will it match theprevious one?Buying an extra chair, anadd-on unit for your kitchenor any delayed purchasecan present problems – willthe new one blend in andmatch the existing one?This modular hi-fi soundsystem is designed to bebuilt up, step by step, as theowner decides to spendmore. In this case the

manufacturer has chosen ahighly stable powdercoating for the units, givingconfidence of continuity andhigh fidelity of colour andshade over the years.

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Coatings and the‘feel good’ factorNumerous studies haveshown that a bright,well-designedworkplace improvesmorale, reducesabsenteeism and staffturnover, increasingoutput andproductivity.

The coatings industry continues to takeaction on environmental concerns. For example,long before volatile organic compounds (VOC’s)were identified as contributors to ground-levelatmospheric pollution, the industry haddeveloped lower VOC-containing products. Thewidespread use of water-borne, high solids,solvent-free, radiation-cured products andcoating powders in many industrial paintingprocesses has played a key role in this – a trendthat is continuing now that the UKenvironmental legislation is in place.

Catalogue inks sell £8billion–worth to homeshoppersAlthough electronic‘internet’ shopping isgrowing fast (now 2 percentof total purchases) themillions of colour-printeddirect mail order catalogueswere the means by whichfirms sold goods worth £8billion in 1997. Thesuperior quality of thepictures in print give thepurchaser a better idea ofwhat is on offer. Theholiday brochure is asimilar success story.


Paint on a rollThis factory doesn’t need apaintshop. Instead, it buyshuge rolls of steel sheetalready treated and coatedwith flexible and durablepaints that enable thewashing machine casings tobe cut and formed intoshape without damage. Thetechnique is known as coil

coating and it enablesproducts like the UK’sannual output of 65,000caravans along withappliances and cladding forbuildings to be madewithout the need foradditional finishing lines.

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industry 300,000 tonnes of glass a year.Adding together raw material, energy, transportand other savings from ‘lightweighting’ producesa total saving of more than £2.4 million a year.

In our hospitals it is obvious that the surgicalinstruments must be super-clean. Water-borne,specially formulated paints mean that theoperating theatre walls, floors and ceilings canalso be scrubbed clean. The same hygienicconditions are safeguarded by using thesecoatings in food production plants.

The Airbus wide-bodied jet carries morethan 300 people and five layers of high

2,700,000,000 greetingsThere has seen an explosivegrowth in the greetings cardindustry. It isestimated thatcurrent annualsales amount tomore than£1,000m, fromover 2,700m cards.Another marketthat depends onhigh qualityprinting inks!

Scrub-up, scrub downThe highest standards of hygiene inhospitals require special coatings allaround the hospital.

The tools of creativityArtists and budding artists inour schools have benefitedfrom an ever growing range ofcolours and paint formulationswith novel characteristics.

coatings impact on everythingThink of the impact of electricity. It may not beobvious but power station generators, coils andtransformers, car ignition and starters, everyelectrical appliance from a shaver to TV orwashing machine depends on a thin coat ofinsulating enamel on the copper wire used inthe coils. Electricity generation and usewould not be possible without it!

Glass bottles have been getting lighterlately. By applying a coating to them the glassneck and wall can be made thinner withoutlosing strength. Such coatings – thinner than ahuman hair – save the glass packaging


Adding value to exportsBesides the direct exports of coatings(£240m in 1998) the added-value that theyconstitute in other products – cars,machinery etc – represents an extra exportdimension. Exports of farm machinery, forexample, (coated to withstand weather andrough usage) are worth over £1.6 billion ayear.Exports of printing inks topped £68m in1998. The added value, in exported printedproducts, is incalculable.

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performance coatings, to protect it from theelements. In a typical flight, the stresses on theaircraft are enormous – starting at 40 degrees inthe searing heat of the desert, flying at 36,000ftat 700 mph with ice at minus 30 degrees andlanding at 25 degrees in 70% humidity. TheAirbus needs 900 litres of paint plus morefor the airline livery. The latest jumbo jets haveabout 2 tonnes of paint in all, including fire-retardant paint throughout the interior andfittings.

The employment implications of coatingscan be gauged by the number of industries and

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A fine finish for furnitureBritain’s furniture industryis the main market for thecoatings producers’ £55msales of a wide range ofwood finishes.

Perfect matchAlthough differently formulated,vehicle re-finishing paint canachieve a perfect match with theoriginal.

jobs dependent on them. Besides the millionsof jobs based on using print on paper –government, local government, insurance,banking, the professions etc, others include:construction, 950,000 employed; packaging,232,000 employed; printing and publishing,460,000 employed; automotive production andrepair, 770,000 employed; furniture, 115,000;aviation,100,000; electricity and electricalgoods production, 500,000; food and drinkprocessing and packing, 4,000,000.

Amusementoutside andinsideThe rigours of theentertainment/theme park marketand that forchildren’s toys areequally demandingfor the paint andcoatings industry.


coatings and inks industries have developed newproducts that are essential to the technicalfunctioning and working life of much of theequipment. For example, the ink-jet printerneeded an ink re-think to produce quality printand graphics at high speed, squirted throughtiny holes at the command of the computer.

Printed circuits, as their name implies, were

450 million compactdiscs are made each yearin the UK for music andCD-ROM useEach polycarbonate disc‘mirror’ has a special ultra-violet-cured lacquer forprotecting the thinaluminium ‘message’ layerfrom oxidation whichshortened the life of earlierCDs. On top, the printingink carries the titleinformation, with the wholething wrapped in acolourful printed cover.This machine produces oneCD every 1.8 seconds.

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B&W Loudspeakers

Entertainment industry goes coated digitalA recording engineer and producer at amixer console in the famous Abbey RoadStudios in London. The entertainmentindustry – traditional and electronic –depends to an ever-increasing extent oncoatings and the ingenuity of coatingsscientists – from new varnishes for woodinstruments to CD’s, printed circuits andelectronic musical instruments, recordingand reproducing equipment. Inks havealways been essential to the music scene,for sheet music, programmes, scores andmanuscripts.

coating our digital futureDigital communication, in which weary andragged speech, TV and data signals from afarcan be made crisp and new at the receiver, hasnow taken command of the information scene.And, taken for granted, the whole thingdepends on coated wires and opticalglass fibres.

Keeping up with the electronics, the

‘. . . a boon and a blessing to men’This old advertising slogan for the Waverleyfountain pen could apply equally to the bubble jetprinter, at the heart of every information systemtoday. Printing and ‘writing’ technology advanceshave only become possible through the combinedefforts of mechanical and electronic engineers andprinting ink scientists. These computer inkcartridges contain highly sophisticated formulationsof ink of the highest quality and reliability.

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The nation ‘re-wired’with coated glass strandsThe telecommunicationsindustry has almostcompletely re-wired thecountry to cope with theenormous growth of thetelephone system and theneed for newcommunicationsuperhighways for TV anddigital/computercommunication. But it isnot using copper wire as it

born out of printing technology using acid-resistinks, and are protected from the elements bycoatings that do not interfere with theirelectrical functions.

Communication satellites neededprotective coatings against the rigours of therocket launch and the elements, parked for years22,000 miles away in space. Likewise the

A printed TV setEverything except thepicture tube is mounted onthe printed circuit boardthat constitutes today’s TVset. Multi-layer precisionboards use high-resolutionphoto-sensitive inks whichpermit location of circuitsjust a few ‘thou’ apart. ForTV also read computer,mobile phone, motorvehicle and aircraftcontrol circuits, factoryprocess control panelsand thegadgets thatoperatedomesticwashingmachines andbank cashdispensers.

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Coatings give ‘extra time’ toaward-winning stadiumThe Bolton Wanderers FC Reebok stadium is assured oflong life – essential in such a huge investment – by nofewer than four coats of high-tech paint, on agritblasted steel structure. Growing publicinterest in football and the possibility of incomefrom digital TV coverage, have pushed forwardthe building of attractive and comfortable newstadiums in many parts of the country.

(Bolton Wanderers FC / Watson Steel)

akers

domestic wall-mounted satellite receiver aerialdishes need protective coatings against theterrestrial weather.

As such new equipment and technologiesare developed, new challenges are set for, andmet by, the coatings industry’s researchscientists.

BT

Bolton Wanderers FC / Watson Steel

BT

has since the beginning ofthe phone system. Instead,most of the new network isbased on cables containingbunches of thin glass fibrescapable of carryinginfinitely more conversationchannels. And every strand– there are millions of milesof them – has a protectivecoating.The two layers of UV-curedcoating not only identify,protect and waterproof thefibres but they also helplaunch the laser light pulseson their path through thefibre core. BT, the majorinstaller, has laid 2.2 millionmiles of fibre-optic cable inthe UK.


For further information please contact:

British Coatings Federation LtdJames House, Bridge Street,Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7EPTelephone: 01372 360660Fax: 01372 376069Website: www.coatings.org.uk

© British Coatings Federation Ltd 1999Written and produced by W McMillanDesigned by Deane Design AssociatesPrinted by BSC Print Ltd, London,using BCF Member Companies’ inks


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Impact of Coatings