According to the recent report from the Alternative Materials Committee of the Container Owners Association (COA) four of China’s largest container manufacturing groups are into the process of changing their box production from solvent-based coatings to waterborne paint.
The “2016 COA Report on Availability of Waterborne Paints for the Container Industry” has confirmed that a firm timetable is now in place for the changeover. The changeover for factories is expected to undergo from 1 July 2016 in South China. Factories in the rest of China from 1 April 2017 until major problems are faced by the South China manufacturers.
This change is an outcome of an initiative by CCIA as a response to the recent environmental regulations in China to decrease VOC emissions. The switch comes with a threat of tough penalties which would be applied to both the container manufacturer and the paint supplier, if any of the containers happen to use solvent borne paints after these dates.
The China Container Industry Association is an association of the four main container manufacturers (CIMC, Singamas, CXIC and Dong Fang International). Under the CCIA’s “VOCs Governance Self-Discipline Convention”, a voluntary agreement has been made by these manufacturers with Chinese central and regional government to switch from solvent-based coatings to waterborne paint for container production.
To help the container manufacturers attain this important objective, full fledged support has been assured from the the paint suppliers such as Hempel, COSCO Kansai, Chugoku Marine Paints, KCC, Valspar, Dowill, Jointas, Baojun and Mega.
China is known for its enormous production of containers as 95% of container production takes place here. The industry also stands as a major contributor to the enormous high level air pollution. Henceforth it was important to overcome this challenge. All the CCIA members have agreed to ‘commit together and act together’ in switching to the exclusive usage of waterborne paint on specific dates. It is understood that this gesture may safeguard the buyers from suffering a price penalty by nominating waterborne paint.
Essentials to follow before full conversion to the use of waterborne
Though the switch has been agreed upon, some of the important moves are to made to make this possible. Some of the expert opinions that are worth note-taking are:
- Factories will have to improve air circulation, increase air exchange, add heat and add several stations to the production line to ensure good application of waterborne paint.
- Excluding any one of these will add to the risk of problems being encountered.
- The manufacturing conditions required for the successful application of waterborne paint favour modern, high volume container factories in South or Central China.
- Some of the older, smaller factories may have difficulty extending and modifying the production line and could have to close.
A model to Look-up
Two of the factories in the industry have already undergone full conversion to the use of waterborne. Some of the important aspects on this note are as follows:
- The first, a few years ago, was CIMC Dalian in response to local environmental pressures. More significantly, Maersk Container Industry (MCI) – which is not a member of the CCIA – has been the pioneer of the use of waterborne coatings on containers in China, having converted its dry box factory in Dongguan to the use of waterborne paint at the end of 2013.
- MCI has only used waterborne products since then – last year it built 166,000TEU.
- The company reported some production problems following the change, but advised that these were quickly overcome and within two months, the line speed using waterborne paint was the same as they achieved using solvent.
According to Nigel Stribley, Moderator of the COA’s Alternative Materials Committee and author of the COA Report, “Container buyers risk production problems when the factories first switch to waterborne paint but everyone in the container industry has to play their part in reducing the air pollution in China. The benefit of the CCIA’s action is that the risk is the same for all buyers and it is difficult to see how anyone can secure a competitive advantage from the switch.”
He continues: “Waterborne paint will initially be more expensive than solvent borne and the application and drying of the paint on the containers will add cost so it is anticipated that the price of containers will rise but the exact premium is difficult to forecast as it will depend upon commercial considerations as well.”
Source: Container Owners Association
