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Tools and Resources
Cool Tools
- DfE Emission Reduction Calculator - Calculate your cost savings for coating and your emission reductions.
- Improving Air Quality in Your Community - ideas on what communities can do to improve local air quality and quantify results.
- Best Practices Link - Compiled from real-life shop experiences, the documents serve as worker protection and pollution prevention goals for the small shop.
- How am I doing? (PDF) (18pp, 182k) Rate yourself using the self-evaluation checklist. Evaluate current practices and technologies in your facility and identify areas where you should make improvements.
- Using Waterborne Basecoats in Collision Repair Shops: A Case Study (PDF) (4 pp, 284k) (EPA 744-F-08-003)
- Spray Booth Filters: The Key to Quality Jobs and Clean Emissions (PDF) (2 pp, 221k) (EPA 744-F-08-001) - Factsheet
Listed below is a bank of resources providing information about various areas of the Auto Body industry. The following links will assist you in locating documents about training, best management practices, technical assistance and some videos about the industry.
- The Environmental Results Program (ERP) is an alternative to traditional permitting that requires self-audits with accompanying self-certification to validate compliance with environmental requirements. ERP is most often used in states that have sectors with many small business owners with a significant collective environmental impact. ERP links compliance assistance, self-certification, and performance measurement to achieve environmental results. These pages provide information on existing ERPs for interested state regulators, regulated entities, and other interested parties.
- Healthy Air: A Community and Business Leaders Guide - a collection of non-regulatory, time-and-cost-saving ideas communities can use to reduce toxic air pollution.
- On the Community-based Air Toxics Projects web site, you will find descriptions of community-based air toxics projects designed to assess and address health and environmental issues at the local level. EPA supports air toxics projects in about 100 communities across the nation to help inform and empower citizens to make local decisions concerning the health of their communities.
- The Improving Air Quality in Your Community web site features activities for reducing both indoor and outdoor pollution, including diesel engine retrofit programs, improving air quality in local schools, and pollution prevention options for small businesses. These projects have a successful track record: they were previously put into action by state and local governments across the country. This site includes information about the costs to establish and maintain each project, and how local communities can apply for EPA grants to kick-start their activities.
- EPA's Design for the Environment (DfE) Automotive Refinishing Partnership - a voluntary partnership with the collision repair industry and schools to promote safer alternatives and best practices to reduce risk in the workplace and community.
- Best Practices Link - Design for the Environment (DfE) best shop practice
- Managing Worker Health and Safety: An Auto Body Refinish Shop Success Story (EPA 744-F-00-017) (PDF) (4pp, 1.6 MB)
- HVLP Spray Guns: Cost-effective, environment-friendly technology (EPA-744-F-00-004)
- HVLP Spray Guns in the Auto Refinishing Shop: A Success Story (EPA-744-F-00-014)
- Choosing the Right Gloves for Painting Cars (EPA-744-F-00-005)
- Using Waterborne Basecoats in Collision Repair Shops: A Case Study (PDF) (4 pp, 284k) (EPA 744-F-08-003)
- Spray Booth Filters: The Key to Quality Jobs and Clean Emissions (PDF) (2 pp, 221k) (EPA 744-F-08-001) - Factsheet
- DfE Emission Reduction Calculator (EPA 744-F-08-004) - a tool to estimate emissions and material use reductions achieved through implementing DfE best practices.
- CCAR-Greenlink®
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the National Automotive Environmental Compliance Assistance Center for the automotive industry. It is operated by the Coordinating Committee for Automotive Repair in cooperation with the U.S. EPA.
- CCAR-Greenlink® virtual auto body shop - developed by CCAR-Greenlink and the DfE Program to provide easy access to valuable health, safety, environmental, and technical links.
- CCAR-Greenlink® virtual auto body shop
- Safe Shops - a program of the Boston Public Health Commission. Contains information about the safe shops program, its resources, training, education and environmental practices.
- Safe Shops Fact Sheet
- Safe Shops Video and Safe Shops Toolbox Downloadable (in English or Spanish) - tools and resources use for developing Safe Shop projects in your community.
- Safe Shops Fact Sheet
- EPA's Tools for Schools - a variety of products, materials, and tools at no cost to help schools implement an indoor air quality management program.
- LaserPaint and VirtualPaint - LaserPaint is a targeting tool can be easily attached onto a spray gun and provide continuous and immediate feedback regarding spray technique. VirtualPaint is a virtual painting system that allows training without the use of paint.
- STAR4Defense - training program for military spray technicians and training instructors.
- Iowa Waste Reduction Center (IWRC) - provides free, confidential and non-regulatory environmental assistance to small businesses in Iowa.
- AirNow - real-time air quality data.
- Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) - a competitive grant program that offers an innovative way for a community to organize and take action to reduce toxic pollution in its local environment.
- Toxtown - information about environmental health concerns and toxic chemicals where you live, work, and play.
- 4Clean Air Tool Kit - to provide state and local air agencies with comprehensive and easy-to-use documents and information on communicating with constituents about toxic air pollution and the public-health risks associated with exposure to toxic air pollutants
- New Jersey:
- VOC Compliance for Auto Body Shops (PDF) (2pp, 1.1 MB) - a factsheet to
provide guidance on air regulations that affect auto
body shops in NJ.
- Alliance for Auto Service Providers of NJ (AASP) - to advance the professionalism and excellence in the automotive repair industry through education, representation, and member services
- HVLP Spray Gun Operation (PDF) (126pp, 806k) (see pp 79 to 84) - requirements and procedures concerning the control and prohibition of air pollution by volatile organic compounds (VOC) from repair and refinishing facilities in NJ.
- VOC Compliance for Auto Body Shops (PDF) (2pp, 1.1 MB)
- NIOSH Hazard Controls: Control of Dust From Sanding in Auto Body Repair Shops - a document alerting workers to dangers of hazardous components of paint spray, including metals such as lead and chromium, polyisocyanates, and liquid organic solvents.
- Rhode Island's Auto Body Certification Program
- CA Department of Toxic Substances Control Auto Body & Paint Shop Project Fact Sheets and Videos
- Working Safely with Polyurethane Paints (PDF) (12pp, 438k) - information pamphlet from Bayer Corporation on safe use of paints containing polyisocyanates.
- California Air Resources Board (CARB) Coatings Program
- OSHA’s new “SafetyPays” e-tool - A helpful tool when calculating the health benefits derived when collision repair businesses adopt best practices to reduce air toxics.
- Small Business Environmental Assistance contacts