Environmentally Friendly Products…
All Delta First products are as environmentally friendly as possible and made this way for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s clear this is the trend for the future, and Delta First has a strong desire to be a leader. Secondly, it’s friendlier to our workforce to use cleaner, less toxic chemicals. Finally, it’s better for the environment.
Tire sealants, tire coolants, airless pump protectors and lubricants for many industries contain either ethylene glycol or propylene glycol. While Delta First strives to use 100% propylene glycol, most competitors use ethylene glycol in high concentrations because it’s considerably cheaper. They’ll state their products are not toxic, unsafe, or unhealthy, but the following links will show the environmental dangers and toxic effects of ethylene glycol and the safeness of the alternative propylene glycol.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts96.pdf and http://www.msdshazcom.com/ATSDR/DOCS/wcd00000/wcd000c4.pdf
The trend in other industries is clearly to move away from ethylene glycol. Here’s a quote from a US DOT report on the topic in the field of aircraft deicing fluids:
“Ethylene glycol is toxic to aquatic and mammalian organisms; it is best contained and recycled or otherwise pretreated before disposal. For this reason it is being replaced, for now, by the less toxic propylene glycol for aircraft deicing.”
Many tire sealants are manufactured with 50% ethylene glycol. Graco’s airless spray equipment pump protector (Pump Armor™) is made with over 45% ethylene glycol (1). While it may be true today that EPA and other government agencies have not yet ruled emphatically on the toxicity of EG based sealants, it is important for users of sealants to become educated on the effects of EG and draw their own conclusions. The best way to determine if a sealant contains EG or PG is to read the MSDS sheet where companies are required to disclose the amount of ethylene glycol in the hazardous materials section of the sheets. Many major national brands such as Multiseal (2), Ultraseal, AmerSeal, Ride-On, Flat Free and Simonize Seal-Tite are made with high concentrations of ethylene glycol. No Delta First products contain more than 9% EG and our “green” products are guaranteed to contain NO ethylene glycol. Our sealants use primarily propylene glycol, which is approved for use as a food additive and in cosmetics and is far superior to ethylene glycol in terms of its environmental impact. Additionally it’s more expensive and it’s harder to make a propylene glycol based tire sealant. The chemical nature of PG is that it tends to repel other bonding chemicals. Because of that, it has taken Delta First considerable time and effort, extensive testing, and a lot of experimentation to learn how to make a PG based tire sealant.
Consider which product you would rather purchase and use. If you’d like to call, Delta First will tell you which companies are responsible and produce environmentally safe sealants besides us. Making the best and most environmentally friendly decision is your responsibility!
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(1) Graco is up front about their product and does place the “skull & crossbones” symbol on it.
(2) MultiSeal also offers a propylene glycol sealant, but it not their standard product.
