[john70t]

Today I was helping a neighbor power wash her wood porch and got to thinking(yes, it was a milestone). Thinking is bad, because this one went deeply against my green-facist-grain.

Anyways, she wanted to paint the thing. Latex paint never lasts long outdoors on horizontal surfaces: The wood grain somehow always absorbs moisture, swells, and pops the paint right off.
Oil paints(primers, and mabye even stains) are being phased out because of the air pollution, and soon will be almost impossible to purchase, but the only reliable way to make materials last is to make them waterproof.

So when wood structures rot and need to be replaced years/decades prematurely, what are the added environmental implications?
-The wood will need to be planted, cut, transported, processed, transported, sold, and transported again.
-Same with the latex paint and all hardware,
-Not to mention the customers travel, surface preperation energy usage, and goods consumed during this process.