Walking through any hardware store, you can’t miss the buckets of glossy paint, the rows of sleek coatings, even the tile glue stacked on low shelves. Behind most of this is Rohm and Haas’s acrylic resin. Chemists at this company, now part of Dow, figured out how to make acrylic resins that not only stick better to wood, metal, and masonry, but also shrug off water and sunlight. It’s tough to find a modern city or home where this chemistry hasn’t touched a wall, window, or sign.
Builders want finishes that last longer, withstand heat and cold, and still look sharp after years. No one wants to repaint their house every other year, and property managers sure won’t pay for constant touch-ups. Stronger acrylic resin bonds cut down on maintenance. Factory operators trust these resins to hold together everything from car parts to electronics. The expectation of “build it once, walk away for a decade” sits on top of advances like these.
There’s a catch. Acrylic resin owes its very existence to fossil fuels. Companies refine crude oil or natural gas to pull out the building blocks — usually ethylene or propylene. You get tough coatings, but you also get the long-term baggage of petrochemicals. Every time someone paints a fence with acrylic latex, they’re also building on top of oilfield chemistry. The resin might keep siding safe from the rain, but nobody can ignore the carbon footprint stamped into every drum.
In my own house, the easiest paint to apply and clean is always acrylic-based. Yet the label rarely mentions the origins of the resin, or its afterlife in a landfill. The plastics industry leans heavily on history. Rohm and Haas started work on acrylics in the early 1900s; decades later, we still wrestle with their legacy. There’s no easy fix for the fossil fuel foundation.
Researchers now experiment with bio-based acrylics, using sugar, plant oils, or even bacteria to do what oil wells did. Some commercial paints already carry a “bio-content” stamp. It won’t turn the tide overnight, given today’s demand and price points, but it breaks the chain linking our homes to the fossil layer.
A bigger solution means rethinking end-of-life. Most acrylic resins don’t break down easily. Some labs try to design resins that can dissolve or turn into mulch with the right trigger. City recycling systems lag behind, rarely designed for plastics glued into paints or adhesives. Policy can help here — with labeling laws, incentives for greener resins, and support for new recycling chemistry.
Still, it’s not only up to governments and industry. Designers, builders, and everyday shoppers can press for products that close the loop or lessen the burden on oilfields. The more noise we make for paints that go easier on the world, the sooner companies like Rohm and Haas will answer. The innovation that once let us skip a few rounds of paintwork can also help tackle the fossil problem — if everyone gets involved in asking what’s under the surface.
