We, The Aerosol Alliance team, have been researching the environmental impact of spray paint using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is enabling us to scientifically measure the footprint of spray cans. Based on our study we found that:

One typical acrylic graffiti paint can has an impact of roughly: 2.7 kg CO₂-eq

Read more on how we conducted this study below. You will learn which phases in the value chain of graffiti paint and spray cans are relevant. In the drop down menu you can find three steps that dive into more details on the 'Production', 'Use' & 'End-of-Life' phases of aerosol spray paint cans. Did you know that using 100 spray paint cans per month causes the same impact as drinking ~12 thousand cups of coffee? Here's how we know.

1. Measuring impact

How do you measure the environmental impact or footprint of products such as spray paint can?

By using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), this is a proven and widely adopted scientific method, which ensures taking into account all environmental impact across the product life cycle. If we want to measure the impact of spray paint we first will have to look into the supply chain of spray paint. This article dives into the steps that occur during the life cycle of spray paint, exploring which stages are accounted for and demonstrates the final impact of spray paint.

The life cycle phases

The phases that are relevant for every LCA of a product are: the production phase, use phase and End-of-Life (EoL) phase. In these stages, you can have sub-steps of the supply chain, such as raw material extraction, transport, manufacturing, distribution, use , maintenance or repair, disposal and final waste treatment (e.g. recycling, incineration and landfill). In the header above, you are able navigate to separate pages that allow you to find out more about each of the life cycle phases.

2. The footprint of spray paint cans

The Aerosol Alliance has made a generic LCA of a graffiti spray paint can for educational purposes. Hereby we used Ecochain Mobius, an LCA software.

In the future we aim to disclose a more detailed overview of our LCA model. However, don’t want to bombard you with the nitty gritty little details and just provide the actual numbers. This model does not represent any graffiti brand or other spray paint manufacturer, nor is it using primary data. We research and identified the main components that make up final product. A LCA model and result of an actual brand and their specific will result into a different footprint.

Based on our study we found that 1 spray can with black acrylic paint uses ~2.7 kg CO₂-eq

OK cool now we've got the exact numbers. This can serve as a first benchmark value to further compare other spray paint products with one another. Since we know the impact of one can on a the basic level, let's see what that value means in practice. We can use Ecochain's Carbon Translator to convert the amount of 2.66 kg CO₂-eq into a more understandable and meaningful example.

Let's say that you use 100 spray paint cans each month. This translates into 100 * 2,66 = 266 kg CO₂-eq. Using the Carbon Translator we get the following result.

That means using 100 spray paint cans per month causes the same impact on climate change as drinking over 12.667 cups of coffee! Insane right? These number considers the case that the spray cans are eventually recycled in a special waste treatment facility that can properly handle aerosol cans. From our research, we sadly know this is rather the exception. The most common end-of-life scenario is that of incineration of waste, which has a higher impact on the environment [1]. And it leads to the degridation of valuable resources like tin-plated steel and aluminium.

3. How LCA works

In all the steps along the supply chain - from raw materials to a ready product on the shelf - different activities take place. Life cycle assessment allows you to measure the environmental impact of all the activities that occur during the different steps. For example: the transport of raw materials (e.g., pigments, solvents, binders) to a paint manufacturing plant can be done via a lorry, a sea ship or barge tankers. These transport methods use fossil fuels (e.g., diesel and heavy fuel oil) to run the engine and move the shipment from A to B. Burning fuels causes emissions like CO₂, NO_x, SO₂ and particulate matter to be released to the atmosphere. For this activity or step an environmental impact model or dataset is available in dedicated environmental databases. They tell us for instance, how much the process of burning one liter of diesel is contributing to the environmental impact category Global Warming Potential (GWP) which is expressed in 'kg CO₂-eq'.

Here is what the product life cycle of a spray paint typically looks like:

For all phases and steps we have used generic environmental datasets to measure the impact of the production of spray paint, the can, the use of spray paint and different waste treatment scenarios. We have used the Ecoinvent 3.11 database combined with the LCA calculation method named: The Environmental Footprint (EF)* method version 3.1.

‍* The EF method is a scientific tool and set of rules designed to calculate the environmental impact of products and organisations. Developed by the European Commission, with the main purpose: providing reliable and verifiable information for businesses to improve their sustainability practices and help consumers make informed choices [2].

4. Contribution per spray paint component

In order to address the right topics and tackle the larger issues first, there's more we need to know about the contribution of specific components of spray paint. Read more about all the components of spray paint and spray cans here: Facts - Production.

The impact of one tin-plated steel acrylic spray paint can is ~2.66 kg CO₂-eq

The hotspots of spray paint

In the figures above we can see that the production of spray paint contributes 65% to 75% of the total contribution to climate change (GWP). The largest share of the impact in the production phase is related to the can itself. Thus, the raw material inputs are steel or aluminum, and the processing of these metals into a can container contributes the most to the amount of CO₂. In addition, we see a large share is related to the use phase. Here we see that VOC emissions roughly contribute 25-30% to the total amount of kg CO₂-eq.

The numbers that we found can be used for basic calculations. However, they are still estimates. And to improve the numbers we need to know several crucial things. For example:

• "What kind of paint is inside our beloved tool?"
• Which materials are the container — the spray paint can — made of and what alternatives are there to a steel or aluminum container?
• What are the key components of spray paint and what is the impact of the ingredients that are being used?
• We need the help of manufacturers to get better insights into the environmental impact of spray paint.

5. Recycling or incineration?

For the LCA calculations we made assumptions on the waste scenario of the spray paint can. This influences the outcome of the results of our study. The waste scenarios that we used are: recycling and incineration. Meaning that we looked at the impact of recycling a spray can versus the impact of throwing your spray can in the trash. Whereby the assumption is made it ends up at an incineration facility. We did not calculate what happens if a can ends up at landfill yet. Because the data available in the environmental databases are not specific enough in our opinion to include this option.

6. Reducing the impact of waste

How can waste related to the use of spray cans be reduced? We want to start a conversation with artists and with recycling facilities on how we can collaborate to make our scene a more sustainable one. On our End-of-Life page we dive into more details regarding the waste management of aerosol cans. In particular spray paint cans.

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References

[1] Rietveld, S. (2025, May 23). The Hard Realities of Aerosol Recycling. RecyclingInside. https://recyclinginside.com/aerosol-recycling/the-hard-realities-of-aerosol-recycling/

[2] European Commission: Directorate-General for Environment. (2024). Environmental footprint methods : precise ways to measure sustainability. Publications Office of the European Union. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2779/804799.

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