The Valspar Corporation and Maersk Container Industry have entered into a long-term supply agreement. Valspa will provide Valspar Aquaguard waterborne coating for shipping containers manufactured in Maersk Container Industry’s operations in Dongguan, China. With this agreement, manufacturing of a significant share of dry goods containers will convert from solventborne coatings to Valspar Aquaguard waterborne coating. Maersk Container Industry (MCI) is a business unit in the Maersk Group, which comprises the world’s largest shipping container company. MCI plans to begin production with Valspar Aquaguard sometime in 2014 and aims towards one day going 100 percent waterborne.
“We are very pleased to work with Valspar in this industry-changing effort,” said Irving A. Hultengren, managing director at MCI in Dongguan. “Our agreement with Valspar reinforces our commitment to building more sustainable containers. By using Valspar’s innovative waterborne coating system, we will help our customers and reduce the environmental footprint of our production.”
As part of the multi-year qualification process, Valspar has performed vigorous field tests and has produced a significant number of dry van shipping containers with third-party manufacturers.
“Maersk is a global leader in container-industry sustainability, and we are privileged to partner with them on this innovative coatings solution,” said Roeland Polet, Valspar senior vice president, global industrial. “This is an important step, and we proudly put our 60-plus years of waterborne coatings expertise forward as a cost-effective, sustainable solution.”
Valspar Aquaguard is a two-coat, 100 percent waterborne coating system that replaces high VOC, solvent-based coatings. Valspar Aquaguard reduces VOCs by 94 percent, improves corrosion performance, reduces energy use and lowers emissions all while improving the working environment.
