The basical idea of Sehestedt´s Natural Colors

In our country ever more people are concerned about the ecological balance of Nature and about the effect of chemical substances on human health. Many bad mistakes have been made and are still made in building houses - private houses, school and kindergarten buildings. The material used started to damage (harm) people´s health, the building or parts of them were torn down and replaced by ecologically safe or safer materials. In the end the costs were double or three times the amount they would have been if safe materials had
been taken from the very beginning.

One basical idea of our production concept implies 3 elements:

1. the use of regrowing materials so that they will not produce any waste which cannot be reused or taken up by the earth. Any problematic waste is prevented.

2. elimination of harmful substances for human health (it is well-known that a great variety of mineral oil-materials give out gases that are very dangerous not only while the work is carried out but also in the long term when they give off their harmful substances in small doses over years).

3. we attach a very great importance to produce our paints so that they contribute to a healthy atmosphere and climate in the house and this is only guaranteed, when walls´ and woods' surfaces are not sealed but can go on breathing, that is they remain steam permeable. An impermeable paint coat or a wall for example is likely to allow moisture to develop between the wall and the paintcoat and after some time mould will develop with all its well-known dangers to people's health.

So all these aspects show that we must be concerned with "soft" chemistry and such chemistry is based on vegetable substances.

What are the central questions to be considered in connection with soft chemistry?

1. ANALYSIS OF THE WHOLE BIOGRAPHY OF A PRODUCT

Not only the product itself but its production process is to be observed. So the raw materials are evaluated, all the steps during the production, the poduct itself - before, during and after its use -and all the steps till the development of the last substances produced by decomposition and their effect on the environment.

2. THE EXAMPLE OF NATURE

Soft chemistry is based on the conviction that it is the principles of synthesis that have proved efficient in the long term and that it is photosynthesis above all that guarantees best that the need for materials of mankind and the vegetal and animal world can be covered without impairing the environment or one's health.

3. EXPLOITATION OF VARIETY AND COMPLEXITY

The supporters of soft chemistry are moreover convinced that the enormous variety of substances developped by natural processes could satisfy most people's basical needs without limiting their quality of life. Unfortunately research in this field was mostly stopped in the middle of the past century because of the beginning of organic-chemical synthesis. It should be taken up again!

4. VIOLENCE AGAINST SUBSTANCES REACTS UPON US

In `hard' chemistry the chosen basical materials undergo violent impacts during their production process and theses impacts have serious effects on the substances themselves. The products so produced risk to bear in them the violence they have experienced. Many negative phenomena being connected with increasing chemistrialisation of our world might be better understood and reevaluated if this aspect was taken into account. It will be difficult for experts committed to today's scientific thinking to follow these ideas, but the
establishment of new soft chemistry will have to develop new ethics not only towards mankind, plants and animals but also towards the inanimate world of chemical substances.

5. ABSTENTION FROM INTERVENTION IN NATURAL STRUCTURES

Seeing that the development of complex structures in Nature reaches absolute perfection, soft chemistry wants to abstain from any intervention. An intervention into molecular integrity might - just because of the necessary energy - produce side-reactions, increased waste etc. and even cancel out the ecological advantages given by the original natural synthesis. Therefore the purpose of soft chemistry should be a cautious modification of the given molecular structures at a minimum use of energy and plants. Other substances should be found instead.

6. USE OF SUN ENERGY

Soft chemistry also orientates towards natural processes because they use sun energy as a main energy source.

7. USE OF VEGETAL CHEMISTRY EXCLUDING DISRUPTIVE CASES

With soft chemistry disruptive cases or catastrophes as known in most chemical plants are impossible. The most extreme disruptive case in the vegetal world is a total crop failure. With chemical synthesis , however, not only large scale contamination of the production area itself but also contamination of its close and wider neighbourhood is implied with a disruptive case. Heavy poisoning and ten thousands of death casualties even at a distance of 50 to 100 km are realistic. The serious and disastrous disruptive cases in Bhopal, Seveso, Schweizerhalle and Frankfurt are sad evidence that they are not only theories. But also the "normal" emissions have serious effects.

8. PROBLEMATIC WASTE CAN BE AVOIDED

As to production of waste natural processes of soft chemistry are head and shoulders superior to synthetical processes of chemical industry and this not only qualitatively ( kind of waste) but also quantitatively (amount of waste) so that a direct comparison seems nearly unfair. Waste products of vegetal production contribute to maintaining the cycle of materials whereas the waste of chemical industry is normally more or less highly problematic waste.

9. SOFT CHEMISTRY CLOSES CYCLES OF SUBTANCES

In the end there is the simple fact that within the foreseeable future the fossil resources used so far will be exhausted and on the other hand the available depository facilities for the unavoidable waste and leftovers of chemical production will run out.

WE WILL ALL HAVE TO RETHINK THIS!- It is high time!

It is a sad fact that worldwide ecologically safe products are more or less more expensive than mineral oil products. Sad because the latters would be much more expensive , even more expensive than ecological ones, if all the costs they produce for our enviroment, people's health etc. were taken into account. For the time being it is the states and taxpayers that pay for these immense costs.