Dear Willem

I was the mural co-ordinator for Greenpop’s Trees for Zambia project and I would like to send you my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for the wonderful paint and keying liquid B-earth International sponsored for this event.

I have attached a few photos of the 3 school murals we painted in Livingstone. It was the first time that I had used your product and I think the results speak for themselves! All 3 murals were pained on school property but are visible from the road and will no doubt carry the message of the importance of saving Zambia’s trees to the public.

I hope you are well satisfied that your generosity has contributed in no small way towards creating a lasting legacy of a changing Zambian mindset aimed at mitigating the rampant de-forestation in that country.

Many thanks again.

Vivien Connell

B-Varnish protects against woodworm, wood borers, fungi, wood rot, fading, cracking and discolouring. This organic varnish has a clear finish and is revolutionary in the long term protection of all types of hardwood and softwood.

Our graffiti-free treatment is tried and tested in New South Wales, Australia, and soon to be trialled in the United Kingdom. B-Paint with its unique qualities is the town planner’s best friend, helping to reduce unwanted street graffiti and cleaning up towns and cities. B-Paint acts as a one-way membrane, allowing moisture to escape to the surface but prevents moisture ingress into the treated substrate.

Chad Ford, internationally recognised skateboard designer, chose B-Screed acrylic-based floor products for his Skate Bowl structure in Bondi Beach, New South Wales, Australia. B-Screed is available in many colours and is ideal for surfaces of high volume, high impact daily use.

B-Screed non-slip flooring membrane is available in many colours and can remove the need for costly floor covering such as tiles. Our product creates a film that cover irregular surfaces, coupled with anti-slip and good waterproofing qualities. It has the added advantage of possessing excellent abrasion resistance and is non-toxic. It is also ideal for using on vibrating structures.

B-Earth formula as used in the Two Oceans Aquarium, our non-toxic paint demonstrated its high level of performance and environmentally friendly towards marine life.

What causes some cave paintings to retain the vivid colours in which they were first created hundreds or thousands of years ago?

The ancient world’s most advanced civilisations – the Chinese, Greeks and Romans – all used similar silica-based formulations for colouring their ancient worlds. The colours endure, yet these artisans had no access to today’s chemicals or sophisticated manufacturing technology. B-earth follows the same ethos.

The curse of renovating is rising damp. A painted surface can hide a multitude of sins. Over time, problems can literally rise to the surface.

B-Earth protects the surface structure because it allows moisture, in the form of water vapour, to escape without affecting the cosmetic appearance of the coated surface.

The substrate structure of the Bondi Icebergs Pool is almost 100 years old. The relentless waves pounding the structure puts pressure up through the rock surface and onto the cement structure of the pool itself, from beneath which causes extensive cracking.

However because B-Earth’s unique strong membrane is flexible, it can withstand the pressure and so the pool itself remains sparkling and pristine in appearance for years longer than before – when it was treated with inferior paints.

In old days, miners always made sure they had a canary with them in their coal mine, not just for its birdsong but because its sensitive physiology would react to airborne toxins long before the miners were able to detect them by smell.

Similarly, because of the high levels of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) in conventional paints, if you stand a canary in a just painted room, it will die. But a canary in a room just painted with B-Earth will remain chirpy all day and all night because there is no odour and no airborne chemicals to cause it any harm.

Over the past 10 years, B-Earth has been hard at work developing, testing, sampling and fine-tuning the recipes for a range of eco-friendly organic coatings.

B-Earth does not use lead or harmful additives in our products, nor do we use them in our manufacturing process. Our products have a zero VOC  rating. This means that they are free of unsafe toxins that can be released into the air and inhaled, causing nausea, fatigue, skin reactions or abdominal pain; these are just some of the side effects of paints that contain harmful substances.

With our coatings being odourless and free of toxins, it’s possible to paint a room or office while it is still being occupied; this means no down time and no headaches, and with a quick drying period, a room can easily be redecorated in a day.

Tests have been carried out by the Paint Research Council in the UK, Consulting Enterprises in Technology in Australia, the CSIR in South Africa as well as the SABS. We are confident that B-Earth’s coatings will far outlast our guarantee of 7 years.
Our track record is impressive and we have supplied coating products to many international and local residential, commercial and industrial clients during our years. From Bondi Beach Iceberg in Australia to Riverside Mall in Nelspruit, not to forget all our residential projects throughout Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Western Cape, UK and Europe.

With production facilities and trained applicators in Pretoria, Cape Town and Nelspruit, B-Earth International was established in 2002 and the product had previously been tested and used extensively in Australia for a number of years.

Managing Director of Paint Manufacturing, Research and Development, Willem Cronjé says “Our aim from the start was to create a product that was not only friendly to the environment but truly durable. The most expensive element in any painting project is the cost of labour, so it made sense to us to produce products that far exceeded the norm in terms of durability. To date we have projects that were painted over 10 years ago and are still perfect.”

Cronjé says the basis of these products remains acrylic polymer, but it is the formulation obtained from the addition of readily available materials that changes the end result so dramatically. Why sell to Australia first?

“When we started we found that the local market was just not ready, whereas based on the developments in the UK that had seen the eradication of VOCs, high quality testing and a host of other benefits, the Australian market was much further advanced than South Africa, and our products were – and still are – very well received there.

“Things have changed radically in South Africa since then, and although we are still a small fish in a large pond we have numerous high profile and prestigious projects where B-Earth products were used.” he says.

The B-Earth product range is suitable for everything from residential to heavy industrial applications, in fact South African mining companies claim B-Earth paint is the same high quality as industrial epoxy coating, and the product has also passed their stringent acid testing procedures.

Two projects where B-Earth is used are worth a mention. The Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town had a problem with its pump stations which are below sea level. Normal paint would not adhere properly, the area couldn’t be waterproofed, and it needed to withstand trolley traffic. The formulation provided by B-Earth has provided the solution.

Secondly, B-Earth has supplied paint to prisons for some while, and a project started recently at Boksburg Prison has not only become a reference point for the product but also enhances the company’s social responsibility programme.

“Because the paint needs no additives or thinners, its use by the inmates is much safer from a health viewpoint.” says Cronjé. ”The prison authorities welcomed the fact that our water-based products could be used in a conventional spray application, are cleaner to work with, much cheaper, of high quality, and have no hazardous materials or unhealthy side effects. The inmates doing the work really appreciate our products, because every time we make a delivery we spend the rest of the day training them. This not only means they learn new skills and is therapeutic in some ways as well.

“Although we still export more than supply locally, we can now list major industrial concerns, property developers and owners, retail groups, shopping malls, and many more among our local satisfied customers. We already know that our entry into Africa with painting and insulating mobile hospitals, clinics, and schoolrooms – and increased interest coming from the UK – means that these will become big markets for us in the future.”