Honda to update paint lines

In a story out of Tokyo, Honda plans to spend $20 million to cut the environmental impact of its North American paint operations.

Honda Motor Company plans to invest by 2009 to make two of its coating facilities in North America more environmentally friendly, helping them comply with U.S. air pollution regulations, the Nikkei reported, citing company sources.

Under the plan, production lines at Honda's Marysville plant in Ohio and its facility in New Tecumseth will shift to the use of waterbased paint for the intermediate and final coating stages.

A coating line at the Marysville plant was overhauled in January last year to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds.

At a new plant to begin operations in Indiana in 2008, the Japanese automaker also plans to use cuttingedge facilities that impose less of a burden on the environment. In New Tecumseth, Honda Manufacturing's Alana Taylor said that the paint line in Plant 1 is 20 years old and there are plans to replace it in 2009 or 2011 with the latest in technology - "whatever that will be in the year of construction."