American Pride--Paint Made from Vegetable Oil

The paint has virtually no smell, allowing interior painting without evacuating a building or providing additional ventilation. American Pride paint is being used for restoration work at The Pentagon and is currently being used in all of the academic buildings at the University of Southern Mississippi. American Pride is only the second product to be certified under the paint standard from the nonprofit standards-setting organization Green Seal.

According to Southern Diversified manager Rocky Prior, USM researchers responsible for this project were driven by a twofold desire to create environmentally sound products and to find an economically viable use for Mississippi agricultural products. They specifically wanted to create a use for castor oil, lesquerella oil, and soybean oil because Mississippi farmers can grow these crops. From a national perspective, a wider use of domestic biobased oil in place of petroleum products reduces the demand for foreign oil.