Paint disposal

[AdamW]

Well, I've finished tidying out my kitchen in preparation to removing the old one and putting the new one in. Amongst the rubbish there were lots of tins of half-finished paints. You know, you hang onto it just in case you need to repaint a wall (knowing full well it won't match now!).

So, in all, there is about 2 litres of paint, some water-based, some oil-based, in dregs. Being the environmentally-spirited guy I am I thought "better check where I can dispose of this".

Now, I live in a town of 120,000 people. Not small. Our waste-transfer station also services a few smaller towns surrounding us. But, no paint disposal. No. For that the nearest place is over 20 miles away. 20 miles. You would think that in a town with 10s of thousands of residences, there would be enough waste paint each year to warrant a paint-disposal/recycling section, but no.

Guess what's going in a black sack and tossed in the compactor. This highlights the fact that ecology has to be convenient and accessible. I would have to spend 1 hour of my time, and £5 of my money to burn 6 litres of petrol on the round trip to the dump that takes paint, in order to dump 2 litres of paint (if that).

Can anyone tell me what will do more damage to the environment, chucking the paint (about 90% water based, low-VOC) in landfill or burning more than a gallon of petrol?

 

[pipme]

Does more harm worrying about it !!

 

[andy]

just goes to show how useless councils can be... the dont provide any safe way of disposing of things or they charge to take it... just encourages fly tipping

 

[petewood]

I have heard that paint is one of the most damaging materials that goes into landfills. As the government is supposed to be encouragingb the councils to become greener, maybe a letter to your MP would bring results.

 

[nstreet]

We have the same problem, even more so with used white spirit, as I usually end up with more of this than the paint itself.

 

[pipme]

We have the same problem, even more so with used white spirit, as I usually end up with more of this than the paint itself.

Makes short work of that neighbouring tree blighting your life ... During a heatwave is best ... laps it up .. only once tho'

 

[felix]

Left over gloss paint has many uses:

1) Paint it on the raw chipboard edges found on the backs of far too many kitchen units.

2) Paint it thickly onto the ends of fence posts when they've finished soaking up preservative.

3) Paint the insides of metal guttering. The colour mismatch will never be seen.

Left over emulsion? Use it under a darker colour. This is a good trick on textured wallpapers which soak up lots of paint on the first coat.

Left over white spirit? I never have any. I keep two jars on the go: one dirty and one not so dirty. Brushes go into the dirty jar first to get the worst off then into the clean jar. When the clean stuff gets too dirty I pour it into the dirty jar and start again. So where, I hear you all ask, does the dirty stuff go? I use it to wipe down bare wood prior to painting/varnishing. The only thing that goes in the bin - or on the garden fire - is the cake of jellied paint resin that builds up in the bottom of the dirty jar. The white spirit itself evaporates. I can't see a simple way out of this.

 

[masona]

So, in all, there is about 2 litres of paint, some water-based, some oil-based, in dregs. Being the environmentally-spirited guy I am I thought "better check where I can dispose of this".

We have a crushing hopper which you throw the rubbish into (not sure if it's the same elsewhere) and we are not to allow to dump the paint in there and I thought the reason was in case paint spray over people when crushed up

 

[petewood]

We are not allowed to chuck paint in cans or otherwise into the skip we use at work. I have to pay a company to come and remove our waste thinners, and each time they come they fill in 3 different forms and give us a copy of each which we have to keep for years. Pity I can't persuade them to give me a filing cabinet to keep it all in.

 

[keyplayer]

felix, top advice, you are a visionary and a hero. One day all will be like you......

 

[petewood]

Could someone invent a way of condensing the evaporated thinners?

Think of that - everlasting thinners

 

[dabaldie]

Best example i've seen was at the local dump.
A guy turned up after driving 15 miles to dump an old tyre. When he went to throw it into the skip the council employee told he he couldnt leave it there.
A small arguement ensued and the guy drove away rather cheesed off. (guess he thought he was being eco-friendly..afterall he did make the effort to get rid of it at a tip).
As i then drove home, who should be parked round the corner from the tip, but the same guy. I watched him get the tyre out of his boot and lob it into the woods. I could only watch and shrug.
Could the council guy not have just taken the tyre anyway and then got rid of it.

 

[firegazer]

We still seem to be way behind the rest of Europe when it comes to recycling.

Having said that our local council do make an effort in terms of providing bins for green (garden) material as well as a box for plastic and tins, and a bag for paper. They also did a trial cardboard collection for a while but unfortunately thats now stopped.

The local tip also displays a sign of how much of the stuff dumped actually get recycled, which last week was 75%.

Surely if one council can do it then others can too??

 

[dabaldie]

plymouth isnt bad.
we get a wheelie bin for normal rubbish and a green wheellie bin for anything that can be recycled. EXCEPT GLASS>>!!
that has to go in the normal bin.!
shame the green one only gets emptied once a fornight,,, i'm not that green but i fill it every week.!.. maybe its all the boxes from the tiles.. toys for the kids... that i keep buying.!

 

[AdamW]

We have a pretty decent recycling scheme here: it is limited to newspaper, tins and glass though.

They recently gave us all a very large wheelie bin each for garden waste. The wheelie bin is so large, and my garden is so small, that it (and the other recycling bins) takes up most of my garden. Because it is now all covered by the bins, nothing grows, so nothing needs cutting. So I put nothing in the garden waste bin.

It is effective in a strangely logical way.