Environmental Progress - Spring 1996

"Color Me Recycled" Catches On

The Illinois EPA's new Partners for Waste Paint Solutions takes leftover paint out of its original containers and puts it into the hands of those who can transform it into something useful.

You can make a tasty hash from leftover roast beef; you can sew a colorful quilt using leftover fabric; but what can you do with a half-gallon of leftover "Kiev Kucumber" or other delicious color of paint?

If you live in or near Cook, Crawford, DuPage, Henry, Knox, McHenry, Richland, St. Clair, Sangamon or Vermillion counties, enterprising retailers or other organizations will take old paint off your hands.

Sangamon County planners, having watched locals enthusiastically discard old paint at a couple of Springfield household hazardous waste collections, began to suspect a paint recycling program might be effective. A successful two-day, paint-only collection later confirmed their suspicions.

By August 1995, the county's solid-waste coordinator had recruited three paint retailers, and the Illinois EPA's new Partners for Waste Paint Solutions was launched soon thereafter in Springfield. One retailer subsequently left the program, but today you can take surplus latex or oil-based paint to two Friendman's Wallpaper and Paint stores and Ace Hardware & Home Center. And if you want to fill your brush or roller with recycled latex paint, Friedman's has it for you in your choice of more than five colors.

Duff Ace Hardware in Galesburg joined the current program in February 1996, but Duff is no novice at recycling paint. Following the Great Flood of 1993, Duff donated some 600 gallons of store-recycled paint to water-damaged residents of the Mississippi River towns of Oquawka and Keithsburg.

Signing on as Partners for Waste Paint Solutions at presstime are Bartlett Ace Hardware, in Bartlett; Racklin Paint & Decorating Center, in Olney; and Crawford County Solid Waste Disposal Agency, in Robinson. And deals are pending in 14 other communties.

Inspect, filter, blend, pour

Recycling leftover latex paint is a simple process: It is first inspected for impurities, filtered to remove undesirable particles, blended in bulk to achieve the desired color and poured into five-gallon cans. The final product is either sold to do-it-yourselfers or to painting contractors or donated to non-profit groups.

Friedman's Ron Herbstrith said his stores blended about 2,000 gallons of castoff paoint during the last five months of 1995. With no advertising, he sold more than 500 gallons at prices significantly below those for new paint.

Mike Nechvatal, Illinois EPA Bureau of Land solid waste manager, noted that despite waste paint being by far the most common material turned in at Agency-cosponsored, statewide hazardous waste collections, the volume of waste paint accumulating in Illinois has not decreased significantly.

"So now the Agency is forging partnerships with those having the most experience and the greatest stake in handling discarded paint; most frequently those are the paint retailers themselves," Nechvatal said.

The boxed table below lists locations in Illinois that are currently accepting waste paints. The table below that lists communities where agreements are pending and expecting to be completed by this fall.

Waste paints unsuitable for recycling are gathered and sealed in drums at the various collection points. The drums are then picked up by contractors hired by the Illinois EPA.

These waste paints are eventually blended as fueld and burned in industrial boilers, thereby recovering the paints' latent energy content.

Those interested in joining Partners for Waste Paint Solutions can call Dan Rion, program manager, Illinois EPA solid waste reduction unit, at 217-785-8604.