How to Dispose of Paint?

You may have just finished painting a few rooms in your house, or maybe you’ve just decided to spruce up your bathroom a little bit. There’s nothing more refreshing than giving your house a lick of paint from time to time, and it can really make your house look and feel luxurious. One problem you face once you’ve finished painting is what do you do with the paint afterwards?

Sometimes you may want to keep it just in case you need it in the future, but if you don’t then how exactly do you dispose of it? You can’t put it into any of the recycling bins that you may have at home because of the chemicals it contains, so where do you put it? Best of Machinery has all of the answers for you about how to dispose of any type of paint.

How to Dispose of Excess Paint?

One thing that you should never do is pour any leftover paint down any of your sinks. This is because the chemicals from the paint can contaminate the water, plus, it will also block up your sink. In some places, there will be a certain recycling program where you can easily dispose of your leftover paint. To find one of these you will need to look up what options there are in your area, many places like schools and waste haulers tend to have them.

However, some areas may not have these types of programs, which can make disposing of your paint a little bit trickier. If you don’t have this option, then it will mean that you have to throw it away. There are some steps you can do to make this a lot easier for you; for example, it’s best to pour the leftover paint into a plastic container that can be filled with cat litter or even scraps of paper.

Then you will need to leave it to dry on its own, and you can then put it into your bin that will accept paint disposal. If your bins don’t accept this, then you may have to take it to your local tip. There is another way that you can easily dispose of your paint in a much simpler way, and that’s by using a waste paint hardener, and you can easily mix this into the leftover paint.

Once you have done this, the paint will harden up in a couple of hours so you will be able to dispose of it a lot easier.

Recycling Paint and Paint Cans?

If your paint tin or can is empty and you have managed to dispose of the paint in a safe way, then you can also recycle the tin that it came in too. Before you do recycle it though you will need to make sure that the paint can is completely dry and empty. You can either recycle them with other metals in your recycling bin, or you can take it to the local tip where they will also have suitable containers where you can recycle it too.

Another thing that you could do is actually reuse it yourself, if you have children, then you could turn it into quite a fun and creative project about restyling the paint pot into a pot where you can keep everything you need it. Not only this, but you could also re-use it as a plant pot for your garden, and you can easily get your children to help redecorate it, so it looks prettier.

Safety

One thing you will need to make sure is that you’re safe when you dispose of the paint. This is because the paint can contain a whole load of quite dangerous chemicals so you will need to take some precautions. For instance, it’s best if you wear gloves when you’re disposing of it because you don’t really want it to come into contact with your skin.

This is because it can be quite difficult to get off once it’s on and may even take a couple of days to get rid of it. You will also want to make sure that you’re wearing old clothes because it’s also quite easy to accidentally get a bit of paint down yourself and you don’t want your clothes to get ruined. Another thing is that you should avoid it coming into any contact with is your eyes, as this can be very dangerous.

Give it Away

Another way that you can quite easily recycle the paint is by giving leftover paint to somebody else. You could ask family and friends if they know anyone that might be looking to redecorate one of their rooms in a certain color that you may have. You could even post it on certain Facebook groups to see if anyone would like it, and trust us you’d be surprised at how many people will. This way the leftover paint isn’t wasted and you’ve recycled it by giving it to somebody else.

Conclusion

There are quite a few different ways that you are able to dispose of your leftover paint, for instance, you can use a hardener to harden the paint and then chuck it away in the bin. There other options that you can also do, like recycling the paint to somebody else who might need the paint, or you can even dispose of the paint but then recycle the paint pot and make it into something else.