Blogged by Amy Shipham
As part of my job I browse the internet in search of mentions of waste paint and recycled paint. Lucky me I found something really interesting this week which I have decided to share with you!
I discovered that WRAP have complied a ‘review of alternative supply chain approaches within the UK paint and woodcare markets’ . If anyone is querying the environmental credentials of recycling paint, then they need to read it, but the key points are:
- Carbon impact data (from wasteonline data and Crown Paints Sustainability Report 2010 ) shows that for paint, unused paint, or the waste, is by far the most significant environmental impact. This is predominantly because of significant improvements in production and packaging.
- 310 million litres of decorative coatings were sold in 1997, of this, it is estimated 12.9% of this was unused. Approximately 37.5 million litres.
- Crown Paints have quantified their carbon footprint, of a 5L can, as 13.58 kgCO2e, apply this to 37.6 million litres going unused, equates to over 100,000 tonnes of CO2e. To put this into perspective, that is equivalent to 17,000 cars on the road.
Of course this is highly simplified and takes into account variables which I have not gone into. This figure has increased over recent years and the Defra Market Transformation Programme 2007 reported 50 million litres of paint were wasted in 2005.
Enter the heroes – Newlife Paints!!
By recycling this waste, we are not only stopping paint going to landfill, (let’s face it, nobody wants a landfill site on their backdoor step!) but we are also saving 13.58 kgCO2e per 5L of paint we recycle, from being wasted.
Further to that, we also recycle all the plastic and steel pots we empty out, so not even they end up in landfill, three cheers for Newlife Paints…