Crown Paints adds colour with national recycling scheme

The two week ‘Kick out the Can’ scheme which starts next month, will give people the opportunity to clear out their unwanted paint by taking tins and containers back to their local Crown Paints decorating centre.

The paint will be processed and then donated for community projects while the leftover plastic and metal paint containers will also be reprocessed and recycled.

Crown Paints’ sustainability manager Mark Lloyd said that the majority of households were full of old paint containers and tins and that people are not always sure what to do with them.

“Statistics show that there are approximately 54 million litres of paint unused in homes across the UK, enough to fill approximately 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools – so there is plenty to go at.

“Our scheme gives householders a useful opportunity to give their spring clean a boost, and to ensure their old paint, as well as the containers and tins are transformed – ultimately helping communities through the donation of recycled paint products,” he said.

Charity Groundwork’s Amanda Atherton explained that it would donate paint brought back to Crown Decorating Centres to community projects.

“It can be used to transform community halls, youth centres and green spaces, or be used in the delivery of a project – creating art, for example, or training young people that aren’t in employment or education,” she said.

The campaign is the latest environmental push from the UK paint manufacturer. In 2008, it launched ‘Earthbalance’ a dedicated sustainability programme, featuring a long-term target to drive down its own greenhouse gas emissions, with the target of a 10% reduction in 2015 – and 25% in 2020.

In addition, a sustainability target of zero waste to landfill originally targeted for December 2012 was achieved more than 12 months ahead of schedule. (link)

Conor McGlone