How we collect your paint
9th May 2022
You all know that we reuse recycled paint, and put it to good use. But do you know what we do during a paint collection?
We made this TikTok a few months ago where we brought you guys along with us on our paint collection, but think it’s time we refreshed everyone’s minds!
Firstly, we have a partnership with Leeds City Council allowing us to have a big pink Seagulls container at each household waste site in Leeds.
You are able to donate your old paint by popping it into the container. Our team will then pick it up on their paint collection.
As you can see in the TikTok, when we arrive at the waste sites we differentiate whether the tins are good or bad. We can usually tell by giving them a good shake. If you can hear a watery sound, it’s usually off.
Good paint
Good paint goes on one side of the van, and bad on the other. We have to carefully pack them in to avoid any paint spillages on the journey back to Seagulls.
The good tins go into the paint mixing room, which we call SD3. Here, we find that most of the tins are half full, so here is where we can have fun.
Our paint mixers then find other tins that are half-full, mix together new colours and then add a paint splodge onto the lid. The tins then get taken over to the paint shop ready to be bought by our lovely customers!
However, if the paint is off we do things a bit differently.
Bad Paint
The ‘bad’ paint gets taken to our Paint Disposal room.
Whoever is is disposals will open each tin of paint, goggles and masks on (it can get smelly) and dispose of the off paint into a large container. We have one container for water-based paint, and one for oil-based.
An external recycling company collects these containers, meaning they can get disposed of correctly.
The plastic paint tins then get taken away by Forge Recycling, and we take metal tins to the scrap yard ourselves.
We took a trip last week, taking about 2 weeks’ worth of tins weighing just under a ton. We got £106 for this!
And that folks, is how we collect your paint!