Hazardous waste such as paint doesn’t belong down the drain or in the garbage. Rather, it needs to be taken to a designated Product Care Recycling location for recycling or safe disposal.Supplied
Old paint and flammable liquids should be dropped off at one of its free recycling locations
Got some old cans of paint gathering dust in a corner of your garage? Or maybe some stale gasoline, camping fuel, paint thinner or pesticides you’ve been wanting to dispose of but don’t know how?
These types of products should never be thrown in the garbage or poured down the drain. For example, some latex and oil-based paints can release vapours called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when they dry up in landfills. These vapours help to create ozone, which in turn creates smog.
Proper recycling and disposal helps to protect soil and groundwater, while freeing up valuable space in landfills. It can also save energy: Just one gallon of recycled paint saves nearly 100 kilowatt hours of energy and keeps 115 pounds of carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere.
That’s why Product Care Recycling has worked to protect the environment by providing free recycling locations for consumers to safely dispose of products such as paint and household hazardous waste (HHW) including gasoline, pesticides and other flammable liquids, as well as lights, smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms. As a Canadian not-for-profit, Product Care helps individuals and businesses reduce their waste, reuse when possible and find the safest disposal options for these products at end-of-life.
“Some paint and HHW products contain hazardous components that can be harmful, if not managed properly. Throwing this material in the garbage can have a negative impact on the environment and pose health and safety risks,” says Brent van Beusekom, B.C. operations manager with Product Care.
Since the B.C. paint program’s inception in 1994, Product Care has recovered more than 56 million litres of paint in the province. Across Canada, it’s recovered approximately 84 million litres since that time – enough to flow over Niagara Falls for 26 seconds. In 2020 alone, the not-for-profit recovered almost 3 million litres of paint and more than 17,500 litres of flammable liquids and pesticides in B.C.
Once HHW products are dropped off at a recycling location, they are safely handled and managed responsibly. Product Care’s website offers information on how specific HHW products are managed, as well as how leftover paint is recycled.
“Paint and HHW products have different properties that affect their compatibility and, as a result, they cannot be collected or processed in the same container from a regulatory or safety perspective,” van Beusekom says.
“In addition, their properties also affect recycling and disposal – the more hazardous a substance is, the more challenging it becomes to reuse or recycle. For example, paint can be processed into recycled paint, and flammable liquids like gasoline can be recycled as an alternative fuel, but pesticides cannot be recycled and must be incinerated at high temperatures.”
There are approximately 220 free recycling drop-off locations for paint and HHW products in the province. Some sites collect both paint and HHWs while some only collect one or the other, so it’s important to check before you go.
Paint products accepted at these recycling locations include (but aren’t limited to) interior and exterior household paint, deck and floor paint, drywall paint, wood finishing oil, stain, shellac and varnish. HHW products include gasoline, domestic pesticides, camping fuel, barbecue lighter fluid, paint thinner, paint stripper and other flammable liquids.
For safety reasons, all products must be in their original container – with a sealed lid and original label intact – to be accepted by the program.
Consumers can do their part for the environment by recycling or disposing of paint and HHW products safely. To find a free drop-off location, use Product Care’s Find a Recycling Location tool, which also indicates which products are accepted at each site. Locations can also be searched by product category (paint or HHW). Visit productcare.org/globe to learn more.
Advertising feature produced by Product Care Recycling and Globe Content Studio. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.