Solid Waste Department
600 NE Grand Ave.
Portland, OR 97232-2736
(503) 797-1650
Fax (503) 797-1795
Households and commercial paint contractors
27,000 gallons(1)
[FOOTNOTE 1: This figure is the total quantity received at Metro's Household Hazardous Waste facilities.]
10,200 gallons(2)
[FOOTNOTE 2: This is "post-consumer waste" which is defined in Oregon statute as "a material that would normally be disposed of as a solid waste, having completed its life cycle as a consumer or manufacturing item." This figure includes latex paint, collected at Metro's Household Hazardous Waste Facility, that was reprocessed for secondary use. It does not include paint that Burlington Environmental or The Wherehouse Project recovered directly for reprocessing.]
Rasmussen Paint Co. and The Wherehouse Project Inc.
Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area.
Satin and flat finish coatings for interior and exterior applications, interior and exterior primer. Some local paint companies blend small quantities of good quality leftover paint from paint contractors into their products.
Oregon and Washington.
$0. Metro gives sorted and bulked recovered paint to Rasmussen Paint Co. and The Wherehouse for reprocessing. They assume ownership of this material and generate revenue by selling the product. Rasmussen Paint reprocesses the paint that Burlington Environmental collects. In some cases, Burlington markets the recycled product and other cases Rasmussen markets the product.
Actual and perceived quality, price and availability of this unfamiliar recovered material and secondary product.
Increasing slowly
Favorable
The latex paint recovery system expanded in 1993 with the opening of Metro's second Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Collection Facility. Burlington Environmental, a private hazardous waste management company, and The Wherehouse Project Inc., a non-profit building materials reuse broker, continued recovering latex paint from residential and commercial sources.
During this same period, Metro signed cooperative agreements with Rasmussen Paint Co. of Beaverton and The Wherehouse Project for reprocessing and marketing of approximately half of the latex paint received at Metro's HHW facilities.
Metro continued independent laboratory testing of the chemical composition and performance characteristics of paint reprocessed at Rasmussen. These tests indicate reprocesses paint is good quality and safe to use.
Metro and Rasmussen Paint also participated in the drafting of a federal government procurement specification for recycled latex paint. This is intended to stimulate the use of recycled paint in the construction and maintenance of federal buildings.
Most latex paint recovered for secondary uses is collected at Metro's HHW facilities, with most of the balance being collected by Burlington Environmental and a small fraction by The Wherehouse Project. In 1993, Metro's HHW Facility only accepted material from Metro-area residents. Burlington recovered paint from residential and commercial sources in Oregon and Washington. Most of the paint The Wherehouse reprocessed came from Metro, and the balance was collected primarily from commercial sources. In March 1994, Metro began accepting small quantities of latex paint from commercial sources.
Metro and The Wherehouse collected paint at drop-off facilities. Burlington's paint recovery was through field collection events.
Most reprocessed paint is used for surface applications, with the balance being used as primer. Most is reprocessed for exterior use, with a small percentage reprocessed for interior use. Some reprocessed paint is blended with new paint to produce satin finish and very light-colored surface paints.(3)
[FOOTNOTE 3: Recovered paint is sorted to yield different grades of basestocks for optimum marketability. Light-colored interior surface paint is the most marketable grade but it is also the most difficult to produce from recovered material. In order to achieve this yield, all but the lightest colored interior paints recovered are sorted for exterior grades, most of which are darker in color.]
Metro, Burlington and The Wherehouse use essentially the same sorting process. Metro sorts for a wider range of colors than Burlington and The Wherehouse. Based on observable characteristics, latex paint is sorted into recyclable and non-recyclable fractions. Old, sour or gloppy paint is rejected, as are colors, brands and types that typically contain lead or mercury. The remaining recyclable paint is sorted into interior light and a range of exterior colors. This material is screened and bulked in 55-gallon drums.
Rasmussen inspects preprocessed paint (for consistency, color, etc.), strains it and blends it in 350 to 1,000-gallon batches so that it is thoroughly homogenized. After initial blending, each batch is evaluated and additives blended in if needed. The resulting product is color standardized, run through a fine mechanical strainer and then packaged in two and five-gallon recycled plastic buckets. The Wherehouse manually blends, strains and repackages recovered paint in 50-gallon batches. Its product is not color-standardized.
The initial stages of paint recovery and market development have been pursued in tandem, and the supply-demand relationship for this material has been essentially balanced.
The material costs of paint manufacturing are sufficiently high that recovered feedstock is an economical alternative to virgin materials.
Paint recovery and preprocessing is labor-intensive. Every container received must be opened, inspected, sorted and emptied. The economics of preprocessing improve as the yield of recyclable paint recovered increases. These economics can be improved by educating homeowners and paint contractors to assess the recyclability of their unwanted paint, and to solidify and landfill unrecyclable material. They can also be improved by designing efficient handling systems and procedures.
Metro is planning to implement a number of measures in 1994-95 to improve processing efficiency. These include building a facility specifically for waste paint sorting and bulking, and using a mechanical can crusher to speed the paint bulking process. Metro also is researching lower cost options for disposing of nonhazardous, non-recyclable latex paint.
In its initial stages, reprocessing is manual to semi-automated. Good preprocessing of recovered paint has minimized the need for remedial treatment of recovered paint feedstock. More automation and larger scale reprocessing could reduce reprocessing costs in the future.
Laboratory testing and field demonstrations of locally reprocessed paints indicate that these products are comparable in quality to economy primers and flat-finish surface paints which sell for $6 to $8 per gallon. Rasmussen also is producing light colored, satin-finish paints with recycled content that are comparable to new paint that sells for $8 to $12 per gallon.
Recovery and reprocessing of latex paint is expected to continue to increase in 1994-95, as start-up efforts initiated in 1992 grow and evolve. Recovery will be boosted by periodic field collection events, additional collection from small quantity commercial generators, and expanded private recovery.
Product testing and demonstrations should help establish the quality and marketability of this material. This will make education and promotion efforts more effective.
Last Updated: November 9, 1995