Free Paint!

While attempting to follow the reduce, reuse then recycle mantra, what do you do about household paint? Living a green life doesn’t necessarily mean you have to watch the paint start peeling off of your walls before you do something about it.

paintbrushes

You can reduce your use of paint by only buying the quantity you need for your project. But did you know that you can use someone else’s leftover paint…for free? The city of Austin has a brand called Austin ReBlend made from paints dropped off at the Household Hazardous Waste facility. Basically, they re-blend the paint to make it viable and package it up for you. It’s completely free for residential and non-profit use! However, it does only come in two colors: light and dark beige. These seem great for the rooms where you might not want brighter colors on the walls. This is a perfect way to avoid more paint being produced to fill consumer’s needs. So you would be reducing and reusing!

Milk Paint

But what if you want something a bit more fashionable or colorful? Well, our friends at EcoWise have a very good selection of 0-VOC paints available. I was particularly impressed with the brand Milk Paint. It comes in powdered form and you just mix it with water. I can’t think of a better way to make sure you only use what you need, without making 6 trips to the home improvement store when you find you’ve miscalculated. Adding to the value, you can keep the leftover powder in a dry, airtight container indefinitely to use for touch ups or other projects later.

If you find yourself with leftover paint and wonder what to do with it, see if it’s suitable for drop off at the Household Waste Facility. That way, it could become a part of ReBlend. Otherwise, here’s a handy article on what to do with different types of paint to dispose of them in an earth friendly manner.

Happy Painting!