Big green tick

The Minister for the Environment Nick Smith has announced the accreditation of Resene’s PaintWise paint and packaging recycling programme, the first accreditation for a paint recycling programme and only the sixth product stewardship scheme he has accredited.

Following nearly five years of development, Resene PaintWise was launched in 2004 by Resene to encourage paint users to minimise the effects of their decorating on the environment. The service with assistance from 3R Group then rolled out nationwide in mid 2007.

2011 was already a milestone year for Resene PaintWise with the programme reaching over one million packs returned. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of recycled paint and packaging have also been recycled or reused.

Good quality Resene paint is provided free to community groups, waterborne paint is used for other applications such as covering graffiti, solventborne paint goes through a solvent recovery program and packaging is recycled. Already over 100,000 litres of paint has been donated.

See www.resene.com/paintwise for details.

Pail merry-go-round

Traditionally paint pails have been notoriously difficult to recycle locally. In what is believed to be a world first, the Resene paint pails being returned to the Resene PaintWise service are now being recycled into ‘new’ paint pails made out of 100% post consumer recycled paint pails.

Pails returned to the PaintWise service are washed and reprocessed into ‘new’ Resene paint pails using a custom design process developed locally. The concept is so new and unique that the plant needed to run the process has had to be designed and built from the ground up.

There is no limit to how many times the pails can be recycled - as long as the Resene pails are returned they can be recycled many times in the years to come. The 100% consumer waste recycled paint pails have recently won a Highly Commended award at the Packaging Council Environmental Packaging Awards.

Empty pails awaiting recycling