Resene PaintWise Paint and Paint Packaging Recovery Programme
The world-first Resene PaintWise paint and paint packaging recovery programme has gone New Zealand wide with over 40 Resene ColorShops all over the country designated as PaintWise Collection Centres.
Residents and painters in all these areas can bring in unwanted paint and paint packaging, any brand, to any of the Resene ColorShops designated as PaintWise collection centres.
A PaintWise mobile truck service visits the stores, processing the materials received before returning to its depot. 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 cycle and even the metal packaging is recycled.
To date well over 100,000 paint containers and litres of paint has been returned through the Resene PaintWise service, with large volumes of paint provided free to a wide range of community groups.
One regular recipient is the North Shore-based The unTAG Trust, who have been using copious amounts of consolidated PaintWise grey paint to obliterate graffiti around the city. Recent work includes the repaint of a previously tag prone tunnel and a skate bowl, which combined soaked up 150 litres of paint. Due to the nature and repeat offending of taggers, touch ups were inevitable on an almost daily basis, however with free paint available on demand, covering any new tags just required a quick onceover with the PaintWise grey paint.
Chairman of The unTag Trust, John Crews says like the rest of the world, graffiti has become a real problem in New Zealand. "With the assistance of the North Shore City Council graffiti database and digital camera, North Shore Police and the Resene PaintWise programme, The unTAG Trust is able to minimise the effects of graffiti on the community by removing it as quickly as it appears." Graffiti is not only a blight on the landscape but also on council budgets, with Auckland councils alone reported to be spending over three million dollars a year on combating graffiti.
The Resene PaintWise service is supported by the Ministry for the Environment and a supportive network of councils all over New Zealand. Many councils, such as the Auckland group of councils, Dunedin City Council and Nelson City Council, are now actively encouraging residents to return their unwanted paint and paint packaging to Resene PaintWise to facilitate the recycling and reuse of materials and divert it away from council run landfills and Hazmobile services.
"I congratulate Resene Paints and 3R Group, the programme managers, for their commitment and vision to put the scheme in place," said the government's Environment Minister at the launch of the nationwide service. "Businesses like Resene go a long way towards maintaining, and growing our clean and green image. Innovative companies in New Zealand have listened to their customers and anticipated their needs. They are providing them with the option of buying sustainably produced goods and the facilities to recycle those goods." the minister said.
The PaintWise scheme has also been drawing attention from overseas companies and governments, both for the successful collection method and for the innovative uses PaintWise is developing for the recycled paint.
"This is a great development for New Zealand. It means that our environmental initiatives are improving the sustainability not just of our country but potentially the rest of the world and contributing to the knowledge base that will help develop New Zealand as a world leader. This government plans to encourage more such schemes which share the responsibility for the disposal of a product throughout its life cycle - from the designers to the end users," the Environment Minister said.
For more information on Resene PaintWise, see www.resene.co.nz/paintwise.htm
or pick up a brochure at your Resene ColorShop
From the Resene News – issue 3/2007
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