b'responsible renovatingwaste not, want notNotoriously tricky to get rid of, paint is now being recycled in some innovative ways. Resene takes its product stewardship for paint very seriously. As part of its PaintWise programme, many litres of unused paint and thousands of cans have been recovered. Inthelastthreeyearsalone,morethan500,000packswere collected from Resene ColorShops and a further 150,000kg fromAboveThe innovative new GlassCrete.council depots. Of this, more than 250,000kg of steel from the cansand design professionals, Resene and 3R formed a partnership with was recycled, more than 160,000 litres of solventborne paint wasFletcher Concrete and Infrastructure to prioritise those applications sent to solvent recovery and more than 60,000 litres of waterbornewhere waste waterborne paints could add benets to concrete and paint was donated to community groups. to apply for research funding to prove those benets.Despite this, there is still an excess of waste waterborne paint. Now, as a result of two innovative developments, you may nd youreAdding waterborne acrylic and latex paint to concrete allows the walking over reused paint in our concrete.cement content to be reduced, lowering both the carbon footprint and the embodied energy of the concrete. It makes a very user-Tests are currently underway to see if recovered paint can help thefriendlyconcretethatiseasiertoplaceandnishandmost use of bottle glass as an aggregate in concrete making. There areimportantly it does not noticeably affect the nal coloura random piles of recovered glass around the country from successful recyclingmix of leftover paint from a large enough market typically results in programmes but the recycling options are limitedmainly to makinga light, concrete grey colour. them back into bottles (in Auckland) or other smaller low-volume applications. Some of these options are very costly. PaintCretes rst and obvious use was as blockll for reinforced concrete masonry. While the search for other uses of waste paint in When glass is used in concrete, however, the alkali-rich cementconcrete continues, the blockll market neatly matches the current reacts with the silica-rich glass, and causes cracking. Recoveredvolume of available waterborne waste paint.paint may be literally the key to overcoming this problem, creating a bond between the cement and glass to avoid the cracking. This new product combining concrete, paint and glass is called GlassCrete. Top tipIf you live in a community suffering from grafti, you can In another innovation, Resene and product stewardship companyget free 100% recycled grey waterborne paint to cover 3R approached Golden Bay Cement in 2005, to develop what isit. Apply online at www.resene.co.nz/paintwise.htm or now called PaintCrete. email update@resene.co.nz (New Zealand only).Acrylic polymers have been key ingredients in high priced mortarsReseneand cement grouts for many years. But they are expensive, and theyMasalahave to be used with de-foaming chemicals. Waste paint solvedReseneQuarter Trufeboth the cost issue and the foaming. ReseneTriple MaltaTo provide condence in the new PaintCrete product to industry 64'