Ask Chicagoist: Environmental Painting?

By Thales Exoo in Miscellaneous on Nov 30, 2006 3:15PM

Hello,

Reid

Hi Reid,

Chicagoist is a sucker for environmentally-themed questions. Doing simple things to potentially help prolong the life of this rock we call home (and yet treat a little bit more like the party house we lived in during college than our current home) seems pretty much like a no-brainer to us. So when it's time to spruce up your house with a fresh coat of cerulean blue, we can see how sometimes the options appear a little limiting.

We think rinsing is going to be your best bet. Well, assuming you're doing the rinsing with soap and warm water into a sink, and not with the garden hose into the grass or gutters outside. If you let the paint soak into the ground, it's going to harm the water table, and potentially get into creeks and streams, harming fish and wildlife and polluting the earth. Rinsing into the sink is generally considered okay for latex-based paints, but if it's oil-based paint you're working with, remember the whole deal about oil and water not mixing (you'll have to use some sort of paint thinner, which leads to a completely new set of environmental questions). Also, before you do rinse, scrape off as much paint as you can with newspaper first (then let the paint on the newspaper dry before throwing it away).

Basically, the paint is going to have to go somewhere, be it still stuck on the roller or rinsed off into your sink. So you might as well rinse and reuse ("reuse" is the environmentalist credo, is it not?) the roller rather than throwing the whole thing, paint and all, into the landfill. At the same time, don't rinse if you're going to be using the same paint the next day. Rather, put the roller in a plastic bag, make sure there's no air trapped inside, and store overnight. No air means the paint won't dry, so you can use the roller the next day without a problem.

When it is time to throw away either empty buckets of paint or the used rollers, first let the paint completely dry. Take the lids off the buckets, let it all dry out, and throw them away with the lids off.

You can also take unused bits of paint over to the Paint Exchange at the Household Products and Electronics Collection and Training Center (HPECTC), located at 1150 N. North Branch St. in Chicago. At the HPECTC you can dispose of batteries, electronics, cellphones, chemicals, and medicine -- as well as paint. The Paint Exchange room is open during regular HPECTC hours of operation, and accepts latex-based (not solvent-based) paint that can still be used. You can also head over there and check out the used paint selection and take some home for free! Now that's the sort of recycling we can really get behind. Oil-based paints (as well as paint thinners and other solvents) can be dropped off at HPECTC, but aren't part of the Paint Exchange.

Also, when choosing a paint, check the labels for varieties with low (or no) levels of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), the toxic gases emitted from many paints which are harmful to both people and the environment (and causes smog). These non-toxic paints can also be disposed of easier, as they are not considered hazardous materials. Eartheasy has a list of some non-toxic paint options.

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Watching paint dry? Need some advice? Email ask(at)chicagoist(dot)com.