Dulux Decorator Centre has received a staggering one million paint cans under its can recycling scheme. Thanks to the initiative, Dulux Decorator Centre is improving the environmental efficiency of the industry one can at a time by reducing the amount of construction waste that ends up in landfill.
Dulux Decorator Centre’s free of charge can recycling scheme, in partnership with Veolia the UK’s leading resource management company, makes it easy for tradespeople to dispose of empty paint cans in a responsible and suitable way. Professionals can arrange for cans to be collected from site or can return them to store themselves, depending on what is easier.
The Dulux Decorator Centre team will monitor customers’ recycling and send them a certificate each year to certify how many cans they have recycled as a percentage. This can then be used to showcase a best practice approach to improving environmental efficiency and reducing waste – and can even help to win new business.
Duncan Lochhead, Commercial Sustainability Manager at Dulux Decorator Centre said: “As a champion of sustainable building practices, Dulux Decorator Centre is incredibly proud to have received one million paint cans under its recycling scheme. With our customers’ help, we are striving to increase the empty can recycling rate significantly and reduce our impact on the environment. According to the Construction Leadership Council, the construction of our built environment produces the largest waste stream by tonnage, and recycling paint cans is an easy way for the painting and decorating trade to do its bit and reduce this figure.
“Our can recycling scheme means that tradespeople can drop their empty products into us on their next visit. Also, if customers have partially full paint cans at the end of a job, we will work with them to donate it to good causes such as Community RePaint – a UK wide paint reuse network, sponsored by Dulux, that aims to collect leftover paint and redistribute it at an affordable cost – so nothing goes to waste.”
Donald Macphail, Chief Operating Officer – Treatment at Veolia UK said: “This is a great example of an industry coming together to make a real difference to improve recycling. To reach our net zero goals we must take every opportunity to cut climate-changing carbon emissions. By recycling high-density Polyethylene (HDPE) paint pots up to 88% of the carbon emissions are saved compared with using virgin materials, and using recycled steel and tin saves around 60% of the emissions against extracting new resources. This is just the beginning of the journey and I encourage all in the industry to utilise this service as together we can make a huge difference to deliver ecological transformation.”
Dulux Decorator Centre accepts a wide range of dry or empty metal or plastic paint cans including Dulux, Armstead, Dulux Woodcare, Cuprinol, Sikkens, and Hammerite. Cans that have contained emulsions, gloss paints, undercoats and primers, floor paints, exterior paints, and masonry paints – and those that have contained water-based or solvent-based products – can all be recycled under the scheme. Plastic cans are shredded, washed, and sent back into the plastics market, and metal is remelted into new steel and returned to the general market.
For more information about Dulux Decorator Centre’s can recycling scheme, visit: https://www.duluxdecoratorcentre.co.uk/can-recycling.
