Dulux Decorator Centre reports that it has received a “staggering” one million paint cans under its can recycling scheme.
The specialist decorators’ merchant’s free of charge can recycling scheme, in partnership with Veolia, has been designed to make 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 for them.
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.”
Duncan continued: “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, added: “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.
Dulux has also been celebrating two decades of Colour of the Year and has recently launched its colour for 2023 – Wild Wonder – along with “four complementary, versatile colour palettes that can be used to create stunning spaces across all sectors”.
Wild Wonder is described as “a soft gold with hints of green inspired by fresh seed pods and harvest grain” with an “upbeat glow (that) connects us with nature, creating a sense of energy and positivity”.
The company says that “as people search for support, connection, inspiration and balance in the world today, they’re diving into the wonders of the natural world to find it”. Furthermore, extensive research conducted by Dulux colour experts and international design professionals found that even with so many challenges ahead, there was “hope at the heart of global social, design and consumer trends”.
Marianne Shillingford, Creative Director of Dulux UK, said: “Our relationship with the natural world feels more precious and precarious than ever. As well as understanding the value of nature more keenly, with climate change becoming a reality for all of us, we also feel the urgency of reconnecting with nature and the necessity of working with rather than against it.
“The earth and its materials have been inspiring humanity for centuries. Now is the time to put them centre stage and bring the outside, in.”
Click here for more information on the Dulux Colour of the Year for 2023.
