Getting rid of old paint, safely

Keep what is worth keeping

A tin of the colour on your walls is useful for touching up. Hammer the lid down, wipe the rim, write the room and the date on it and store it upside down somewhere frost free. Stored like this, water based paint keeps for years.

If it has gone lumpy, smells sour or has separated and will not mix back, it is finished.

Give it away

Usable paint can go to a Community RePaint scheme, a local community group, a school or a neighbour. Plenty of people will happily take a few litres of white emulsion.

Water based paint you cannot use

Liquid paint should not go in the household bin or down a drain. Leave the lid off in a dry place until it hardens, or stir in sawdust, sand or a paint hardener. Once it is solid, it can usually go with general waste. Check with Fife Council for the current rules at your recycling centre.

Oil based paint, thinners and white spirit

These count as hazardous waste. Never pour them down a sink, drain or onto the ground. Keep them in their original containers and ask at a Fife Council recycling centre where to take them.

Used white spirit can be reused. Leave it in a sealed jar for a few days, the sludge sinks, and you can pour the clean spirit off the top.

Washing brushes and rollers

Wipe and scrape as much paint as you can back into the tin or onto newspaper first. Then wash water based paint out in a bucket, not under a running tap. Keep the wash water contained. Settling does not make it safe to pour into a drain or onto the ground. Reuse it where appropriate and ask the local waste service how to dispose of the remaining water and paint solids.

Never wash brushes in an outside drain. Most of those lead straight to a burn or the sea.

Lead paint

Older coatings may contain lead. HSE notes that lead was not removed from all commonly used paints until the early 1980s, so a pre 1970 date is not a reliable cut off. Sound coatings can often be left undisturbed, but preparation, damaged paint and accessible surfaces need a risk assessment.

• Stop before sanding, scraping, cutting test grids or heating suspected lead paint. A negative home test does not reliably clear every layer.
• Arrange competent assessment and a controlled method of work where lead is suspected.
• Do not dry sand, use a blowtorch or create uncontrolled dust or fumes.
• Keep children, pregnant people and pets away from the work area and prevent contaminated dust spreading.
• Suitable extraction, containment, hygiene and protective equipment must be specified for the task. A household vacuum with a HEPA filter is not equivalent to the H or M class extraction described by HSE.
• Keep contaminated waste contained and ask the council or an authorised waste contractor about the correct disposal route.