PROGRAMMES
PaintCare
During 2018 BCF has continued work on their PaintCare
programme, focusing on creating a national model to
collect, reuse, remanufacture and recycle leftover paint
and waste packaging and high level models produced.
During 2018 the government laid out its thinking for the future
on the environment, sustainability and the circular economy. In
January, the government published ‘A Green Future: Our 25
Year Plan to Improve the Environment’ which sets out what
the government will do to improve the environment, within
a generation. At the same time the EU published its final EU
Circular Economy Package – Closing the Loop which was
supported by the UK government. These were followed in
December by the ‘Resources and Waste Strategy for England
‘which sets out how the government will preserve material
resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency
and moving towards a circular economy in England. This strategy
focuses on introducing Extended Producer Responsibility
Programmes with the priority on food, plastic packaging and
WEE. It is unlikely to impact directly on paint, except for plastic
packaging, but it does contain references to consideration of
some types of construction waste.
The government’s ‘direction of travel’ is clear and the PaintCare
ambition to stop landfill of leftover decorative paint fully aligns
with this thinking and the need for the industry to have a
solution is growing. The opportunity to provide a truly circular
economy model for leftover paint, significantly reducing the
environmental impact and conserving resources by reusing,
remanufacturing and recycling of leftover paint and packaging
and supporting communities through social enterprise ventures,
provides benefits for all.
The PaintCare programme has focused on two areas in 2018,
following the strategic review agreed with the DCC in May
2018. BCF have continued lobbying government at all levels
during these turbulent times and other organisations and
bodies, in order to create an environment in which current
social enterprise operations and other operations reusing
and remanufacturing paint can flourish. As examples, meetings
were held with Policy Connect working on the UK Waste
and Recycling Policy and Developing the Circular Economy
Workshop, All Party Manufacturing Group working on the
circular economy strategy for the UK, DEFRA, individual MPs
interested in the topic and the PRA Open Day.
Through PaintCare, BCF also continue to promote opportunities
for proper disposal, reuse and remanufacture of leftover paint
to consumers. Through perseverance, government officials and
ministers are fully aware of PaintCare as a solution to leftover
decorative paint. Change on this scale takes time, it is a long
BCF ANNUAL HANDBOOK 2019/20
game and we do not expect solutions overnight and we must
maintain awareness with changing government personnel and
continue to build awareness with consumers.
The second area of focus is looking at two specific projects that
can help to reduce the amount of leftover paint and packaging
being disposed of into landfill and incineration. An estimated
50% of left over paint will not be suitable for reuse and
remanufacture and following a global review of potential product
streams that could use this as a raw material; concrete has been
identified as the best potential route.
The first phase of this work is to provide a technical proof of
concept showing the benefits of using leftover paint as a raw
material in concrete and setting the necessary parameters for
the specification of the left over paint. This will be followed by
a logistical and full cost evaluation. A technology partner has
been identified and a concrete manufacturer has agreed to do
some limited testing of paint in concrete in 2019. A fully costed
proposal for this technical proof of concept work has been
produced and will be considered by the DCC and Board in
2019
The second project is identifying opportunities to reduce
the amount of decorative paint packaging going to landfill
and incineration. Discussions with metal and plastic packaging
suppliers have been held where there is a strong desire to
find a solution. The focus is on plastic packaging because this
is currently where the major issue lies, and the government’s
Resource and Waste Strategy proposes an increase in tax
on plastic packaging where the level of recycled plastic is less
than 30%. The challenges are based around collection of the
estimated 74 million plastic paint packs used each year and then
the cleaning of these packs to a level suitable for easy recycling.
The key challenges with the programme relate to scale and
funding of these scaled operations. More detailed modelling will
be considered in 2019. As part of this work an ongoing dialogue
has been held with organisations who collect and recycle
leftover paint in other countries, PaintCare in the USA, Product
Care in Canada, Paintback on Australia and Eco-DDS in France.
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