What do you do with your left over Paint and Thinners

[JonnyAlpha]

Hi;

As the title says, I just completed my first ever spray painting however, I have about 1/2 litre of waste paint / thinners from cleaning up?

Where do you guys get rid of this stuff (clearly not down the drain or in the wife's flower bed!!!)

My recycling centre has a waste oil facility but not sure about general chemicals?

Thanks

 

[Welderpaul]

We tip waste thinners/paint from cleaning our airless sprayers into empty 20L paint tins, put the lids on and let them settle. After a couple of weeks the paint solids drop out and leave cleanish thinners which we reuse for gun wash. The solid paint gets tipped into other tins which in the end the paint goes hard and we chuck it in a skip.

Our tip takes old paint. Sure they would take thinners too....near enough classed as 'paint' if anyone asked?

 

[JonnyAlpha]

We tip waste thinners/paint from cleaning our airless sprayers into empty 20L paint tins, put the lids on and let them settle. After a couple of weeks the paint solids drop out and leave cleanish thinners which we reuse for gun wash. The solid paint gets tipped into other tins which in the end the paint goes hard and we chuck it in a skip.

Our tip takes old paint. Sure they would take thinners too....near enough classed as 'paint' if anyone asked?

Sounds like a plan, thanks

 

[rtbcomp]

I do pretty much the same as Paul, clean brushes with waste thinners to get rid of the worst then do them again with new thinners. I keep the 2nd lot to thin the paint (I end up with a jar of coloured thinners for each tin of paint!).

 

[Welderpaul]

Much cheaper to buy gunwash rather than thinners for cleaning up - gunwash is just recovered thinners anyway.
Most painting we do is just blasting stuff with heavy primer so gunwash is good enough for thinning the paint down a bit so it dries quicker.

 

[Daz1968]

I very rarely end up with any paint over but if I do just leave it in mixing cup to go hard and throw it away with general waste at tip not sure if I should, any thinners I use cleaning gun is put in an old thinners can and is used for dirtier jobs when it's full will take to tip will have to look where to put it when I go down next. Never had need to throw any unused paint away yet but aerosol empties I put in recycling with others

 

[BrokenBiker]

my father used to pour any waste into ice cream tubs, let it go hard and then I used to use them for target practice with the air rifle