British Coatings Federation Launches New Website, Digital Campaign for PaintCare

As part of their PaintCare program, the British Coatings Federation (BCF) has launched a new website and digital campaign which aims to help the UK public make better use of their leftover paint. On average, each household in the UK has six cans of unwanted paint in their shed or garage, which when disposed, 98% of it ends up landfilled or incinerated.

The website, www.paintcare.org.uk centres on three main messages to help get the public involved: buy right, use it up, and recycle the rest.

PaintCare estimates that 30% of people have leftover paint because they bought too much. To help reduce the amount of leftover paint generated in the UK, the new website encourages visitors to ‘buy right’ and includes links to paint company calculators to help consumers calculate how much paint they need before they buy. To promote the ‘buy right’ message, BCF have launched a digital campaign promoting advice to consumers. The campaign features two videos that can be viewed at www.paintcare.org.uk/buy-right or from the BCF’s YouTube channel.

The website also advises consumers on how to ‘recycle the rest’ with a new paint recycling locator provided by Recycle Now in partnership with Valpak which allows users to find their nearest Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) to recycle their unwanted paint. Visit http://www.paintcare.org.uk/recycle-the-rest/ to use the locator. For consumers interested in purchasing remanufactured paint, the website features a dedicated area showcasing the organizations that remanufacture new paint products from leftovers – visit http://www.paintcare.org.uk/buy-remanufactured-paint/. Finally, the website highlights the ways consumers can ‘use it up’ and make use of unwanted paint in other household projects at http://www.paintcare.org.uk/useitup/.

Tom Bowtell, Chief Executive of the BCF said: “To date, we’ve largely focused our efforts with PaintCare on working with government and industry to bring down the barriers to paint recycling in the UK. With our new website and buy right digital campaign, we’re getting the public involved and are encouraging consumers to do what they can now to help make better use of household leftover paint. We are hopeful that in time there will be a truly circular framework for leftover paint, with a national HWRC network for consumers to recycle their paint, and more remanufactured paint products for consumers to purchase.”