How to donate leftover paint

Community RePaint is a UK-wide paint reuse network, comprising over 65 schemes across the country that collect leftover paint from businesses, trade and Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) and redistribute it to individuals, families and community groups/organisations at affordable prices. The paint helps local communities to brighten their spaces while preventing leftover paint from going to waste.

Whether you are a householder or a business, we’re here to help you pass on your leftover (perhaps forgotten about) paint for reuse in your local community.

Community RePaint schemes accept all brands of still usable paint, and the paint must be in its original container, non-hazardous and over half full. The paint containers and paint within must both be in good condition and must not have gone off. A quick smell of your paint will indicate whether your paint has gone ‘off’ as this often has a distinctive smell of rotten eggs.

To donate your paint as a householder

Simply use our online householder drop-off point finder to find out if you have a Community RePaint drop-off point nearby. These are located at local authority-run Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) that are signed up to the Community RePaint Network. Click here to find out if there is a drop-off point in your area.

Once dropped off at a dedicated HWRC drop-off point, your leftover paint will either be:

• Sorted by site staff, and made available on the site for residents and community groups in the local area.
• OR collected by a nearby Community RePaint scheme, hosted by a community organisation, who sort, process and redistribute the paint at affordable prices from their scheme premises.

If your nearby Community RePaint drop-off point is in a different local authority area to the one you reside in, it is likely you will not be permitted access to the site. This is a rule set by the local authorities and not us. To prevent being turned away from a site, once you’ve found your nearby drop-off point, get in touch with the local authority or check out their website to find out if you need to be a resident of that area to access the HWRC.

We’re always working hard to expand the network, but unfortunately don’t yet have drop-off points in all parts of the UK. If there isn’t one in your area, help us grow the network by letting your local authority know you’d like to be able to pass your paint on for reuse. Click here to download our template letter.

In the meantime, to prevent your leftover paint from going to waste, we’d recommend reaching out to local societies, community groups and/or charities to see if they could benefit from your leftover paint. Alternatively, you could consider advertising your leftover paint on Gumtree, Freegle or Freecycle.

To donate your paint as a retailer/manufacturer/business/trader:

1. Take a look at our ‘Solutions for leftover trade paint’ webpage here to read about the full criteria of types of paint our schemes can and can’t accept.

2. Following this complete our online form to let us know the details of your leftover trade paint (think paint types, volume of paint, and quantity of full and part-full tins).

3. The central Community RePaint team will then work to identify your nearest suitable scheme. Initially we will liaise with the scheme on your behalf and pass across the details of your paint to them.

4. The scheme will then contact you to organise collecting/arranging receipt of the paint and to discuss any other details, including whether they will be requesting a service charge for accepting your leftover paint. The service charge covers collection and operational costs and will vary between schemes. Any service charge requested will be considerably less than the cost of trade waste disposal.

Want to join the network and reuse paint at your organisation? Find out how you can get involved and help prevent paint from going to waste here.