Westchester among first counties in New York to offer paint recycling program

VALHALLA, N.Y. — You spruce up your living space with a fresh coat of paint and then face a problem — what to do with the leftover cans?

New York has mandated a new paint recycling program, and, as CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported Tuesday, Westchester County is one of the first to offer it to residents.

Maybe the cans are building up in your basement.

“It’s out of sight out of mind, until it becomes a problem,” said Elsa Koency of West Harrison.

Or perhaps there is a growing collection in your garage.

“Paint is probably the question we get more than any other item. How do I get rid of my paints?” said Lou Vetrone of the Department of Environmental Facilities.

Vetrone says complicated rules requiring the drying of paint for disposal are a thing of the past.

“I had them in my garage. Every time I thought, ‘How am I gonna get rid of these?’ I’d never find a place to get rid of them, and so I finally found this place. It’s great,” said Calvin Wiersma of Dobbs Ferry.

Westchester is one of the first counties to open a “PaintCare” drop-off site. The program is rolling out across New York. Old paints are collected, sorted, and shipped to a facility in New Jersey, where much of the paint is recycled.

“The material that can’t be recycled and reused is destroyed properly in an environmentally-sound manner,” Vetrone said.

The county facility is getting hundreds of cans of paint per day — some of them decades old.

Westchester is making the process easy for you. The paint can be wet or dry. It does have to be in the manufacturer’s can with a label so the county knows what it is handling, and at the end of the process even the can gets recycled.

The county facility has no limit on how much paint residents can bring.

A growing number of retail outlets are also part of PaintCare, accepting five gallons or less.

New York anticipates more than 300 drop-off sites will open in the months ahead, taking the pain out of getting rid of paint.

Just as fees on bottles and cans pay for recycling programs, a fee on sales of paint will fund this effort. The surcharge ranges from 45 cents to $1.95, depending on how much paint is purchased.

For more information on the PaintCare program, please click here and here.