Disposing of our paint waste

I disposed of a couple of seasons’ worth of paint rags and paper towels today, along with a bucket of pigment sludge from brush cleaning. Normally, I do this more often but laziness got the better of me and the bags were under a heavy layer of snow so I pretended they weren’t there.

I take my labelled rags and sludge to the chemical disposal section of my local landfill where they take them for free and with thanks. Most communities have chemical collection sites - even the smallest town will often have a regular “bring your old paint, pesticides and all the other deadly things from your garage” collection day so that harmful chemicals don’t end up polluting the land.

We painters tend to forget that we’re using dangerous chemicals in the production of our works of art. Many of us toss our rags in household garbage and flush our solvents God knows where (I try not to think about it), but the truth is that cadmium, titanium, zinc, cobalt, pthalo (whose full name is pthalocyanine!), magnesium, and many, many more pigments that make up our most luscious colours, are toxic in the environment. When we toss our rags and the sludge from our cleaning bucket into the trash, or flush our acrylic water down the drain, we are dumping hazardous waste.

Which puts us in the bad guy camp.

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to get into the good guy camp!

Here’s a link to an article that I wrote about environmentally-sound and personally-safe studio practises for Artsy magazine in 2018. It has stood the test of time:)

So start saving your rags and pigment and do your bit for the planet!

**Oil painters: please read the section in the article about spontaneous combustion and follow my suggestions to avoid it. I’ve never had it happen and I store a lot of oily rags so don’t let the thought of it stop you from doing the right thing.

Happy and responsible painting to you!