Solvent Recycling

Austin Hayes use a lot of paint – understandably. We tend to end up with considerable quantities of waste paint, being the leftover parts of tins of paint or mixed paint in excess to that required.

We also buy a lot of solvent, some of which has to be disposed of when not fully utilised on the job.
We buy three types of solvent: one for use with single pack paints, one for use for two pack paints and ‘gun wash’ for cleaning equipment.

Waste paint and solvent must be disposed of as hazardous waste and stored in special containers prior to removal by a specialist waste disposal company.

Austin Hayes took the decision to invest in two state of the art recycling machines that allow us to pour waste paint into a machine that then extracts liquid solvent that we can re-use as gun wash. The process also produces a compressed cake of paint solids that can be disposed of easier and more cost effectively than liquid paint.

We bought two D60 Ax LCD Distatic solvent distillation units at a cost of £30,000 in November 2013. The estimated cash payback on the investment is 4 years, not taking into account the environmental and carbon footprint savings.

We save money on buying gun wash, waste disposal costs and we minimise our effect on the environment.

To finish the cycle completely we also then crush the empty paint tins and store them in a dedicated skip prior to removal by a metal merchant, again saving money on landfill costs and environmental impact.