Hotels are gold mines (green mines) of paint waste! Sitting in the bowels of the building, in a storage room, or straddled over several parking spaces a few levels underground, or out on the loading dock, partially used paint buckets and canisters abound. A single property can have one to three tons of paint waste per building. That’s as much as 800 gallons of paint!

Reasons Hotels Have So Much Paint Waste on Site
•Paint that matches the existing palette is needed anytime there are structural renovations or remodeling.
•Corporate or property interior designers change the paint color schematic. Paint is needed for ongoing maintenance and touch-ups. Often, when the color scheme changes, facilities departments do not discard the old paint so it continues to be stored and creates a hazard.
•New pricing contracts with paint supplier vendors. When the corporate brand negotiates a cheaper rate with a new paint supplier, properties have palettes of leftover, unopened or partially used paint from the old supplier, which are unusable because the paint base chemistry formulas are different.
•They cannot find a vendor to haul it off and properly dispose of it.

Reasons Hotels Must Get Rid of Paint Waste
•They are in violation of the fire code, risking fines as high as $10,000.
•Unused paint is off-gassing into the hotel’s ventilation system.
•It confuses the maintenance staff when they try to correctly identify which gallons of paint to use for touch-ups.
•It takes up an enormous amount of storage space.

Reasons Hotels are Unable to Get Rid of Paint Waste
•Junk haul companies are not insured to touch and handle these items. They have no disposal method, and their trucks are not DOT compliant.
•Moving companies are not insured to touch and handle the items. They have no disposal method.
•Landfills prohibit such commercial waste.
•There’s too much paint waste for any one vendor to try to handle discreetly.

When hotels hire a company like Yuck Old Paint to safely remove and eco-handle their paint waste in a safe and legal manner, they enjoy the following benefits:
•They are no longer in violation of the fire code and at risk of being fined. The cost of paint removal is usually less than the fine that would be imposed. The property can provide documentation to the fire marshal that the problem was handled in a responsible manner by a professional services company.
•Earn up to 2 LEED points as well as comply with operations criteria for a number of green hotel certifications.
•Win back much needed storage space.
•Fulfill corporate responsibility expectations, such as supporting the brand’s sustainability pillars, or completing an Earth Day activity. Not only are properties choosing a safe and sustainable method for disposing of harmful products, they are contributing to a social cause. The old paint can be used in humanitarian construction projects.
•Have new social media content to demonstrate their commitment to operating as a greener facility.

Yuck Old Paint was founded by Chief Yuck Officer, Raea Jean Leinster, in response to an unmet market need to remove old paint cans from the multitude of clients she has worked with for over a decade as a faux finisher and decorative painter.