I know that I sometimes bang on about the evils of plastic and the sinfulness of using the stuff but plastic paint pails are heavenly!  They are so good I get all evangelical about them.

For quite a while I have used the ten litre plastic paint pails in the garden and in the workshop and for all sorts of stuff.  In the garden I use them to carry garden tools, soil, mulch, compost, and weeds that I have pulled out.  In the garage workshop I use them as rubbish bins and for sorting out the recycling.

We also use them here at Ecotech Services.  As well as for the small amount of waste going to landfill we use them for some of the sorting stages, especially for batteries.  The pails themselves are pretty strong and they have a really  strong carry handle.  Compared to those cheap and nasty and flimsy buckets that you can buy from the supermarket the recycled paint pails are pretty damn good.  And you have to actually PAY for the ones from the supermarket.  Ok, it may only be a couple of dollars but the paint pails are FREE.

Over the years I have made a bit of a study of the pails.  They used to only have paper labels and they used to be hard to peel off.  On some of the newer pails the label peels of really easily and you are left with a nice clean looking pail.  I don’t usually care much for my own appearance (hey, look at how I dress) but it is always good to have a professional image for the company.  I have even painted over the labels that are moulded into the plastic to make them look good.

And that leads to the next thing.   I think the in-mould labels are being used more often and I would want to paint over them.  Would this make the pails (which are made of polypropylene) harder to recycle?

Since I am talking about paint pails I thought I had better mention the Resene Paints paint and packaging takeback scheme.  They reuse and recycle what they can. Good on ya Resene!