Ink & Emulsion buckets

[3Deep]

Hey is there anyone that buys old ink and emulsion buckets or what do you all do with them, I've been cleaning them out real good and tossing, but as of late I've kelp them, thinking I can do something with them.  Could I give them away for recycle plastic?

Darryl

[screenprintguy]

Hey is there anyone that buys old ink and emulsion buckets or what do you all do with them, I've been cleaning them out real good and tossing, but as of late I've kelp them, thinking I can do something with them.  Could I give them away for recycle plastic?

Darryl

Funny you post this D! Our next door neighbor to the shop here is a big commercial painting contractor, he does almost all the Lowes stores up and down the East coast of the US. So with that and other stuff, he has tons of 5 gallon plastic paint buckets all the time. I see a huge trailer next to his building with a giant growing load of buckets and then every couple of months it's emptied and starts all over. I asked him what he does with them. Any of them t hat still have some paint in them, since they can only use freshly opened buckets for every job, they dump that stuff that you see mechanic shops dump on oil spills, looks like kitty litter, he dumps that in the pails, he says with in a day it dries it all up and hardens into a big rock in the bucket. They take the trailer to the dump every couple months, this thing will probably have at least 500, to 1,000 5 gal bucket in it. The charge him $50 bucks. Now, they go through all this stuff because it's plastic ect, in the end, they fill a huge dumpster all day with people bringing 5 gal plastic pals, and then dump it in the land fill with everything else. I've been taking our empty 5 gal ink buckets and setting them under a flash unit for about an hour,  hardens up any left over ink, and then I put them on the guys trailer. I contacted the local recycling places, they won't take them if they have the slightest bit of anything in them. And then even if they do, they take them to the dump. Seems crazy since most of the buckets have a recycle symbol stamped on them, but heck, if you can't use it around the shop for something see what your local landfill might do with them. It may be a county regulation thing, but we have found that here, it all ends up in the dump.

[Frog]

If they are clean, and your curbside recycle program accepts the particular number at the bottom, sure, recycle them if no one will give anything for them.

Otherwise, how about keeping some for your custom mixes? Or your screw-up mixes (usually a dark maroon) that you add a little black pigment to?