The Porter County Recycling & Waste Reduction Board voted at its Nov. 13, 2018, meeting to discontinue accepting latex paint at household hazardous waste mobile collection events.
“Latex paint is not hazardous waste,” said Porter County Recycling Executive Director Therese Haller. “We can no longer afford to take this material that residents can safely throw in the trash.”
Despite our best efforts to educate residents to bring only usable latex paint, the district spent $24,000 landfilling unusable latex paint collected at household hazardous waste collection events in 2018 and $16,000 in 2017.
We hoped accepting usable latex paint at collections would be a convenient service for residents. We would then transport the paint to the City of Hobart to help produce recycled latex paint.
Unfortunately residents bring us all their latex paint and don’t differentiate between good and bad product.
Our partnership with Hobart will still allow Porter County residents to take their usable latex paint to 340 S. Shelby St. for recycling.
Residents can also safely dispose of their latex paint in their curbside trash. In fact, if latex paint is bad, dried out, old, separated or nasty, it should go in your curbside trash.
Learn how to properly place latex paint in your curbside trash.
Oil-based paint will continue to be collected at household hazardous waste collection events.