Partially-used paint tins > milk bottle

[Ian Jackson]

The usual way of storing partially-used paint tins is to turn them upside-down, so that the skin that invariably forms is at the bottom of the paint when next you use it.

Although not original, I've realised that the flexible translucent plastic milk bottles (typically 1 and 2 pint sizes) make pretty good containers for the unused paint. After decanting the paint, just carefully squeeze the bottle until the paint level reaches right up to the rim of the neck, and screw the top on (tightly). That way all air is excluded, and a skin is prevented from forming. [And don't forget to label the bottle!]

Anyone see any problems?

[Adrian Caspersz]

Magnolia Tea!

Lifetime in the shed? Plastic degrading?

I keep old paint tins for years.

[Ian Jackson]

Very refreshing (or so I'm told) - and pale magnolia emulsion is sometimes almost indistinguishable from certain types of full-cream milk.

While it might be wise to keep the bottles where any leakage will be retained, I don't think that plastic milk bottles are designed to self-destruct in the short-term.

That's the trouble. I have some dating back probably 40 years - but heaven knows how usable they still are. [I really should chuck them out

- but I'm not sure how welcome half-used tins of paint are at the local 'recycling facility'. Reports are that, these days, admission is like getting through a hostile border passport control and customs, and you are likely to be charged the earth for anything resembling 'non-domestic'.] Now if I had put the left-overs in flexible bottles, squeezed to get rid of the air, a quick inspection would have told me.

[tabbypurr]

plastics don't last very well. I'd guess milk bottles are some sort of PE, which is not one of the longer lived plastics.

It's easy to find out what state the contents are in. Tips take paint cans, but getting into a tip is atm impossible IME. Rubbish bins also take paints, so do giveaway lists like freegle, facebook, gumtree etc.

NT

[Ian Jackson]

A quick Google reveals that milk bottle are HDPE - and that it is pretty long-lived if kept out of the sunlight.

[F Murtz]

Left to themselves our milk containers degrade fairly quickly and become brittle, do not know what they would do with paint in them.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

I have feet to spread the weight, attached to the corner steadies of my tourer caravan. They are attached via a plastic pin. I bought these around 18 years ago, but quite soon managed to snap the retaining pins. I replaced the pins, with the rolled up plastic milk bottle material - cut a large rectangle and simply roll it up to form a pin. Each time I have changed caravans, I have simply moved the feet and pin to the newer one. The have been there, out in the sun and whether for around

17 years, with absolutely no deterioration.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

As long as the paint does not attack the plastic of the bottle or go brittle with cold if left in an unheated garage for a couple of years. Its usually the tops that split. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Paint these days often comes already in plastic tins, if that does not sound weird. I had some putty in one of those plastic containers, it went dry due to the lid getting a crack in it. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I remember going to my waste processing station, the name for the tip that week, being told that paint was not accepted and there was a company of all places in the City of London which could reprocess it. Its no wonder there is so much fly tipping going on. Brian

[Ian Jackson]

Interesting (and reassuring). I had a quick look in the garden shed, and immediately saw that a 2.5 litre bottle of path and patio cleaner was HDPE. I'm sure some other bottles of other stuff were also HDPE, but the triangle (which would have had the '2' on it) was too small for me to read in the fading light.

[Ian Jackson]

In message <rleilo$bmk$ [e-mail], "Brian Gaff (Sofa)" [e-mail]> writes

I haven't been to the local tip since they started charging (in my mind, for what I have already paid for in a £3k+ council tax).

However, some years ago I did take a few partially-full tins of old paint, and was told just to lob them in the skip for ferrous metals.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Ian Jackson used his keyboard to write :

A local charity shop always has around a couple of dozen part used tins of paint on one of there shelves. Usually it is top quality commercial grade paints and with delivery labels in place, as if it has been donated by a professional decorating company.

Me, I keep paint for a few years after decorating - you never know when you might need to do some patching to cover damage, so I write on the tins where the paint was used. My stored tins came in just a couple of weeks ago.

[tabbypurr]

+1, crazy not to. IME most things can be patched up & go for a good while longer before a full repaint is needed.

NT