Crown Decorating Centres: Paint Recycling Scheme Returns

• Crown Decorating Centres brings back sustainability scheme, 'Kick Out the Can'
• Two-week event allows homeowners and DIYers to bring in any brand of unwanted paint free of charge.   

The industry leading sustainability scheme, Kick Out the Can, will return on Monday for two weeks through Crown Paints’ national network of Crown Decorating Centres, offering people the chance to recycle and repurpose paint.   

From Monday 2nd to Monday 16th May, homeowners can bring in unwanted paint cans of any colour or paint brand to any of the 148 Crown Decorating Centres (CDCs) across the country. As an incentive for taking part, customers who return cans to store will be entered into a competition to win a room makeover worth over £150!  

The paint returned is processed and reworked by Crowns Paints social enterprise partner, NIMTECH, and donated to brighten charity, school and other community projects across the UK. The cans are recycled as part of the ongoing Crown Can Back scheme which recycles tonnes of plastic, metal and paper each year.   

Unlike with the hugely popular Crown Can Back initiative, which allows trade customers to return empty cans all year round, CDCs can accept cans from customers that contain any amount of paint as part of the two-week Kick Out the Can event, which takes place annually. The scheme is open to retail customers only.   

In 2021, a total of 23,853 cans were returned as part of the scheme, benefitting a wide variety of community projects across multiple regions. These included: 

• a donation to Preston Prison which used their paint to conduct decorator training 

• Hull and East Yorkshire MIND, the mental health charity, which created a new office wellbeing space for its staff with its paint donation 

• St Mary Magdelen’s School in Accrington which gave its playground a brand-new splash of colour.  

From a base at Crown Paints’ headquarters in Darwen, Lancashire, NIMTECH provides waste recovery and recycling services to the whole of the organisation’s UK operations, including the Can Back and Kick Out the Can schemes.  

The Kick Out the Can initiative, which was first launched in 2012, is part of Crown Paints’ ambition to become an increasingly sustainable business.   

Naiem Wafa, Director at Crown Decorating Centres, said: 

“We’re so pleased to welcome another year of Kick Out the Can, which is a great initiative to help our customers and local communities to be more sustainable, whilst bringing colour to towns across the UK.  

“With Spring now well underway, it’s an unmissable opportunity for homeowners and DIYers to clear out their sheds and garages and get rid of unwanted cans – regardless of whether they are full, half full or empty.  

“We’re proud to be the only paint manufacturer offering this type of scheme in the UK and look forward to a successful two weeks which will hopefully see a record amount of paint returned.”  

Crown Paints.  It’s not just paint.  It’s personal. 

Source : Crown Decorating Centres 

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