The disposal of used paint and coatings containers containing unused paint present a considerable burden to a sustainable waste management. Paint containers, usually made of plastic or metal, are fully recyclable, but the unused paint remaining makes no possible its recycling without a previous treatment. For this reason, most paint containers end up either landfilled, incinerated or disposed of as hazardous waste at a higher cost and additional stress for the environment. This leads to an unnecessarily large amount of used paint containers (≈90%) considered as special waste which prevents them to be recycled.
Consequently, there is an urgent need to minimize the waste generated by disposed empty paint containers. Eco-Rivest consists of an internal cover (a plastic bag) which decreases the environmental impact of paint packaging by increasing the amount of recycled material up to 88% of the total container weight. The removal of the inner bag provides a clean outer container able to be recycled or re-used as it is.
The main objective of Eco-Rivest project phase 2 will be to plan and achieve the industrialization of the container covering to allow its commercialization in Europe.