MetroPaint
Encyclopedia
MetroPaint is a recycled-content latex paint (RCLP) that has been produced in Portland, Oregon
, USA by Metro since 1992.
Metro receives post-consumer latex paint (PCLP) from garbage
customers. Technicians inspect the paint for recyclability
: recyclable paint is sorted by color, and unrecyclable paint is disposed in landfill
s. The recyclable paint is then color-corrected. Additives are blended in, and the paint is then filtered, performance tested, packaged into pails and cans, and sold back to the public at a price intended to recover the program’s labor and material costs.
Metro manufactures the paint primarily as an interior/exterior application, low-sheen finish, in two quality grades: Standard and Green Seal
™ Certified. MetroPaint was the first recycled latex paint to receive certification
under the Green Seal GS-43 Recycled Content Latex Paint environmental standard. [2]
program. While not considered a hazardous waste, latex paint was received by regional garbage customers along with hazardous wastes such as oil-based paints, pesticide
s, solvent
s, and cleaners. In an effort to handle the latex paint in a cost-effective, environmentally-responsible manner, Metro decided to recycle the reusable latex paint and return it to the public.
Initially sorted into only about 5 or 6 basic colors, the latex paint was bulked into 55-gallon drums and then donated to charitable non-profit organization
s or given away to public customers at no charge. Metro encountered difficulties in both finding a market for the drums of paint and in efficiently recycling the paint.
In August 1999, Metro opened their first latex paint recycling facility in Oregon City, Oregon
, USA. This combined recycling and retail center allowed for more efficient processing of the paint, and packaging into more marketable 5-gallon pails. At the same time, Metro began selling the paint
back to the public at a price intended to recoup the program’s labor and material costs, which placed the product’s price up to 80% less than that of comparable new paint. By this time, Metro’s color pallet was increased to about 10 to 12 basic colors. Metro also introduced the "Color Blending Guide", which showed customers that other colors could be created by blending together the basic MetroPaint colors.
As the paint gained in popularity with homeowners, painters, and landlord
s, these customers affectionately dubbed the product "MetroPaint," a truncated version of "Metro’s recycled latex paint". And the name stuck…like paint on primer
. Customer’s continuously provided positive feedback and reviews attesting to the exceptional quality and performance of MetroPaint, especially considering the paint’s low price.
Metro partnered with Rodda Paint
in January 2001 to conduct quality performance testing in an effort to quantitatively demonstrate that MetroPaint was comparable to conventional latex paint. Metro developed a pail label and brand image for MetroPaint. Considerable efforts were given to marketing
the paint, including selling the paint through a few small dealers, though the vast majority of paint sales occurred at the MetroPaint store. In April 2003, Metro improved the marketability of MetroPaint by selling it in 1-gallon cans. In February 2005, Metro relocated the recycling and sales to a new facility, located on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon, USA.
As a result of the Product Stewardship Institution’s National Paint Dialog, in August 2007, MetroPaint became the first recycled latex paint to be certified under Green Seal’s new GS-43 Recycled Content Latex Paint environmental standard. This third-party certification attested that MetroPaint is an environmentally-responsible product that performs as well as conventional latex paint.
Metro developed a new brand image to coincide with the Green Seal certification. In July 2008, Metro began selling "specialty" colors in 1-quart cans. By February 2009, MetroPaint’s color pallet had expanded to about 20 basic colors, several "potpourri" colors, the specialty quart colors, and the color blending guide. In June 2009, Metro partnered with Miller Paint Co as a major dealer for the Certified MetroPaint product line.
s inspect the label and contents of each container to ensure that only latex paint meeting specific requirements is recycled.
Metro sorts the recyclable latex paint into about 20 basic colors. The majority of these colors are standardized, that is, Metro repeatedly produces these colors consistently from batch to batch. However, a portion of the recyclable paint does not "fit" with these standard colors; as appropriate, Metro produces these colors as limited "special" colors to augment the standard colors and reduce the amount of paint wasted in landfills.
Prior to packaging, technicians adjust the batch’s color to match the "standardized" target color using other recycled latex paint; no tints or colorants are used. Once a precise visual match is achieved, a small amount of additives, such as thickeners or preservatives, may be blended into the batch.
The prepared batch of paint is then filtered to remove any particulate matter and packaged into 5-gallon pails, 1-gallon cans, or 1-quart cans.
The Green Seal GS-43 Standard requires that the paint’s performance meets the applicable Master Painters Institute’s (MPI) detailed paint performance standards. As a result, Certified MetroPaint also meets the MPI consolidated recycled latex paint performance requirements for #10-RC (exterior low-sheen) and either #53-RC (interior flat) or #44-RC (interior velvet).
The majority of "Standard" MetroPaint is also performance tested against the same criteria and requirements.
Metro offers limited warranties on both Standard and Certified MetroPaint.
for each color in an effort to recover 100% of the Metro Latex Paint Recycling program’s labor and materials costs, with this goal never being fully realized, until the Oregon Paint Stewardship law went into effect, resulting in PaintCare
.
Beginning July 2010, Metro became the PaintCare-contracted latex paint recycler for latex paint collected throughout the state of Oregon instead of just the Portland, Oregon metropolitan region. The revenue generated by this contract should enable the labor and material costs of this Metro program to be covered.
.
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, USA by Metro since 1992.
Metro receives post-consumer latex paint (PCLP) from garbage
Waste
Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
customers. Technicians inspect the paint for recyclability
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
: recyclable paint is sorted by color, and unrecyclable paint is disposed in landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
s. The recyclable paint is then color-corrected. Additives are blended in, and the paint is then filtered, performance tested, packaged into pails and cans, and sold back to the public at a price intended to recover the program’s labor and material costs.
RCLP Classification
The majority of MetroPaint is produced as a consolidated recycled latex paint, which means the content of post-consumer latex paint (PCLP) is a minimum of 95%. The balance of the ingredients may be post-industrial latex paint or chemical additives. This is contrasted with "remanufactured" latex paint, which must contain a minimum of 50% PCLP.Metro manufactures the paint primarily as an interior/exterior application, low-sheen finish, in two quality grades: Standard and Green Seal
Green Seal
Green Seal is a non-profit, third-party certifier and standards development body in the United States. Since 1989 it has provided independent, objective, science-based guidance to the marketplace and to consumers...
™ Certified. MetroPaint was the first recycled latex paint to receive certification
Certification
Certification refers to the confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person, or organization. This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment, or audit...
under the Green Seal GS-43 Recycled Content Latex Paint environmental standard. [2]
Program History
Metro began collecting and recycling post-consumer latex paint (PCLP) from the public in 1991 as part of its household hazardous wasteHazardous waste
A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...
program. While not considered a hazardous waste, latex paint was received by regional garbage customers along with hazardous wastes such as oil-based paints, pesticide
Pesticide
Pesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...
s, solvent
Solvent
A solvent is a liquid, solid, or gas that dissolves another solid, liquid, or gaseous solute, resulting in a solution that is soluble in a certain volume of solvent at a specified temperature...
s, and cleaners. In an effort to handle the latex paint in a cost-effective, environmentally-responsible manner, Metro decided to recycle the reusable latex paint and return it to the public.
Initially sorted into only about 5 or 6 basic colors, the latex paint was bulked into 55-gallon drums and then donated to charitable non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
s or given away to public customers at no charge. Metro encountered difficulties in both finding a market for the drums of paint and in efficiently recycling the paint.
In August 1999, Metro opened their first latex paint recycling facility in Oregon City, Oregon
Oregon City, Oregon
Oregon City was the first city in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated. It is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon...
, USA. This combined recycling and retail center allowed for more efficient processing of the paint, and packaging into more marketable 5-gallon pails. At the same time, Metro began selling the paint
Paint
Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...
back to the public at a price intended to recoup the program’s labor and material costs, which placed the product’s price up to 80% less than that of comparable new paint. By this time, Metro’s color pallet was increased to about 10 to 12 basic colors. Metro also introduced the "Color Blending Guide", which showed customers that other colors could be created by blending together the basic MetroPaint colors.
As the paint gained in popularity with homeowners, painters, and landlord
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
s, these customers affectionately dubbed the product "MetroPaint," a truncated version of "Metro’s recycled latex paint". And the name stuck…like paint on primer
Primer (paint)
A primer is a preparatory coating put on materials before painting. Priming ensures better adhesion of paint to the surface, increases paint durability, and provides additional protection for the material being painted.-When primers are used:...
. Customer’s continuously provided positive feedback and reviews attesting to the exceptional quality and performance of MetroPaint, especially considering the paint’s low price.
Metro partnered with Rodda Paint
Rodda Paint
The Rodda Paint Company was founded in 1932 by Arthur Rodda along with his first employee Thomas 'Morey' Braden in Portland, Oregon. Rodda is presently the largest regional paint company in the Pacific Northwest....
in January 2001 to conduct quality performance testing in an effort to quantitatively demonstrate that MetroPaint was comparable to conventional latex paint. Metro developed a pail label and brand image for MetroPaint. Considerable efforts were given to marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
the paint, including selling the paint through a few small dealers, though the vast majority of paint sales occurred at the MetroPaint store. In April 2003, Metro improved the marketability of MetroPaint by selling it in 1-gallon cans. In February 2005, Metro relocated the recycling and sales to a new facility, located on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon, USA.
As a result of the Product Stewardship Institution’s National Paint Dialog, in August 2007, MetroPaint became the first recycled latex paint to be certified under Green Seal’s new GS-43 Recycled Content Latex Paint environmental standard. This third-party certification attested that MetroPaint is an environmentally-responsible product that performs as well as conventional latex paint.
Metro developed a new brand image to coincide with the Green Seal certification. In July 2008, Metro began selling "specialty" colors in 1-quart cans. By February 2009, MetroPaint’s color pallet had expanded to about 20 basic colors, several "potpourri" colors, the specialty quart colors, and the color blending guide. In June 2009, Metro partnered with Miller Paint Co as a major dealer for the Certified MetroPaint product line.
Color Sorting
Annually, Metro handles about 270,000 liquid gallons of latex paint received in about 525,000 pails and cans. TechnicianTechnician
A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skills and techniques, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles. Experienced technicians in a specific tool domain typically have intermediate understanding of theory and expert...
s inspect the label and contents of each container to ensure that only latex paint meeting specific requirements is recycled.
Metro sorts the recyclable latex paint into about 20 basic colors. The majority of these colors are standardized, that is, Metro repeatedly produces these colors consistently from batch to batch. However, a portion of the recyclable paint does not "fit" with these standard colors; as appropriate, Metro produces these colors as limited "special" colors to augment the standard colors and reduce the amount of paint wasted in landfills.
Paint Packaging
Metro bulks the color-sorted processed recyclable latex paint into intermediate bulk containers (IBC) or "totes." Between one to three of these totes are produced and packaged as a batch or lot; a typical batch of MetroPaint is between 300 to 900 gallons.Prior to packaging, technicians adjust the batch’s color to match the "standardized" target color using other recycled latex paint; no tints or colorants are used. Once a precise visual match is achieved, a small amount of additives, such as thickeners or preservatives, may be blended into the batch.
The prepared batch of paint is then filtered to remove any particulate matter and packaged into 5-gallon pails, 1-gallon cans, or 1-quart cans.
Performance
Since August 2007, Metro produces some of the paint as Green Seal "Certified" MetroPaint. This paint is certified by Green Seal to meet the requirements for environmental responsibility per Green Seal’s GS-43 Standard for Recycled Content Latex Paint.The Green Seal GS-43 Standard requires that the paint’s performance meets the applicable Master Painters Institute’s (MPI) detailed paint performance standards. As a result, Certified MetroPaint also meets the MPI consolidated recycled latex paint performance requirements for #10-RC (exterior low-sheen) and either #53-RC (interior flat) or #44-RC (interior velvet).
The majority of "Standard" MetroPaint is also performance tested against the same criteria and requirements.
Metro offers limited warranties on both Standard and Certified MetroPaint.
Pricing
Metro sets the price of MetroPaint to leverage the supply and demandSupply and demand
Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers will equal the quantity supplied by producers , resulting in an...
for each color in an effort to recover 100% of the Metro Latex Paint Recycling program’s labor and materials costs, with this goal never being fully realized, until the Oregon Paint Stewardship law went into effect, resulting in PaintCare
PaintCare
PaintCare is a non-profit program created by the American Coatings Association in cooperation with the state of Oregon and officially launched on July 1, 2010 to manage the reuse, recycling and disposal of leftover paint...
.
Beginning July 2010, Metro became the PaintCare-contracted latex paint recycler for latex paint collected throughout the state of Oregon instead of just the Portland, Oregon metropolitan region. The revenue generated by this contract should enable the labor and material costs of this Metro program to be covered.
Waste Latex Paint
About 25% of the post-consumer latex paint received is unrecyclable. This waste latex paint is injected into a landfill in an effort to use the liquids to facilitate garbage decompositionDecomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
.