Recycling paint

The city of San Francisco blends all the latex paint collected by the city's household hazardous waste programme. The beige paint is given away to nonprofit groups and youth organizations, theatres and individual residents, as well as being used by San Francisco's airport and municipal housing authority. Latex paints make up about 30% of the hazardous materials brought in to the city's three-day-a-week collection programme; oil-based paints, which make up another 30% are burned as fuel. The cost of collecting and reprocessing the paint is $2.50 per 5-gallon container.