Since Dulux Trade learnt that every year, of the 400 million litres of paint that are sold in the UK, a staggering 56 million litres are just thrown away, the company has worked tirelessly to find a practical solution as part of its exemplary ‘Step Towards Greener’ programme.

Dulux Trade approaches the challenge of sustainability by considering the whole of the decorating process, and it is making ‘green’ improvements to the larger decorating cycle as part of this. The waste paint and packaging at the end of the process is an important issue, so Dulux Trade is committed to reducing the amount of waste that its customers generate, and is working to enable the greater recycling of paint containers.

Dulux Trade is proud to be the first to market with its Paint Solidifier, a revolutionary solution for the safe, responsible disposal of waste paint. Dulux Trade Paint Solidifier eliminates the practise of sending leftover liquid paint to landfill or pouring it down a drain. When the product is mixed with the leftover paint, it is solidified in the can and then the resulting end product can be treated as normal household waste.

The product has two main benefits for the user. Firstly and critically, waste paint is disposed of in a legal and responsible way, without contaminating landfill or entering the water system. Also, the product makes the can clean enough to be recycled, preventing excess packaging waste going straight to landfill sites.

Commenting on the launch of the Paint Solidifier, Stephanie Brown, Brand Manager at Dulux Trade, said: “It will come as no surprise that - as the paint and coatings industry authority on waste management - Dulux Trade has been first to market with such an innovative solution. The new Paint Solidifier is just one facet of our ‘Step Towards Greener’ programme and our wider environmental position, and it’s crucial to us as a manufacturer to do all we can to give our customers the tools to reduce the amount of waste produced.

“As a company, we have a full lifecycle approach to sustainability and so naturally, we care about what contractors and decorators do with any leftover paint when they have finished a job. We appreciate that this may not be top of their priority list, but Dulux Trade wants to encourage contractors to embrace the shift towards environmental responsibility in the wider market place and implement a more responsible waste management practice as part of this.”

Dulux Trade Paint Solidifier will not only enable contractors to dispose of paint responsibly, but will also allow them to explore alternative ways than just price to differentiate themselves when tendering for jobs in an increasingly tough climate.

Rapidly earning a reputation as the ‘greenest’ paint manufacturer in the industry, Dulux Trade has added the Paint Solidifier to its environmental portfolio, alongside products such as Light & Space, the Diamond Range, and Ecosure.

Light & Space makes rooms look and feel more spacious, and contributes to significant energy savings. It can save on average 20 per cent of lighting energy by enabling light bulbs with a lower wattage to be used to the same effect as standard higher wattage bulbs. It also means that lights can be switched on up to twenty minutes later every day, all of which equates to turning off one in every five 60W filament bulbs.

The Diamond range from Dulux Trade is ten times more durable and ten times more stain resistant than standard emulsions, which means maintenance cycles can be significantly extended, while Ecosure - which was developed with leading sustainability charity Forum for the Future - is the most environmentally sustainable range of paints to date from Dulux Trade. Ecosure has been developed using the Environmental Impact Analyser to tangibly measure its reduction in environmental impact using key sustainability criteria: embodied carbon and VOCs.

Email: sophie.downend@tangerinepr.com