Newlife Paints collects waste paint from domestic recycling centres and re-processes it into more than 28 colours of high-quality emulsion paints.

The small family-owned company, Newlife Paints, re-processes water-based waste paint into a premium grade emulsion paint, providing new life to paint that would otherwise go to landfill. People often have paint tins with surplus paint in their garages, which they dispose at waste or recycling sites. Newlife collects the surplus water-based paints from domestic recycling sites around the UK. Once collected, the old plastic containers are sent for recycling, while the paint is sorted, treated and re-processed with natural clays into 28 new colours of premium emulsion. All of their paints contain at least 50% recycled materials, according to the company.

Fifty million litres of paint per year are sent to landfill or incineration in the UK, and 300 million across Europe, according to the company. Instead of letting all these resources go to waste, Newlife Paints uses the discarded paint as their raw material and re-processes it back into new paint. Newlife Paints’ business model exploits the cost-savings potential of reusing materials, which saves money on raw materials. The company is selling licenses for the process and technology, which is expected to be taken up by other European countries including The Netherlands and Belgium.