Peoria-area residents no longer have to wait for a county collection day to get rid of leftover paint.
PaintCare is a nonprofit created by the American Coatings Association. It has more than 370 year-round drop-off sites across Illinois, including about 30 in the Peoria and Bloomington areas.
These sites now accept paint, stain and varnish for free through PaintCare, a statewide recycling program:
- Born Paint Co., 317 Walnut St., Peoria
- Nena Ace Hardware, 1415 W. Forrest Hill Ave., Peoria
- Sherwin-Williams, 1022 W. Pioneer Pkwy., Peoria
- Sherwin-Williams, 4807 N. Rockwood Dr., Peoria
- Sherwin-Williams, 518 E. War Memorial Dr., Peoria
- Sherwin-Williams, 103 River Rd., Suite C, East Peoria
- Nena Ace Hardware, 901 S. Detroit Ave., Morton
- RP Lumber, 1035 W. Jefferson St., Morton
- Sherwin-Williams, 120 Detroit Ave., Morton
- Niemann Ace Hardware, 2101 Court St., Pekin
- Nena Ace Hardware, 1880 Washington Rd., Washington
- RP Lumber, 900 E. Walnut St., Washington
Kevin Callarman, PaintCare's Illinois program manager, said the sites are permanent and are hosted by paint retailers that volunteered.
"We already have several basically permanent drop-off sites ready to go," Callarman said. "So it's free for households and businesses to walk in any day, drop off their leftover paint at those locations."
Demand
Before the program, Peoria County residents mostly relied on periodic household hazardous waste collection events at sites such as Expo Gardens in Peoria, Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe and Alpha Park in Bartonville.
Callarman said those events put a heavy load on local governments, and paint is a big part of it.
"There is a huge burden on local municipalities who have a one-day collection event for household waste or they might have a household hazardous waste facility that collects leftover paint," Callarman said.
"Paint is very voluminous," he said. "It's very, very costly because of the weight to get rid of it. All taxpayers have to pay for that, unfortunately."
The paint industry sells about 800 million gallons of paint nationwide each year, and PaintCare estimates about 80 million gallons of that becomes leftover paint, Callarman said.
"So it's a huge issue. Everybody has it in their garage," he said.
Callarman said the program keeps that paint out of landfills and shifts the cost from local governments to paint buyers.
"We shift the burden away from local governments and we have more consumer responsibility," he said. "It gives the paint more life because it's being recycled or donated and not just going directly to a landfill."
County collection events are still the place to take items PaintCare doesn't accept, such as motor oil, lawn and pool chemicals, and insecticides. Details are on the county's recycling services website.
Where the paint goes
PaintCare sites take latex and oil-based paint, primer, stain, sealer and varnish. Each site accepts up to 5 gallons per visit. Households and businesses with 100 gallons or more can request a free pickup.
Latex paint is sent to a processor that turns it into new paint, Callarman said. That recycled paint is sold at stores across the country, and Habitat for Humanity sometimes sells it at a lower cost.
PaintCare sites take latex and oil-based paint, primer, stain, sealer and varnish. Each site accepts up to 5 gallons per visit. Households and businesses with 100 gallons or more can request a free pickup.
Callarman said latex paint is "highly recyclable." Once collected, it is sent to a processor that turns it into new paint, which is sold at stores across the country. Habitat for Humanity sometimes sells the recycled paint, which costs less than new paint.
Illinois passed the Paint Stewardship Act unopposed in 2023. The law requires PaintCare to place a drop-off site within 15 miles of at least 90% of the state's population, a goal Callarman said the program has met.
"We actually kind of crushed it," he said.
Dropping off paint is free. The program is paid for by a fee on new paint sold in Illinois:
- Nothing for a half pint or smaller.
- $0.45 for containers larger than a half pint and smaller than a gallon.
- $0.95 for 1 to 2 gallons.
- $1.95 for more than 2 gallons up to 5 gallons.
"It's not a deposit. It's not a tax. It is a PaintCare fee," Callarman said.
The fee covers collection, processing and public education.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency oversees the program.
PaintCare operates in 12 states, including Illinois, and Washington, D.C. It says most of the paint it collects is latex, which gets remixed into recycled paint, and it has collected about 92.2 million gallons nationwide.
For a full list of sites and accepted products, visit paintcare.org/IL.