Recycling paint idea came from ‘Dirty Jobs’

A Dirty Jobs viewer is inspired to start his own paint recycling business.

By Josh Shannon
ON THE JOB
Ceil Whig

How did you get your start?

I was actually watching an episode of “Dirty Jobs” where (host) Mike Rowe went out to Oregon and visited a place where they recycled the paint. I was sitting on the couch, there were a couple feet of snow outside, and I said to my wife, “You know, we can do this. If there’s paint there, there’s paint here.” We did it out of our home for a year, and then Cecil County, when I called them, said they needed our services.

How did you train for the job?

Trial and error in the beginning – just figuring out what colors go with what colors to make the paint look consistently the right color. There wasn’t much training. I talked to a couple of people that dealt with paint. Our first customer had a lot of paint that we helped him clean up, and I asked him a lot of questions about what paints work well together and which ones don’t. And then I just crossed my fingers and went for it. We’ve seen a lot of success over the last couple of years.

What essential skills are required?

You should have some sales training in order to go out and sell it. You have to have a little imagination because no one else does this. I haven’t found anyone that does this anywhere close to here. In Florida is the closest competition. But skills? Sales would be one, and a little bit of knowledge of construction and a little bit of ingenuity to make things work. There are no employees – just me. There are not a lot of skills involved, just being able to have a good work ethic.

Describe a typical day.

There are two sides of the business. There’s this side and the sales side. For this side, I work here about twice a week for five hours. I come here to Cecil County, get everything set up, start opening cans of paint, strain the cans of paint and then make the sure the colors are right – bring it out into the natural light and see if the color is right – and putting it into recycled buckets we get from restaurants. Then loading it up and taking it into Wilmington. The other three days a week is spent out selling it.

What kind of people normally buy the recycled paint?

We sell to a lot of folks who have apartments that they’re painting, small painting contractors and municipalities for graffiti coverage. We also donate a lot of paint to nonprofits.

What’s the best part of the job?

Not having a boss. I make my own hours, and the people here in Cecil County are great to work with. That’s a good part. The best part is the fact the paint is not ending up in the landfill. That’s where it would go if it wasn’t being recycled.

What’s the biggest challenge?

The weather. Dealing with the paint this time of year in January is tough. Also, finding enough paint. So we want the people of Cecil County to bring all their paint here that they don’t need. I can’t make it fast enough to keep up with demand.

Visit the original article and read more at ceilwhig.com – HERE

You can watch the Dirty Jobs Paint Recycling segment in episode “Dirty Jobs: Maple Syrup Maker” and view a clip from the show – HERE