Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Being a Good Citizen Takes Time


I just finished doing some painting in my garage. While checking out what paint to buy, I got a surprise. The previous painter of my garage used oil-based paint for the job! The bucket of very watery paint in my garage was oil-based but I didn’t know that until the paint store manager pointed this out to me. I don’t like oil-based but he told me that if I wanted to use water-based paint on the walls I would have to sand them and apply a primer coat on first.
Rather than going through all the extra work, it’s now painted with a second coat of oil-based paint.

Warning to anyone considering this option…use water-based. It will take less time in the long run. Cleaning up the brushes and drips off the floor and myself took at least twice as much time. And now I’m looking for some local business that will take the mineral spirits/paint mixture and dispose of it in a safe manner. Life isn’t simple when we become concerned about our environment and don’t do things like pouring mineral spirits in a sink and rinsing out the sink or putting it in a container in the trash. (It is a poisonous substance that shouldn’t get in our ground water.)

What happens to poisonous stuff like the paint brush cleaner I plan to dispose of after I leave it at hazardous waste recycling center? That’s on my list of things to learn about. The mixture is in a sealed container in my garage. When I recycle it, I hope to find a worker at the center who can answer my question.

No comments:

Post a Comment