Paints, thinners and wood preservatives can be accepted, free of charge, at any of our household waste recycling centres.
If you are disposing of more hazardous waste than 10 items or that will fit inside two supermarket carrier bags, to ensure we have space in our hazardous waste container to accept your waste please get in touch.
Once we have details of your waste we will be able to let you know if space is available. If you turn up at a HWRC with more hazardous waste than this and have not contacted us and received a confirmation email that you can take the waste you may be unable to dispose of the waste.
The following are examples of paints, thinners and wood preservatives that can be disposed of in the waste for energy recover container.
- brush cleaner;
- decking / wood oil;
- paint - oil and water based;
- paint remover;
- paint thinners such as white spirit;
- turpentine;
- varnish;
- varnish remover; and
- wood preservative.
If you have no use for these items please pass them onto someone else who might use them.
Tins, bottles and sprays containing these must be firmly secured to prevent leakages. If paint is still in a very liquid condition you will need to harden it before disposal. You can buy a paint hardener, or add sawdust, sand or soil to the tin and leave the lid off until the paint becomes solid and dry. Please refit the lid and ensure it is fully hardened before taking it to the HWRC.
Paint is not currently reused or recycled however empty metal emulsion paint tins can be placed in the scrap metal skip for recycling. On some sites we have containers for hard plastics. Please ask staff for assistance.
Paint, thinners and wood preservative from a business or charity must be disposed of through a private licensed contractor.
Find out more about paint reuse from recyclenow.com.
Find your local household waste recycling centre
Select your local household waste recycling centre below for more information about other items you can take to the sites, location, opening hours and any restrictions that apply.
View HWRC locations on a larger map
Standard HWRC
Mobile HWRC
Alternatively, select your nearest centre below:
- Mobile household waste recycling centres
- Burniston household waste recycling centre
- Catterick Bridge household waste recycling centre
- Harrogate household waste recycling centre
- Leeming Bar household waste recycling centre
- Leyburn household waste recycling centre
- Malton and Norton household waste recycling centre
- Northallerton household waste recycling centre
- Ripon household waste recycling centre
- Seamer Carr household waste recycling centre
- Selby household waste recycling centre
- Settle household waste recycling centre
- Skipton household waste recycling centre
- Sowerby household waste recycling centre
- Stokesley household waste recycling centre
- Tadcaster household waste recycling centre
- Tholthorpe household waste recycling centre
- Thornton-le-Dale household waste recycling centre
- West Harrogate household waste recycling centre
- Whitby household waste recycling centre
- Wombleton household waste recycling centre