How to Dry Out Old Paint for Disposal
It was an absolute nightmare when we were closing on this house. The sellers backed out of just about everything they had promised and it became a take it or leave it situation. We took it, but were landed with way more work than we had planned on. One of the things they were supposed to do was get rid of all of the old paint cans that were sitting in the garage. It can be such a pain to dispose of paint and I didn't want to deal with it.
Imagine our surprise when we unpacked the garage, opened the storage cabinets, and found all of the paint they were supposed to have gotten rid of! I may have said some not so nice things.
At first glance, it was kind of exciting to see so much paint to play with. Upon opening all of it, though, it was old and unusable, so we needed to dispose of it. There are specific guidelines for disposing of paint legally. It needed to be dried out. You can get specific products for this, but I find that they're way overpriced. After looking at the ingredients, I realized that it's just fancy kitty litter.
Fill up the paint cans with the litter. For fuller cans, go slowly because it will probably froth and bubble a bit. This isn't a pretty project, but it's so handy. I left the litter in the cans overnight and they were ready for disposal in the morning. Super cheap and easy way to get safely dispose of those lovely paint cans your predecessors left you!
I edited this because I know there have been some questions and comments. I had this approved by my local hazardous waste management department and my local fire department. In my case, this was completely unusable paint. If you can donate your old paint to someone who can use it, of course you should do that! We also have the once a year hazardous waste drop off, but it's once a year, the lines are hours long, and I felt better getting this paint out of the house quickly. You can toss the absorbed litter in the trash and put the cans out for recycling. I hope this addresses some of your concerns. Thank you!
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Another way is to lay an old tarp, comforter, drop cloth out in the sum. Pour small amounts of old paint and spread out on cloth. Let it dry, keep layering until it's all dry. Then you can throw away empty, dry paint cans without a problem and you can roll up the tarp and throw it away when it is dry.
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I hate to throw paint away but if it isn't used within a certain amount of time, it gets to be unusable. I also use cat litter. works wonderful.
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