---

When you buy containers of paint in a retail setting, the State of Minnesota collects a fee through the sale price that was created by state lawmakers in 2013.  The fee revenues pay for the “PaintCare Program,” an organized effort for recycling of old paint products and containers.  According to Chisago County’s Household Hazardous Waste Facility Coordinator, Paul Dennison,  the local participation rate has grown as people have become aware of the recycling opportunity at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility and the county’s activity in the paint recycling program keeps growing.  

PaintCare sent the East Central Solid Waste Commission $46,000 in 2023, which was more than the recycling generated in 2022.  

Dennison says PaintCare takes care of the household hazardous waste facility’s disposal costs for paint.

This year the program also paid cash for cans disposed of at the facility in North Branch that held latex paint.  The county collected and processed about two thousand pounds of these and got $606 just for this effort.

The state pollution control agency is now reimbursing the solid waste program here every quarter.  This has happened twice annually.

Paint reuse is also helpful in controlling volumes of waste paint products.  The processing that goes into the re-use area at the facility (shelves of free products) for paint alone generated $2,648 which is double what the recycle task  brought in last year.

The Household Hazardous Waste Facility handles many items besides paint, and the team in North Branch is keeping up with record amounts being dropped off, Dennison adds. (See graphic.) The re-use area has quantities of automotive products, cleaners and more.

The challenge that Dennison sees on the horizon will be batteries.

A usual year not long ago, would bring in a few hundred pounds of batteries disposed of at the facility but in 2023  there were 2,440 pounds of batteries that came in.  Consumers are becoming more aware of the damage done if worn out batteries aren’t properly disposed of.

It has been almost one year since the “recycling yard” was improved and expanded using a state grant— and there have been 216 yard only users who have signed in at the facility.  

The household hazardous waste facility is in North Branch;  go east on Ash Street, from County Highway 30 (at JJ’s Bowl) and when the road makes a T, turn left.

Hours are the last Saturday of each month from 9 a.m. to1 p.m. and (non holiday) Mondays noon to 7 p.m.

---