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Benjamin Shingler
Telegraph-Journal

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FREDERICTON - New Brunswickers can now feel free to paint the town red - or any other color - and still be green.

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STEPHEN MACGILLIVRAY/canadaeast news service

Dr. Yves Gagnon, vice-chairman of Recycle NB, left, speaks in Fredericton on Wednesday during the announcement of a new provincial program to recycle old paint.

A new program launched by Recycle New Brunswick, the province's independent recycling body, will turn waste paint that would otherwise end up in landfills into new, recycled paint taken back to the market.

New Brunswickers will be able to drop off their old cans of paint at designated points around the province - such as bottle depots and waste management sites.

By April, Recycle New Brunswick says at least 70 per cent of the waste paint collected will go towards the production of new paint.

Yves Gagnon, vice-chairman of Recycle NB and the K.C. Irving Chair in Sustainable Development at Université de Moncton, said the new program could lead New Brunswickers to recycle one million cans of paint - which on average are about a quarter full - every year.

But the new program will come at a price. New Brunswickers will soon pay extra for a can of paint. The added fee will be used by the paint industry to cover the cost of managing the program.

Murray Driscoll, chairman of Recycle New Brunswick, said New Brunswickers will be prepared to pay a little extra to help keep paint out of landfills - and the water supply.

"I think people are willing to pay a modest fee so that we can send our planet to our children and our children's children in better condition," Driscoll told reporters at the announcement in Fredericton.

Driscoll said the program shifts the onus from waste management facilities to paint retailers and producers.

"Industry will be the ones who will actually be responsible for getting the paint and processing the paint, and we will be the overseers to make sure the program works," he said.

Similar recycling programs could soon be launched to recycle oil and electrical appliances, Driscoll said.

The paint program follows the success of the province-wide tire recycling program, launched in 1996. Since then, New Brunswickers have paid a fee when they purchase tires to keep rubber out of landfill sites and help recycle it into other products, such as rubber bark mulch and synthetic slate shingles.