Joyful milestone for major Swindon art project

Swindon Children's Scrapstore's Community RePaint Swindon scheme is celebrating its 25th birthday in November.

It will mark a quarter of a century of redistributing leftover paint and brightening the community.

To mark the impressive milestone, Community RePaint Swindon are running a Half-Term Half Price sale on all their paint, encouraging families and others in the community to benefit from reusing leftover paint. 

Olivia McCann, Swindon Children’s Scrapstore Chief Executive, said: “The aim of celebrating our 25th birthday is not only to mark this important milestone but also to raise awareness of the scheme locally so more people can benefit. 

“We are delighted to be running a celebratory Half-Term Half price sale on all our paints this week, which can be used to bring new life to homes, youth clubs, schools, playgroups and community halls throughout the town. 

"With half term being the perfect time for DIY projects, getting all hands-on deck and keeping the kids occupied, we’d love anyone who is interested in high-quality, low-cost paint, to drop by the Scrapstore!”

In the last 10 years alone, Swindon’s Community RePaint scheme, sponsored by Dulux, has redistributed more than 40,000 litres of leftover paint to local communities to brighten homes and spaces while saving money.

The Community RePaint Project was established in the UK in 1993 to address the issue of paint waste, driven by the staggering fact that 50m litres of paint go to waste each year in the UK, equivalent to 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Leftover paint from individuals, tradespeople, retailers and manufacturers can be donated to any of Community RePaint’s 300 collection points across the country, where it’s sorted and sold for reuse for as little as £2 per litre, or remanufactured into an entirely new product, called “ReColour" paint.

Rebecca Orton, Partnerships Marketing Manager at Dulux, said: “Community RePaint is an inspired solution to the problem of leftover paint, and we are proud of our 30-plus years of partnership with the scheme. 

"By redistributing and reusing paint, we can bring colour to all in the community, help to protect the planet by preventing perfectly good paint from being dumped in landfill or left for incineration.”