Since 1993 Johnson County residents have been dropping off paint, yard chemicals, cleaners and much more to be safely disposed of at the Johnson County Household Hazardous Waste facility operated by the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment.

First located in Mission inside the Myron Nelson Wastewater Treatment Plant and currently located in Overland Park, the Johnson County HHW facility has been responsible for keeping thousands of pounds of hazardous materials out of the landfill and environment.

In 2024 alone, the Johnson County HHW facility unloaded, sorted, separated and recycled nearly 1.2 million pounds of materials, ranging from old gasoline and aerosol cans to DDT and batteries.

The most dropped off item year in and year out is latex paint. In fact, more than 1 million pounds have been recycled since 1993. And many of you reading this now may have dropped off your unwanted latex paint over the years, but what happens to all that paint?

Our journey starts with Johnson County residents coming into the facility to drop off their unwanted paint and household chemicals. Staff unload the vehicles and send them on their way. While the chemicals are separated into different chemical classes, the latex paint is inspected for quality, since no one wants rotten latex paint.

Hardened, moldy, smelly, stinky, rusty paint ends up going to the landfill. The good paint continues to Step 2, the Paint Room, where latex paint cans are opened by hand, checked again for quality and then poured into one of three different colors that are mixing in 100-gallon plastic tubs.

The colors that are currently available are brown, white and gray (the beige is currently down for repair).

From there, the paint is poured into 5-gallon buckets where it is available for purchase to anyone who is interested, even non-Johnson County residents.

Paint can be purchased during regular drop-off days (8 a.m.- noon and 1-3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and 8:30-11:30 a.m. on second Saturday of the month until October). No appointment is needed to purchase paint.

Current paint prices are $20 for brown, $30 for gray and $35 for white. All paint is currently on sale for $10 off per 5-gallon bucket.

And that is the story of how paint goes from an unwanted dust collector in the corner of a ranch house to becoming a new coat of paint for a garage. Support recycling and save money by purchasing re-blended latex paint from the Johnson County Household Hazardous Waste facility.

If you have any questions about recycling, HHW or anything else environmental, please contact me, Brandon Hearn at brandon.hearn@jocogov.org or 913-715-6936.