Paint and Repaint : Firm takes in 5,000 gallons of the oil- and water-based fluid yearly in ‘roundups,’ has it reprocessed and gives it away.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the old paint you bring to the household hazardous waste roundups we have in Ventura County? According to Frank Doerfler Sr., president of MSE Environmental Inc. of Camarillo, who organizes “roundups” for the county several times a year, all the paint gets used.

If it’s oil-based, such as enamel or lacquer, it is trucked off and used as fuel in cement kilns. If it is water-based latex paint, it is reprocessed and used to paint walls in our county. Indeed, if your club, church or community group needs one or 100 gallons of adobe-colored latex paint free, call Doerfler today.

At the most recent collection he ran in November, it took a crew of 50 to handle the stuff--125,000 pounds of it--that people brought to the Camarillo city corporation yard from all over the county.

There was a lot of antifreeze, batteries and old cleaning fluids. But also thousands of gallons of good, usable latex paint in every imaginable color. It’s officially classified as toxic because it would pollute the soil and water if sent to a landfill.

Doerfler’s program, plus the ongoing drop-off program at the Santa Clara landfill and one that just started last month in Thousand Oaks, garners about 5,000 gallons of recyclable paint each year.

It’s all mixed into 55-gallon drums and trucked off to Torrance for high-tech reprocessing at the Major Paint factory, a subsidiary of Standard Brands. This brew is then put into five-gallon paint buckets and brought back to our county to be used for civic good works.

According to David Blevins, Santa Paula Boys & Girls Club executive director, it is a community building tool in every sense.

“We will not tolerate any gang (marking territory) for their members only,” he said. “When we see graffiti, we eliminate it and this free paint is making it possible for us to do it immediately.”

Other recipients of recycled paint are the cities of Oxnard and Thousand Oaks, the Conejo Valley Unified School District and the Conejo Valley YMCA.

According to county employee Michael Evans, who operates an ongoing toxics collection drop-off site at the Santa Clara landfill, individuals can pick up a free five-gallon bucket of paint for reuse. But not if they’re commercial contractors. Groups such as Habitat for Humanity have picked up paint for refurbishing low-cost housing in the county.

Doerfler’s office fills orders from out of the county--Pasadena, Venice, Los Angeles and Glendale. This is because he has contracts to collect paint in Santa Barbara, Lompoc, Palmdale and other places. Of the 12,000 gallons he gives away each year, about 5,600 gallons originate in our county. That compares with a similar amount in San Diego County, which is four times as populous.

A comparable program exists in San Bernardino but, according to Judy Orttung, who runs it, “we’re giving it away so fast, we can’t keep it in stock.” San Diego County reuses every drop that’s collected. They don’t even re-can it.

Upstate, in style-conscious Marin County, which, like us, sends the paint it collects to Major Paint’s Torrance facility, the recycled product returned is so popular that people pay for it. Five bucks a gallon. The Standard Brands store in San Rafael sells it under the label “Cycle II Recycled Interior/Exterior Latex Paint.”

The U. S. Navy base at Point Mugu is getting into the paint recycling act. According to Hubert Kim, vice president of Major Paint Co., if negotiations work out, the Navy plans to acquire recycled paint through Standard Brands in Oxnard in a few months. A seven-year veteran in paint recycling, Kim is also cooking up deals with Santa Barbara County recycling official Karen Feeney for the paint to be used at UC Santa Barbara and by the Goleta Unified School District.

The Paint and Coatings Assn., a national trade group, has adopted a new labeling scheme in the form of “environmental tips” about disposal. It says: “Give remaining paint to your neighbor, church, school or other community organizations” or “save for household hazardous waste paint collection program.”

Doerfler urges those who bring in latex paint intended for reuse to refrain from mixing in any other substance. “Don’t consolidate different kinds of paint like oil-based ones or thinners or solvents in a container with latex because we can’t reuse it.”

* FYI

* Recycled paint (adobe color) in five-gallon containers is available free to charitable, government or educational groups. Call Frank Doerfler at 987-0217.

* Ventura County and the city of Thousand Oaks operate year-round drop-off sites for unused paint. An explanatory videotape on recycled paint aimed at procurement agents and maintenance personnel is also available. Call 658-4677 (county facility) or 496-8679 (Thousand Oaks facility).