How can I reuse or recycle paint roller trays?
Is there a word for when you’re window-shopping skips? I was skip-gazing (?) around the corner the other day and as well as having a mighty fine looking pallet in there (yoiiiiink), there were several old paint roller trays flung on top.
Compared to rollers, paint trays are super easy to clean (especially if you line them with a carrier bag first) so I don’t know why they were thrown out. There were a couple of emulsion ones and a couple of smaller gloss ones.
We’ve got plenty of trays for painting ourselves but I guess I could rinse them off and offer them on Freecycle or something.
As for reuses, in the past, I’ve used old roller trays as drip trays under seedlings (the deep part is more useful if you’re carrying them around, they have a tendency to wobble off the shelf bit – but that’s fine catching run off if it’s in one place). What else can be done with them?
Cover it with cling film before you use them then just remove the cling film and it is all clean and use-able again.
A paint roller tray makes a good cat litter tray for a kitten too small to cope with a cat sized tray :)
Would they work for small art projects? Like marbelizing paper?
i do have a few of those sat in my shed and never really know what to do with them, so perhaps that freecycle is the bets way to get rid
i bloody hate those paint trays they are a pain to clean out after use
Great little article, I’ll have to remember to recycle and reuse my next tray. Thanks for the info!
I re-use my many ways!!
Leave them out in the garden and the emulsion paint will perish and mostly break off over winter in the weather.
Now with a reasonably clean tray i reuse mine for dismantling car stuff and cleaning. It holds the bolts and all the bits you could lose. It also double as a de-greasing tray. Also use mine for garden machinery maintenance.
There more usefull than you think….