To throw away paint brushes instead of cleaning them ?

[Lardlizard]

Used two this week proabky cost about two quid form the range
Just can’t be arsed to clean then
It is water based paint so can be cleaned

Feel guilty chucking them out though

I buy decent brushes and rollers then wash them, but then I feel bad about all the water that it uses to rinse them properly.

I never buy cheap brushes - more hassle than they're worth - so from that standpoint YABU.

And also its so wasteful - both buying and binning.

Yabu, doesn't take that much effort to clean them. I hate this throwaway culture.

Lol ing at i had to scoop out and reward the brush what did it get?? A gold star?!

I'm going to be controversial and say chuck the cheap ones. They will not last. I bet the hairs have started shedding already. I try to buy the more expensive ones that are going to last.

YABU

I hate this throwaway society. We should all try to buy things that last and then look after them.

It probably took longer to start this thread than it would to just clean them.

I hate this throwaway society. We should all try to buy things that last and then look after them.

Whilst undoubtedly true, the problem with that comes when you see the price tag on the built-to-last items and suddenly realise that cheap isn't too bad.

Also, if everything lasted forever, who'd bother making new ones ? Or making better ones. Or making loads of ones ?

If you want "economic growth" then you have to keep making, buying, and throwing away.

Returning to paint brushes, over the years, no matter how clean you try and get them - pricey ones too - they are never quite the same again. One of the first bust ups (of many) FiL and I had was seeing me throw brushes away (FiLs father was a painter and decorator, and FiL gave me a lot of really good tips). Eventually he insisted on cleaning them to show me what a wuss I was. A few minutes later he said "put them in the bin" with a look of disgust.

I guess if you splash out a small fortune on a set, they might be truly reusable. But then how many times are you painting your house ? It would need to be every month to make sense ...

yeah , that’s the prime reason .. nothing to do with farming , factories , cars, lorries etc.. etc..

I presumed she meant that attitude was why we are in trouble. The mass use of cheap goods that are dumped, in their production, transport and destruction. Not 2 paintbrushes alone. The mindset

I presumed she meant that attitude was why we are in trouble. The mass use of cheap goods that are dumped, in their production, transport and destruction. Not 2 paintbrushes alone. The mindset

A casual glance at the smartphone market shows why we need to throw things away . Very little actual innovation in the past 10 years, and yet they are having to charge more and more for the new models that are no better than the last.

40 years ago the ongoing supply of new customers drove the market. But with a population reaching to 8 billion, that's lost it's shine.

I rinse mine out so pretty well all the paint has gone and then put them in the washing machine on a short wash with old towels. Good as new.

You can’t be bothered to run a brush under a tap? Christ you’re a lazy get.

I've cleaned a brush under a running tap for fifteen minutes and the water still doesn't run clear. I know water is cheap, but I think it might take more than £2 of water to clean a £2 brush. Even if you value your time at only minimum wage, it may take more than £2 of your time to clean a £2 brush.

I've always cleaned brushes, but TBH it would make more economic sense to just throw them away each time.

^During the job, I wrap them up to keep them fresh for next time.

It is difficult to wash them out thoroughly and washes paint into the drainage system which is not consequence free for the environment. White spirit to wash out oil based paints should not be washed down the drains at all.

During the last DIY project we had, compared to the amount of builder's waste and rubble produced, paint brushes will have scored less than 1% of waste produced^

^ This. We decorate about once every five years, if that. It doesn't take seconds to clean a brush, you can be there for ages rinsing and soaking and washing paint into the drains^ using gallons of water in the process and the brush still isn't clean. And that's just water based paint.

I gave up washing paint brushes out when I worked out that the turps I'd used to ineffectively clean a brush had cost more than the brush I'd tried and failed to clean and we don't buy particularly cheap brushes, just look for decent ones on offer.

Life's too short and in the great scheme of things, a couple of paint brushes and rollers every five years is absolutely nothing, even for an otherwise low consumption household like ours and I hope that none of the people criticising the OP are those types who wash clothes and towels after one wear/use, bleach toilets every day, use shower gel and shampoo etc by the gallon etc etc.

I chuck mine when the paint colour doesn't come off! Not that I do much painting but I can't usually find my decorating box which has all the equipment that I need so end up buying more anyway before finding said box once the painting is finished exactly where it should have been!! But I do agree with buying decent quality brushes as they do last for several paint jobs.

throw them in the waching machine if you can't be arsed!

I always do that. Haven't cleaned a paint brush in years.

My partner does this. He buys cheapy ones (which aren’t great tbh). Uses them and bins. Not great to be honest! Tbh cheap ones don’t tend to last anyway. So it’s not like are binning expensive brushes.

*Also, if everything lasted forever, who'd bother making new ones ? Or making better ones. Or making loads of ones ?

If you want "economic growth" then you have to keep making, buying, and throwing away.*

Why? Why do we need constant 'growth'? Why do we need to perpetuate a system which has royally fucked the planet and has more people in slavery than during the transatlantic slave trade? Why is it a good thing?

The way that everything is made to be so disposable nowadays annoys me too. My grandmother kept a twin tub washing machine going for 35 years; in those days, things were more repairable. Now the norm is to just buy a new one. I'm clinging on to my iPhone SE, with its cracked screen, for as long as I possibly can.

Now, this is what I want to know. If you're using gloss paint, where you most often need white spirit (horrible stuff, with its labels "dangerous to the environment") to clean the brushes, what do you do with the spirit afterwards? It's not good to pour it down the drain.

I've sometimes left it in a bowl in the draughty shed (with the door closed so no animals can reach it), and found it's evaporated a few days later.

I would clean water based paint. That's easy. Easier than cleaning a cooking pan.

Oil paints, I might consider throwing away...

Anyone who think it makes more economic sense to throw paint brushes away perfectly illustrates why capitalism has fucked the environment.

Buy decent brushes in the first place and learn how to clean them properly.

We got a set of good quality paint brushes from Costco for £10. There's about 15 brushes in there, so say 65 pence each.

It would defintely take more than 65 pence worth of turps to properly clean a brush that has been used for oil based paint, and as turps is a nasty chemical, there's the impact of that to consider too.

You might be able to clean the brushes used for water based paint for a negligle cost of water, but there's also the time aspect. If it takes more than 5-10 minutes of effort, then my time is worth more than that considering that this pack of brushes could well last the rest of my life considering that I don't decorate that often. Please tell me how to clean a brush properly so that it is useable in 5 years time next time I want to decorate, without significant effort.

I'm very low impact in many ways, so this is one of the few things, where I'm thinking 'fuck it, life's too short' And my city incinerates non recyclable waste to generate energy so there's no landfill anyway.

It's pretty abhorrent to throw them away you would think. But when you wash them, the bristles come out of the cheap ones and they never come clean enough to be used again with a pale colour in my opinion. Even if they did come clean enough, you'd have used litres and litres of water to wash them.

The expensive ones are more durable, but the cost is not affordable for everyone, not when you're buying all the paint etc. It may be a false economy to buy the cheap ones in the long run, but that argument doesnt hold water when you don't have enough money for the pricey ones at that moment.

Why? Why do we need constant 'growth'? Why do we need to perpetuate a system which has royally fucked the planet and has more people in slavery than during the transatlantic slave trade? Why is it a good thing?

You know something ? I agree with you. And (weirdly) so does Nigel Farage. Admittedly for all the wrong reasons, but that's a different kettle of fish.

However, we are where we are, etc etc. "Economic growth" is the mechanism by which all societies with weapons have decided to live by on this planet, so we're the weirdos here .

Anyone with half a brain cell should be able to work out that the only way economic growth can continue indefinitely is for the population to keep growing, and presumably expand to new planets. The problem is when so many peoples livelihoods are built on economic growth, then it becomes very very easy for them to suddenly stop thinking about it.

Still, we're supposed to challenge our kids, so it's not all bad, eh ?

Is it that, in this global economy, not growing means you're actually shrinking?