Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

Half a dozen.
The average number of leftover paint cans a family has stored away. Some are nearly full; others are almost empty, but all have one thing in common: the family has no idea what to do with them. A large number of cities have made it illegal to deposit old paint in landfills. Some have specific sites for people to drop off potentially harmful household products and chemicals (including paint), but most people are ill-informed on how or where to do this. Often, these collected materials end up in another landfill farther away from populated areas. The chemicals still harm local water sources and nearby ecology.
In order to combat this problem, and inspired by my Senior Thesis, I researched the process of paint recycling. To recycle paint, old paint cans are collected, and the paint is sorted into three categories based on color: whites in one, greens in another, and all other colors in the final one. The paint is mixed and blended in large, 55-gallon drums for color consistency purposes and then poured into new paint cans to be resold. Often, the paint is sold to nonprofit organizations or schools, but some paint recycling companies sell the new, recycled paint in high-end paint stores. The process reuses and recycles paint that would otherwise pollute the environment.
Charleston, South Carolina, has a recycling program with a paint recycling branch. However, few convenient locations exist where paint can be dropped off to be recycled. Consequently, most people hide a full paint can in the curbside trash bin instead of taking the time to transport it to an out-of-the-way recycling drop-off center.
As part of my research, I asked neighbors, relatives and friends if they had old paint cans and found that almost every home had cans; some were kept for touch-ups, but the majority of the cans were kept because the family had no idea what to do with them. I set out to make recycling old paint simpler and more convenient for people.
After six weeks of planning and marketing, I organized Charlestonâ€™s first county-wide paint recycling day on June 4th. Charleston residents were able to drop-off their paint cans at six convenient, centralized locations. Most locations were at locally owned paint stores to draw a correlation between buying paint and disposing of it responsibly. I utilized newspapers, schools, online media, and posters to spread the word. At the end of that day, over two thousand paint cans were recycled and kept out of the landfill, totaling four tons of material and approximately two and a half tons of paint.
The day kept hundreds of gallons of paint out of the water and from polluting the environment, but it also started a precedent for a day like this one to be held annually or bi-annually. Worth every hour and every bit of effort put into it, this project was more than a success.