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One of the theaters where I work is also a nature center. A few shows in, I was told I could no longer use the slop sink to wash my brushes, as it drained directly into the creek–yikes! Knowing they didn’t have it in their budget to buy a ton of brushes for every production, I took a page out of Ellen Jones’s “A Practical Guide to Greener Theatre,” which I picked up at a local USITT conference a few years back and found her suggestion to be pretty helpful… We now implement a two bucket system, where brushes are washed in two different 5-gallon buckets of water. Once the first rinse bucket becomes unusable, it’s disposed of (water evaporated, and the remainder paint mixed with kitty litter). The second rinse bucket then becomes the first rinse bucket, and fresh water is put in the other bucket to become the second rinse. The brushes do get a final rinse with the slop sink, at which point hardly anything is left on the brush that could cause any damage to the ecosystem once it goes into the creek.
Sharing in case anybody runs into a similar issue, but also wondering: Does anybody else have any other systems for a greener way of washing brushes, or ways they’ve had to get around not being able to use a utility sink?
Love the 2 bucket system.
For the slop paint sludge at the bottom of the bucket (and for slop paint in general when it can’t be salvaged) a drying rack is a useful solution that avoids buying kitty litter.
here’s the deal:
Build a setup outside where it won’t be in anyone’s way.
-take an open wooden frame about the size of a folding table (3′ x 6′ is pretty manageable.) Staple some window screen into it, and put it on legs so it’s like a table. (or just use a real window screen in a frame)
-with scrap 1×3, make a quick diagonal rain awning out of scrap plastic, to keep rain from falling on your drying paint.
-Spread a sheet of bogus paper onto the window screen, maybe a staple or two if you’re worried about it blowing away. Spread your slop paint onto the bogus paper in batches of a quart of two at a time. Moisture will wick away through the bogus and ventilated bottom, and the surface will dry to the point that you can roll up the bogus and safely dispose in a dumpster after a couple of days.
I love it! I was getting really tired of waiting for the water to evaporate off.
I’ll give this a shot!
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