Paint Waste Incinerators
Booth filters, overspray solids, masking and contaminated wipes from paint and coating lines.
A paint shop produces a hazardous waste stream that is almost entirely solid: booth filters loaded with overspray, dried paint solids, masking and contaminated wipes, drained containers. It is expensive to consign, awkward to store and a real fire loading. Destroying it on site clears all three — as long as nothing liquid goes near the door.
Four Models,
One Solution
The entry point to the LitBurn range. A 3.3 m³ primary chamber and three burners give continuous 125 kg/h destruction in a footprint that fits a standard yard bay, which makes it the usual choice for a single-site operator replacing skip hire rather than a multi-site waste contract.
The most specified unit in the range. Chamber volume rises to 5.5 m³ for 250 kg/h continuous throughput while the external width grows by only 230 mm over the LBI-125, so sites that outgrow the smallest unit rarely have to rework the slab or the building line.
A 9.6 m³ chamber — nearly double the LBI-250 — for medium-scale industrial waste destruction. At this size most operators pair the unit with heat recovery, because the thermal output during a full shift is large enough to displace a dedicated water heater.
The largest LitBurn: a 16.2 m³ chamber running 500 kg/h continuously. Specified where waste arrives faster than a batch unit can clear it — large manufacturing sites, industrial estates, and operators consolidating several smaller waste contracts onto one machine.
Which Model
Fits Your Volume
Pick a model to see what it clears in a day of paint, coating & solvent-contaminated waste.
A finishing shop clearing filters, masking and contaminated wipes in under a shift a week.
08 01 codes are hazardous
Waste paint containing organic solvents or other hazardous substances codes as 08 01 11*, with related lines through the 08 01 group for sludges, removal waste and coating residues. Contaminated wipes are 15 02 02*. All of them are named at permit application.
No liquid, no aerosols, no part-full tins
The hardest operating boundary in the industrial sector. Bulk liquid and pressurised containers go elsewhere, and containers must be drained rather than closed — a part-full tin defeats both rules at once.
Declare the halogenated condition for solvent-borne systems
Solvent-borne and chlorinated coating systems can push a charge past 1% halogenated organic content, raising the secondary minimum to 1,100°C. Answer it from the coating datasheets rather than from the waste description.
A thermal oxidiser is a different machine
Booth and oven solvent vapour is an air-emissions problem handled by a thermal oxidiser on the extract. This unit destroys the solid coating waste. Confusing the two leads to the wrong equipment on the wrong part of the site.
Why Burn It
On Site
4 things change on the day this stream stops leaving the site.
Hazardous consignments stop leaving weekly
Filters, dried solids and contaminated wipes each generate hazardous movements with paperwork, carriers and gate fees. Destroying them where they arise removes the journey while the classification and records stay in place.
The fire loading in the paint store drops
Solvent-contaminated filters and rags are among the most serious fire risks a finishing shop holds, and the quantity is decided by the collection interval. Clearing them daily is the cheapest risk reduction available.
Booth changeovers stop waiting on a collection
Filter changes come on a schedule the booth sets, not the waste contractor. A destination on site means a changeover is a maintenance task rather than a storage decision.
Solvent is destroyed, not relocated
Two-second retention above 850°C destroys the organic fraction retained in filters and wipes rather than moving it, in the same quantity, into somebody else's yard under your duty of care.
Dual-chamber unit, continuous duty
Primary chamber running 850–1,200°C with a secondary holding flue gas above 850°C for two seconds. Rated to run for a shift rather than for a charge, because an industrial stream arrives at the rate the line produces it and a batch machine simply queues it up in the yard.
Front dual-door loading
Charged through a front dual door at floor level, so tote bins, stillages and wheeled skips are fed at the height a forklift or a pump truck already works at. No hoist, no tipping platform, no lifting waste over a top rim.
What Ships
With The Unit
Identical whichever stream it is specified for. The operating procedure changes; the machine does not.
Dual-chamber unit, continuous duty
Primary chamber running 850–1,200°C with a secondary holding flue gas above 850°C for two seconds. Rated to run for a shift rather than for a charge, because an industrial stream arrives at the rate the line produces it and a batch machine simply queues it up in the yard.
Front dual-door loading
Charged through a front dual door at floor level, so tote bins, stillages and wheeled skips are fed at the height a forklift or a pump truck already works at. No hoist, no tipping platform, no lifting waste over a top rim.
IP6X control panel with cycle logging
PLC control with chamber thermocouples, interlocked charge door and a time-stamped temperature record per run. For destruction that has to be evidenced — brand protection, customer-mandated disposal, off-spec write-off — that log is the difference between a certificate and a claim.
Three-burner set and fuel train
Configured for natural gas, LPG, diesel, biofuel or hydrogen. High-calorific streams such as polymer and rubber need less burner input once they are alight, not more — the burners are there to reach and hold the condition, not to do the work the waste is already doing.
Coretex refractory lining
Monolithic castable lining rated for the full range and for sustained running at the top of it. On plastics and solvent-bearing waste the chamber spends real time near the ceiling of that range, which is exactly the duty that eats a cheaper lining.
Stack, dispersion data and commissioning
Stack to the height your site-specific dispersion assessment calls for, the emissions data pack the permit application references, on-site commissioning, a witnessed first run and operator training for the shift staff who will actually run it.
How One Burn Runs,
Start To Finish
One run is one countable event, reconciled against a manifest and evidenced by a time-stamped temperature log.
One Cycle,
Start To Finish
Adds hazardous 08 01 coating codes and 15 02 02* for contaminated wipes, plus the same hard rule as the absorbents stream: no bulk liquid, no aerosols, no part-full containers.
Bulk paint, thinners and cleaning solvent go to the licensed liquids route. Only the solid, contaminated fraction is destined for the charge — and the split is made in the paint store, not at the door.
Skins and residues are allowed to dry, and containers are drained rather than closed. A part-full tin is bulk liquid in a steel wrapper and is treated as such.
Loaded filters, dried solids and contaminated wipes are fed steadily through the front dual door while the unit runs. Solvent-bearing waste is energy-dense and is metered rather than dumped.
Primary at 850–1,200°C with two-second secondary retention above 850°C, or 1,100°C where the coating system carries the charge past 1% halogenated organic content.
Residue is mineral ash with a pigment and filler fraction, plus any inert metal from filter frames. The hazardous waste record for the material stays on file even though the waste never travelled.
What You Can Burn —
And What You Can't
One run takes the whole stream without pre-sorting. What must never enter it is a short, hard list.
Yes: accepted in a run
No pre-sorting between these
- Spray booth filters and extract mediaPanel, pocket and paint-arrestor media loaded with overspray, the highest-volume item in a finishing shop's hazardous stream.
- Dried paint solids, skins and oversprayCured residues, skins from part-used containers, overspray solids and dried sludge cake from booth cleaning, charged dry rather than wet.
- Cured powder-coat wasteCured powder and reclaim waste that has fallen outside a reuse specification and cannot be returned to the process.
- Masking materials and booth coveringsMasking paper, tape, plugs, peel coatings and booth wall coverings loaded with overspray at changeover.
- Contaminated wipes, rags and PPEWipes, rags, suits and gloves carrying paint or solvent, subject to the same free-liquid rule as any absorbent waste.
- Drained containers and linersGenuinely drained tins, liners and packaging that held coating material and cannot be cleaned for recycling — drained, not merely closed.
No: never charged
Not a permit question — these stay out
- Bulk liquid paint, solvent and thinnersThis class of unit is not a liquid injection plant. Liquid coating material, thinners and cleaning solvent go to a licensed liquids route, where some of it is recoverable.
- Aerosols and pressurised cansSealed vessels under heat, full or nominally empty. Aerosol paint has its own route regardless of how little is left inside the can.
- Part-full tins and containersA part-full tin is bulk liquid inside steel. It is drained to the liquids route first; the drained container can then be charged.
- Two-pack hardeners and reactive chemistry in bulkIsocyanate hardeners, catalysts and reactive components in liquid form are a specialist chemical disposal question, not a solid charge, whatever the booth produces alongside them.
Can you legally burn paint, coating & solvent-contaminated waste on site?
Technically, yes: the chamber destroys almost everything on the accepted list at 850–1,200°C, and capability is rarely the constraint. Legally is a separate question. What your site is allowed to burn is set by your environmental permit from the Environment Agency, SEPA or NIEA and the waste codes written into it. The never-charged list is different again: those materials are out of scope for the unit or governed by a direction, and no permit wording brings them back in. Send us the codes you hold, or the ones you expect to apply for, and we will tell you which of this list they cover before anything is specified.
Send us your waste codesWhat does a paint shop's 900 kg a week take?
Arithmetic on published model figures, not a customer reference. Your numbers go through the same steps.
How This
Was Worked Out
900 kg a week against the LBI-125's 125 kg/h is about 7 hours — under a shift — leaving 27–45 kg of ash and no hazardous consignment leaving the site. Booth filters are bulky and light, so the chamber fills faster than the arithmetic suggests. This stream also rarely justifies a machine alone; it usually rides on the unit the production waste paid for.
27–45 kg a week
0
None
2.5 t
Send your daily or weekly arisings and we will confirm the model, the run time and the permit route.
Related Products
& Services
Complementary equipment and engineering services for your process.
Paint, coating & solvent-contaminated waste Questions
Answered against the published figures for the models specified for this stream, not a generic range sheet.
Paint and coating waste from a finishing operation is mostly solid: spray booth filters and extract media loaded with overspray, dried paint solids and skins, cured powder-coat waste, masking materials, contaminated wipes and rags, and drained containers that cannot be cleaned for recycling. Waste paint containing organic solvents codes as 08 01 11*, with related hazardous lines through the 08 01 group, and contaminated wipes at 15 02 02*. This stream exists because coating waste has almost no recovery route. Cured paint cannot be reconstituted, loaded filters cannot be cleaned, and a container that held solvent-borne coating is contaminated packaging rather than recyclable steel or plastic. What is left, on a conventional route, is a hazardous consignment with a gate fee attached to every drum and filter frame. The exclusions are stricter here than anywhere else in the industrial sector. Bulk liquid paint, solvent, thinners and cleaning solutions go to a licensed liquids route — this class of unit does not inject liquid. Aerosols are sealed vessels and never enter a charge. Part-full tins are both of those problems at once, which is why containers must be genuinely drained rather than merely closed. Where the coating system is solvent-borne or carries chlorinated components, the charge can pass 1% halogenated organic content and the secondary minimum rises to 1,100°C. Note also that this unit destroys coating *waste*; the solvent vapour coming off a booth is an air-emissions problem for a thermal oxidiser, which is a different machine on a different part of the site.
900 kg a week against the LBI-125's 125 kg/h is about 7 hours — under a shift — leaving 27–45 kg of ash and no hazardous consignment leaving the site. Booth filters are bulky and light, so the chamber fills faster than the arithmetic suggests. This stream also rarely justifies a machine alone; it usually rides on the unit the production waste paid for.
No. This is a solids incinerator, not a liquid injection plant. Bulk paint, thinners and cleaning solvent go to a licensed liquids route — where some of the solvent is recoverable, which the hierarchy prefers anyway. What this stream takes is the solid, contaminated fraction.
They are bulk liquid in a steel container and are treated that way: drained to the liquids route first, after which the drained container can be charged as contaminated packaging. Charging a part-full tin is the single most common mistake a finishing shop makes with a unit like this.
They are usually the reason the question gets asked. Loaded filters are bulky, hazardous and generated on a schedule the booth sets, so they dominate both the storage problem and the consignment cost. Destroying them the day they are changed removes the store and the movement together.
No — they solve different problems. A thermal oxidiser treats solvent vapour in the booth or oven extract; this unit destroys the solid coating waste the shop produces. A site with a solvent-borne process may well need both, on different parts of the plant.
850–1,200°C primary with two-second secondary retention as standard, rising to 1,100°C where the system carries more than 1% halogenated organic content. Chlorinated and some solvent-borne systems are the cases to check, and the coating datasheets answer it.
It follows the permitted scope. Residue from coating waste carries a pigment and filler fraction, and because the input was hazardous the residue classification should be agreed with the regulator at application stage rather than assumed to be ordinary waste at the weighbridge.
Ready to
Incinerate?
Send the stream, the volume and the site constraints. We will confirm the model, the permit route, and what the specification has to say to satisfy the regulator.
- Hazardous consignments stop leaving weekly
- The fire loading in the paint store drops
- Booth changeovers stop waiting on a collection
- Solvent is destroyed, not relocated