Vermont Governor Signs PaintCare® Bill - By Alison Keane
On June 3, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law a bill that provides for the establishment of ACA's PaintCare® program. Vermont is now the sixth state, after Oregon, California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Minnesota, to embrace the PaintCare program — the ACA- and industry-conceived platform for the proper and effective management of postconsumer paint. H.B. 262, An Act Relating to Establishing a Program for the Collection and Recycling of Paint, passed the Vermont House on April 9 and the Senate on May 13. PaintCare had the support of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation and several non-governmental organizations, including various paint producers and independent retailers. Implementation is slated for July 1, 2014.
ACA had actively pushed for passage of the PaintCare program in the state, testifying before the Vermont House Natural Resources and Energy Committee on Feb. 21. In its testimony, ACA noted that the association, along with its industry, is committed to finding a viable solution to the issue of post-consumer paint, which is often the number one product, by volume and cost, coming into Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) programs. ACA also pointed to the resounding success of its PaintCare pilot program in Oregon, as well as more than a decade of success of similar programs in Canada.
ACA created PaintCare, a 501(c)(3) organization whose sole purpose is to ensure effective operation and efficient administration of paint product stewardship programs, on behalf of all architectural paint manufacturers in the United States. PaintCare undertakes the responsibility for ensuring an environmentally sound and cost-effective program by developing and implementing strategies to reduce the generation of post-consumer architectural paint; promoting the reuse of post-consumer architectural paint; and providing for the collection, transport, and processing of post-consumer architectural paint using the hierarchy of "reduce, reuse, recycle," and proper disposal.
The law provides two essential elements for implementing the PaintCare product stewardship program. "These elements are a level playing field among all producers and retailers and the need for a sustainable financing system engaging the consumer," said Alison Keane, ACA's vice president of Government Affairs. "Unless all manufacturers and retailers participate in the program, and participate in a uniform manner, this type of program could lead to competitive advantages and disadvantages within the industry and among producers and retailers. In addition, when it comes to financing a system such as this, competitors cannot agree on the 'price of products or services,' even for a good cause, without running afoul of anti-trust regulations. The law ensures a sustainable financing system for the program, where all architectural paint manufacturers selling in Minnesota will fund the program through an assessment added to their current price of paint."
The assessment will be uniform and will then be passed down through wholesale and retail sales of paint in the state to ensure that competitive disadvantages — particularly to state manufacturers and retailers — do not occur. This assessment will be used to fund paint collection, reuse, recycling, and disposal activities. Of note, consumers who did not previously have access to these programs, or those who had to pay additional fees for such services, such as painting contractors, would be entitled to use the program at no additional charge. That means that consumers will have more places to take leftover paint and that contractors will now have the opportunity to drop off leftover paint for recycling and proper disposal without having to pay a fee at the point of collection.
"Dealing with post-consumer paint has been a high priority for solid waste districts and alliances, but it has come at a significant cost," said Jen Holliday, environmental safety compliance manager of Vermont's Chittenden Solid Waste District. "This law ensures that we can keep household paints out of our landfills and out of people's storage closets, and do so with funding provided by manufacturers— not taxpayers."
The funding for the program will cover the cost of all paint — not just new paint sold, but all the legacy paint already in consumers' basements and garages.
The assessment will also go toward consumer education and outreach for the program as well as administrative costs. Consumer education is paramount in the PaintCare program, since paint is a consumable product. ACA and its industry have always maintained that manufacturers do not produce paint to be thrown away — it is not inherently recyclable — but to be used up. In order to work toward a goal of post-consumer paint waste minimization, the consumer must be engaged. PaintCare's educational program does not just focus on recycling and proper management of unwanted paint, but on buying the right amount of paint and taking advantage of the reuse opportunities that can help reduce the generation of leftover paint in the first place.
Please read full by By Alison Keane at:
http://www.paint.org/news/industry-news/item/1217-vermont-governor-signs-paintcare%C2%AE-bill.html
