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Paint Recycling Program Gets Green Light in CA

Thursday, August 2, 2012

More items for Good Technical Practice

California is ready to recycle some paint.

Nearly two years after Gov. Schwarzenegger approved legislation for the PaintCare program, PaintCare Inc., the nonprofit outfit in charge, has received its final OK and is set to begin Oct. 19.

ACA

California becomes the second state in the U.S. to implement a PaintCare paint-management program.

CalRecycle (California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery) officially approved the state’s PaintCare program plan July 19.

More Recycling Sites

The goal of the program is to significantly increase post-consumer architectural paint collection sites and recycling opportunities for residents, small businesses and other generators of post-consumer architectural paint, while providing cost savings to municipal household hazardous waste collection programs.

An outgrowth of Assembly Bill 1343, the PaintCare program covers everything from operations, to program products, collection infrastructure, budget, and education and outreach.

The PaintCare model program was developed by American Coatings Association (ACA), which represents paint and coatings manufacturers.

Tapping Oregon’s Success

“The state had the opportunity to give us conditional approval, but we are pleased that we received full approval,” Marjaneh Zarrehparvar, the executive director of PaintCare, told D+D News.

PaintCare Inc.

The California PaintCare plan seeks to reduce costs for municipal household hazardous waste collection facilities. Shown here, paint reprocessing at San Francisco’s HHWCF.

The approval shows that the state has confidence in the organization’s ability to implement the plan and work with federal, state and local governments, she said. Moreover, the program’s success in Oregon also contributed the state’s confidence.

Meanwhile, Oregon’s PaintCare program is rounding out its second year of implementation. Zarrehparvar said that an annual report will be released sometime after Sept. 1.

Dream Realized

Getting the green light on the plan was a first step to implementation, which will likely take two to three years for full-scale deployment, Zarrehparvar noted.

The $25-$30 million program seeks to have 750 collection sites scattered throughout the state. But these sites won’t all be ready by day one.

Meanwhile, the organization will continue its efforts to notify affected parties and distribute materials about the program and its assessment fees to paint retailers, contractors and manufacturers, Zarrehparvar said

85 Manufacturers

The ACA reports that 85 manufacturers have registered in the state, with more responding each week.

PaintCare has also identified more than 500 municipal paint collection sites and events, and has started the process to partner and contract with the agencies that manage these programs.

The organization has also identified more than 2,700 paint retailers and 1,000 contractors. Outreach to these groups began in April.

Paying for It

Modest additional fees on retail sales of paint will fund the program’s paint collection, reuse, recycling and disposal activities. The assessment fees in California will be the same as those implemented in Oregon, she said.

The fees will be 35 cents for small containers such as quarts, 75 cents for gallons, and $1.60 for five-gallon pails. Those fees could be adjusted to reflect operational costs, Zarrehparvar added.

California is the second state to implement the ACA’s PaintCare model, following Oregon. The East Coast is not far behind, though. Legislation for programs in Connecticut and Rhode Island has been approved, and the programs are in the throes of outreach and plan development.

Clarifying the Rules

ACA said CalRecycle had to go through a regulatory rulemaking process to clarify the California statute for several items, including the stewardship plan approval criteria; a process for CalRecycle to accept payment for its services related to oversight and enforcement activities; the establishment of a progressive enforcement approach; and criteria for acceptance of annual reports. 

The regulations went far beyond the statute and would be difficult and costly at best for PaintCare to implement, ACA said.

Thus, litigation on the regulations may be forthcoming, but the ACA said this will not interfere with PaintCare’s ability to put the program in place in California, since the program will be based on the approved program plan.