Tuesday’s presentation was delivered by a member of the Dalton waste management and recycling committee, who said that the fellow Berkshire community embraced paint stewardship in the face of rising waste costs.
“After careful study of the ways to address this issue, paint stewardship seemed like the perfect first step, and after confirming it was working well in Vermont, New York, and Connecticut, I became an advocate this for this law. The need for paint stewardship is based on Massachusetts having a solid waste issue. This problem results from 6 million tons of waste being generated annually in Massachusetts with only 3.2 million tons of annual incineration capacity. This leaves 2.8 million tons of waste needing to be landfilled, that has to be hauled out of state, with a high ever-increasing cost and a very large carbon footprint," said Thomas Irwin. “Paint stewardship is a program where, as you may recall, any amount paint can be returned to any participating paint retail store or transfer station whenever they open without a disposal cost. The cost to consumers is 75 cents to $1 per gallon of paint at time of purchase. 80% of the collected latex can be reprocessed to as new condition and sold for 50% of the original cost. The oil-based, paint 100% of that could be incinerated and possibly 20% can be recycled.”
Irwin says the program offers three major benefits to North Adams.
“First, it will serve the North Adams residents with something that they're going to value," he said. "This is quickly apparent by noting that 92% of 735 Massachusetts residents dropping off hazardous waste at household hazardous waste days signed a petition requesting that their legislators become co-sponsors.”
The second is that the program would come at no cost to the municipality.
“And there'll be a decrease in household hazardous waste day costs, which will free significant annual [Recycling Dividends Program] money for other solid waste concerns," Irwin continued. "And third, it will be a matter for future product stewardship legislation that will address additional items including mattresses, solar panels, packaging and others.”
Irwin said the goal of stumping for paint stewardship at the municipal level was to drum up support for legislative efforts on Beacon Hill. Western Massachusetts State Senators like Paul Mark and Jo Comerford have signed on to a Senate bill supporting the program, and all three of Berkshire County’s state representatives have endorsed a bill in the House.
“There's an entity created by the paint manufacturers called PaintCare, and PaintCare is responsible for administering this program throughout the United States," said Irwin. "They're the ones that do the hauling to the reprocessing plant, they're the ones that pay for the reprocessing. All that's taken care of with the roughly 75 cents per gallon.”
Retailers would be able to choose whether or not to volunteer for the program.
“So, the small retailers like it because it means increased foot traffic because the program is designed that, they don't care where you purchased it, they don't care when you purchased, they don't care what state you're from," Irwin explained. "And so, it means more foot traffic because Lowe's, Home Depot, and Walmart are not interested in- They're not against the program, but they're not interested in collecting the paint, usually, themselves.”
Irwin said if North Adams agreed to endorse paint stewardship in Massachusetts, he would pass it on to Senate and House chairs of the Ways and Means Committees to demonstrate that municipalities are on board.
“And so far, we have 22 resolutions for municipalities, and I expect at least 40 to 50 when I’m finished by mid-April,” he told the council.
The North Adams city council agreed to consider Irwin’s proposal and return to the topic at a future meeting.
