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Date: 11/27/2023
LUDLOW — Dalton resident Thomas Irwin met with the Board of Selectmen at its Nov. 7 meeting to discuss a proposed paint recycling legislation.
Irwin is a Massachusetts paint stewardship advocate for a bill that is presently in front of the state legislation for the seventh time.
“I learned of paint stewardship, loved the idea, did some research and became an advocate for this important environmental legislation with three other independent individuals,” he added.
Irwin has been visiting different municipalities across Massachusetts in hopes of gaining support for bill H.823 and S.551.
According to Irwin, paint stewardship is a program that allows residents to discard unwanted liquid latex and oil-based paints at a participating retail store any day that the store is open.
The retailer collects the return paint in totes and when a tote is full, they call Paint Care who will get the tote, haul it to a reprocessing facility where the paint is then brought back up to the standard of new paint and sold to entities such as Habitat for Humanity and Restore.
Paint Care is a national agency nonprofit set up by the paint manufacturers to make it easier to recycle leftover paint in states with paint stewardship laws.
Why is paint stewardship needed?
Irwin referenced the model being used in Clifton Park, New York, that is now pursuing to become the model in Massachusetts.
Irwin explained that Massachusetts generates over 5.2 million tons of trash annually and has 3.2 tons of waste incineration capability.
“The remaining two tons of trash needs to be landfilled however, we have only five active municipal landfills in the state of Massachusetts and no new landfills being planned. The majority of these two tons of trash then need to be hauled out of state to places as far away as Ohio, Western New York or South Carolina,” Irwin said.
This process can be expensive and leave a large carbon footprint so this bill would help reduce those two areas.
Irwin said, “Fortunately, there is a way we can begin addressing this problem. Implementing product stewardship for waste streams such as paint, mattresses, plastics and packaging will help us begin decreasing this expense and burden.”
The consumers part is paying an extra fee of up to $1 per gallon at the time of purchase. For five gallons it would be a $1.75.
“Consumers would be charged a fee of less than $1 a gallon of paint. They would then be able to return their paint cans containing unused paint free of charge to drop-off sites at participating paint retail stores and transfer stations. They are not trying to make money, they are trying to break even,” Irwin added.
Irwin explained that are there are multiple benefits that Ludlow would see from this paint stewardship bill.
Irwin said that the most important benefit is it would be a service that residents value.
He explained, “Interestingly, between 30% and 60% of latex return to Enfield, Connecticut Sherwin Williams actually comes from Massachusetts residents. Also, 95% of 530 residents dropping off items at five separate household hazardous waste days that I spoke to sign the petition encouraging their legislature to become a co-sponsor of this legislation.”
Irwin added that this bill would help with the solid waste issue by decreasing one category of waste going landfills and would also significantly decrease the toxic waste created when oil based paint is discarded inappropriately.
He said it would also present no cost to municipalities, decrease household hazardous waste day costs, decrease greenhouse gases generated by the paint industry by approximately 4% and would likely be a model for future product stewardship legislations.
Irwin explained only 5% of the 6,000-7,000 bills presented in each two year session of the legislature, only 5% of them actually reach the floor for a vote.
“A bill needs to either have big savings or big social demand to be considered. Unfortunately, the saving for implementing paint stewardship would only be an estimated $2 million which is big money for you and I, but chump change for the state of Massachusetts,” he added.
Irwin said there are currently 27 representatives and 11 senators who are co-sponsoring this bill including state Rep. Aaron Saunders (D-Belchertown) and Sen. Jake Oliveira (D-Ludlow) but is looking for more people to be aware of the bill.
“This is significantly more support than enjoyed in any of the previous six session however, to improve the chances this legislation passes this session, more work is needed. When the bill arrives at the Ways and Means Committee later this year or early next year, it is important to have a letter from as many municipalities as possible encouraging the committee to view the paint stewardship legislation favorably and send to it to the floor for a vote.”
The Board of Selectmen said that they support the bill and will talk to the DPW and local stores to see if they will volunteer to take part in the program.
Board of Selectmen Chair James Gennette said, “I like the idea of the whole thing. We would just have to get some knowledge around if DPW is prepared to manage that which shouldn’t be too big of a deal because if Ace [Hardware] decides that they don’t want to do it in Ludlow, there is no alternative. Worst case scenario is both places do it but I’m all in and the letter for the state will be easy to do.”