Maryland Legislature Adopts PaintCare Bill

On March 29, 2024, the Maryland Legislature adopted a measure that would bring the PaintCare program to the state. The bill, HB0001, will be sent to Gov. Wes Moore for signature.

If the PaintCare bill becomes law, Maryland would join Oregon, California, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Minnesota, Maine, Colorado, Washington, New York, Illinois and the District of Columbia, all of which have enacted legislation for implementing the ACA- and industry-conceived platform for the proper and effective management of post-consumer paint.

ACA and its industry are 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 Hazardous Household Waste (HHW) programs.

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 program is designed to relieve a considerable financial burden on local governments, which currently funds these programs.

The legislation would require PaintCare to establish a paint collection site within 15 miles of 90 percent of the state’s residents. Permanent collection sites must be set up for every 50,000 residents of a population center.

The funding for the program collected via an assessment fee 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 would also go toward consumer education and program outreach, as well as administrative costs. ACA believes that consumer education is paramount with this type of program since paint is a consumable product. ACA maintains that manufacturers do not produce paint to be thrown away, but rather, to be used up.