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| Home > Resources > Paint > Stewardship In Canada |
Paint Stewardship In CanadaSaskatchewanSaskatchewan launched the Saskatchewan Paint Stewardship Program in April, 2006. The program is funded by eco-fees remitted by industry members, collected by them at point of sale from customers purchasing paint. The fee may be shown separately, or included as part of the price, and is taxable. The fees are remitted to Product Care Association, who will manage the recycling program. Leftover paint can be taken to any SARCAN depot in the province for recycling, and some paint will be made available free of charge as a "paint exchange" (no guarantees on the quality of exchanged paint, though). The eco-fees that customers will pay are as follows (NOTE: 1 gallon and 5 gallon fees wll be increasing Feb. 1, 2011):
For all the details, see the Product Care website. Saskatchewan recycles millionth litre of paint (press release) British Columbia, Quebec, and Nova Scotia also have formal stewardship programs for paint and paint products. BC - First Out of the Box (Can!)Canada's first paint stewardship program was established in British Columbia in 1994. The BC Paint Care Association (PCA) was formed to manage leftover consumer paint as a result of BC's Post-Consumer Paint Stewardship Program Regulations. BC's current system evolved after a similar Post-Consumer Residual Stewardship Program Regulation was enacted in 1997. Two other stewardship associations were formed to manage flammable liquids, pesticides and gasoline. BC Solvent Care Association (SCA) managed paint-related solvents, and the Consumer Product Care Association (CPCare) managed pesticides, gasoline and the solvent from non-paint brand owners. In 1999, PCA and SCA amalgamated to form Paint & Product Care Association (PPC) to consolidate the stewardship of paint and paint-related solvents into one organization. Then, in 2001, members of PPC and CPCare chose to amalgamate into Product Care, which is now responsible for the environmental stewardship of consumer paint, flammable liquids, pesticides and gasoline in BC. See www.productcare.org for more information on BC's paint and other hazardous material stewardship programs. BC's paint stewardship program is funded through eco-fees applied at the point of sale, like Saskatchewan's oil and tire stewardship programs. When BC consumers buy paint, they pay fees according to the size and type of the paint container: (NOTE: Fess on 1 gallon and 5 gallon cans will be increasing in Feb. 2011)
Once consumers are through with their paint, they can bring it back to a Paint Depot. There are 104 consumer depots around the province (plus 3 contractor depots which can accept larger quantities of paint). Many of these are located at bottle depots (which take back beverage containers under their deposit system) or community recycling depots. Paint collected at the depots is put in in plastic tubs and transported to a central processing facility in Surrey, BC. More than two-thirds of the depots operate paint exchanges, which allow the public and non-profit groups to obtain usable paint. Leftover paint materials in larger quantities are also listed on the Recycling Council of BC's Materials Exchange. In 2002, 5.4 million equivalent litre containers (ELCs ) were collected through the Paint Depots. Since the program began, (1994-2002) 27.9 million ELCs have been handled. About 16 percent of the paint collected in 2002 was blended to be used as a fuel. Six percent was reused through local paint exchanges, and 78 percent was recycled into non-paint products like specialty concrete products. The metal paint containers are recycled as market conditions allow. In 2002, half the paint cans (259 tonnes) were recycled. Quebec — Eco-PeintureIn April 2001, Quebec enacted a take-back regulation for paint -- requiring industry to recover 25% by 2002, 50% by 2005, and 75% by 2008. Paint companies not complying with the regulation are fined. A non-profit industry organization called "Eco-Peinture" is structured like British Columbia's paint program and manages paint and paint can recovery on behalf of Quebec's paint manufacturers and brand owners. Customers are levied a flat "eco-fee" of 25 cents per can of paint sold in Quebec; all of the revenues are then managed by Eco-Peinture to pay for the recovery of old paint cans and leftover paints and the recycling costs. The collection infrastructure is a combination of retail take-back and drop-off centers. About 70% of the paint and containers collected comes from municipal programs and 30% comes from collection through retailers. Most of the paint collected is processed for sale as used paint, or is used as raw material to make paint from recycled content. Peintures Recuperees, the processing plant in Victoriaville, is a non-profit organization in charge of recovering and recycling paint and containers collected through the paint program. The company, which employs over 50 people, was founded in 1992. They recovered two million kilos of paint in 2001 and expect to collect 2.5 million kilos in 2002. The estimated volume of available paint is four to five million kilos, leaving plenty of room for expansion. The residues are converted into the raw materials used in the composition of the recycled paint produced by Laurentide re/sources inc. and marketed under the Boomerang name. Steel paint cans are recovered, pressed and shipped to a foundry. Materials that cannot be processed, such as adhesives, strippers and cement, are removed from the sorting line and shipped to companies that specialize in eliminating them. In 2009, over 6,000 tons of paint and containers were recovered through the program. See Eco-Peinture's website (available in French and English)
Nova ScotiaThe Nova Scotia paint recycling program started June 1, 2002. A partnership between the province and the paint industry allows residents to return leftover paint to any of the province's Enviro-Depots at no charge. Nova Scotia's 83 Enviro-Depots are the collection points for their beverage container deposit program, as well as for cardboard, newsprint, car batteries, and now, paint. Nova Scotians buy close to three million containers of paint every year. About 25 per cent goes unused. In fact, the leftover paint generated each year in the province is enough to paint the insides of roughly 6,600 two-storey houses. The Nova Scotia paint program fees are as follows:
All fees are remitted to RRFB (Resource Recovery Fund Board Inc) Nova Scotia, the provincial agency responsible for establishing industry stewardship programs. As the program administrator, RRFB Nova Scotia oversees the handling, transportation and recycling of all post-consumer paints and stains collected through its network of Enviro-Depots. The inaugural year of the program was a resounding success - more than 114,000 cans of paint were returned and recycled into new paint by the Paint Recycling Company in Springhill, a division of Laurentide Inc. Nova Scotia's Eco-Fees are not visible at point of sale. BC's fees are shown on the sales receipt, Quebec's fees are not. Fee visibility can be a contentious issue. Some retailers would rather the fee be visible so that consumers know that the additional cost is not just a regular price increase. Some recycling advocates like visible fees because it reminds consumers when they buy paint that there is a recycling program -- they act as an educational tool. Advocates of hiding the fee believe that recycling is a regular cost of doing business, like labelling and transportation and should not be singled out as a separate cost. See the RRFB website AlbertaAlberta's paint recycling program launched in October, 2007, as part of the "Too Good to Waste" initiative. Albertans purchase over 30 million litres of paint, stain and related products each year, and as much as 5 to 10 percent goes unused. But Albertans have responded well to the program. Since April 2008, over 3 million litres of waste paint (or 3,600 tonnes) have been collected and processed. More than 151 tonnes of paint containers have been recycled in the program since it began. As with the other programs, a recycling fee is included at point of purchase. Alberta's fees are as follows:
New BrunswickRecycle New Brunswick, a government agency, approved a 3-year program commencing April 1, 2009, under the management of Product Care. Paint can be dropped off at depots across the province. Many locations also offer a "paint exchange". Once the paint has been dropped off, it is sent to a paint recycling company in Nova Scotia for sorting. Once the paint has been sorted by type and colour, it is sent to a paint manufacturer in Victoriaville, Que., which processes the paint into a new product. Fees are as follows:
OntarioOntario's paint program was established in 2008, and falls under the auspices of Stewardship Ontario's Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste (MHSW) program. In some cases, fees are added to the price of products at checkout. Brand owners may choose to pass the cost of programs on to retailers, who, in turn, may choose to show a fee separately at point of sale. These fees -- sometimes referred to as eco-fees -- are used exclusively to pay for operating the MHSW program, including collection, transportation, reuse and recycling, processing, research and development and consumer education. The fee is not a tax and none of the funds collected go to government. Paint is collected at both municipal and commercial depots free of charge. Collected paint is recycled into new paint when possible. See Stewardship Ontario's website for more information. The Rest of the CountryNone of the other provinces has a formal paint stewardship program yet, but Newfoundland announced in mid-November, 2010, that they will be creating an EPR paint program shortly. See press release. (Source: WasteWatch, June 2003; updated Dec. 2010) Newfoundland Adopts EPR with New Paint ProgramNewfoundland’s first EPR program has taken some important lessons from recent Ontario experience. The province has given paint brand-owners 90 days to come up with an EPR program that specifically requires the inclusion of design-for-environment principles. Even more importantly, the regulation specifically bars brand-owners from charging stewardship costs as a separate fee to retailers, and retailers from charging a separate stewardship fee to consumers. The cost of the program will be blended into the wholesale cost and retail price, greatly reducing the likelihood of consumer pushback and encouraging price competition, and hence, innovation, among manufacturers. The regulation does not stipulate a start date for the stewardship program. The start date will be part of the plan submitted to the MMSB by industry. However, the plan must provide for the reuse of no less than 70% of the paint collected within one year of implementation. The plan must also respect a hierarchy of beneficial uses: reuse, recycling, (energy) recovery, and finally, disposal. The plan must also acknowledge and encourage design-for-environment principles by describing how paints will be redesigned to improve recyclability and reusability. (Source: Recycling Canada in April 2011 WasteWatch) Update from the Product Care website: Newfoundland and Labrador ("NL") has just passed a paint stewardship regulation, see the regulation (see Part IV, s. 31.1). Product Care has filed a paint stewardship program plan with Newfoundland Multi Materials Stewardship Board (MMSB). The plan is currently under review. A program start date, probably late in 2011 or early 2012, will be determined in consultation with MMSB and key stakeholder input. Any paint brand owner doing business in NL is required to register with MMSB and advise MMSB if they will be appointing an "agent" to operate their stewardship program. The Newfoundland regulation does not permit visible eco fees; see s. 31.14 of the regulation. (Source: Product Care website, as of Nov. 2/2011) RONA extends paint program to Western CanadaHome improvement retailer RONA has extended its used paint recovery program to Western Canada. The program was pioneered in Quebec in 1997 and extended to Ontario in 2010. Consumers in Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC may now drop off cans of any brand of old or unused paint at any RONA or TOTEM Building Supplies store. One hundred percent of returned paint is recycled into new paint, according to a company statement. [Source: Recycling Canada in August 2011 WasteWatch]
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