The American Coatings Association (ACA) submitted a petition to the U.S. Envinronmental Protection Agency (EPA), asking the organization to consider adding paint wastes to the federal universal waste regulations. ACA represents paint and coatings manufacturers, raw materials suppliers, distributors and technical professionals.
In the petition, ACA addressed eight factors and provided proposed regulatory language that would allow paint wastes to be covered by the existing EPA universal waste law, effectively reducing the regulatory burden experienced by paint manufacturers and paint retailers regarding paint wastes and facilitate responsible stewardship for paint wastes.
As stated in the petition, “There is an increasing public awareness and desire for improving recycling efforts as well as finding alternatives measures for waste disposal that reduces the amount of waste going to municipal solid waste landfills. Additionally, a number of states, including Ohio, Texas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and most recently New York, have enacted their own state-level universal waste programs that designate paint wastes as universal wastes. For these reasons, ACA and PaintCare see this as an opportune time for EPA to consider this request.”
