San Joaquin County was awarded a $400,000 17th Cycle Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Grant from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) to develop a statewide paint product stewardship program in partnership with the City and County of San Francisco and the County of Tehama. CPSC is the primary project partner.
This project taught consumers how to buy the right amount of paint, properly store leftovers, and provide reuse and recycling options. For paint that cannot be reduced or reused, the project goal was to increase collection of unused paint for recycling and stimulate the recycled paint market. The key project goal was to develop a paint stewardship program that would be handed over to the paint industry to manage and that can be a national model.
Media coverage from this grant is listed below under Press.
Project Objectives
Objective 1. Education on Paint Collection and Source Reduction
1.1 Conduct 2 focus groups to test PPSI consumer education materials.
Two focus groups were conducted by Elliot Benson Market Research to study consumers' reactions to paint outreach materials. The results of the focus group were fascinating. The most eye-opening messages conveyed by the participants were:
Consumers have very little time to read materials. Limit text, preferably to bullet points wherever possible.
There is a huge disconnect between local government and individuals. Only one out of 20 participants made the connection that when something costs local government X amount, in reality, that means them - taxpayers and rate payers.
Technology has changed the way we receive information. Only one participant out of 20 listened to the radio. None of the participants said they were likely to notice a newspaper ad. Instead, they suggested putting outreach information at the point of sale, in trade magazines and on home and garden television shows.
Only one out of twenty participants knew where to find the local household hazardous waste facility.
1.2 Develop final educational materials for distribution to retailers and the public.
Outreach materials were created for this project to educate consumers on how to buy the right amount of paint and avoid waste. The materials include a poster to display at paint retail stores and a "take home" card for consumers to keep for future reference. The card includes a matrix and a formula to help consumers determine the right amount of paint to buy.
18"x24" & 12"x16"
Be Paint Wi$e
Retail Poster - English
5.5"x5.5"
Be Paint Wi$e
Consumer
Take-Home Card - English
5.5"x5.5"
Be Paint Wi$e
Consumer
Take-Home Card - Spanish
If you would like to reproduce these documents,
please contact us at info@calpsc.org for print quality files.
1.3 Distribute educational materials to 45 retailers in 3 participating counties.
Paint Grant Retailer Outreach
This document lists the 69 stores in the three participating counties that agreed to display public education materials developed under the grant.
1.4 Give 24 presentations to local governments, retailers, businesses, chambers, and others.
Letter to National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) Chapters Requesting Paint Presentation 2/10/11
2.1Develop educational pieces and model language integrating EPR and use of recycled content and low-toxicity paint products into purchasing policies, etc.
A
paint procurement survey was developed to evaluate whether the presentations on recycled-content paint procurement motivated participants to purchase recycled-content paint.
Objective 3. Recruiting New Paint Collection Sites
3.1 Conduct barrier study, including visiting and surveying 45 retail stores.
San Francisco commissioned S. Groner Associates to conduct a study to identify the barriers and motivators to retailer participation in the retail latex paint collection program. Feedback from the study can be used to address the barriers and capitalize on the motivators to ensure a successful latex paint collection program. A total of 32 paint retailers in the three counties were surveyed, including “big box” retailers, franchise paint stores and “mom and pop” stores. The Final Barrier Study was completed March 31, 2010.
Key findings include:
Primary motivators included the retailer’s concern for the environment, utilizing the program for marketing, providing good customer service, and the opportunity to give back to the community.
Primary barriers included a lack of space to collect paint, concerns over abandoned paint and other hazardous materials.
Big Box retailers were extremely concerned about potential ambiguity regarding rules and regulations and generally distrusted the administering body.
In San Francisco, approximately 70% of respondents stated limited floor space was their primary concern, which is double that of the other counties.
Those who chose not to participate in the collection program cited concerns over staff time as a strong barrier to participation
3.2 Develop final guidelines to establishing successful paint collection sites.
Retail Collection Recruitment Guidelines 4/15/11 This document contains a summary of the steps taken to recruit retailers to participate as latex paint collection sites, as well as information about supporting retailers, data collection and advertising.
Training Binder for Retail Latex Paint Collection Sites
The thirteen documents in this binder were developed to explain the pilot latex paint collection program to participating retail collection sites and to serve as training and reporting tools for the participating sites. These documents are also available in MS Word format.
Contact us to request the MS Word version of any or all binder documents.
3.3 Meet with 30 potential collection sites in 3 participating counties.
Paint Grant Retailer Outreach
Meetings were conducted with 69 retailers (also listed under 1.3 above) from a list of 89 identified potential collection sites that were originally contacted.
Recycle Latex Paint Commercial —KBLF Radio, Tehama County
3.5 Evaluate paint pilot projects and summarize findings.
Retail Paint Collection Site Follow-Up Questionnaire
CPSC conducted follow-up surveys with retail paint collection sites to evaluate the collection program. The surveys provide important feedback about the program from the retailer's perspective and will be used in preparing the final written evaluation. Surveys were conducted in June and July, 2010 and in January 2011.
Three full paint swap sites were recruited where residential paint generators can both drop off and pick up latex paint free-of-charge in San Joaquin and Tehama Counties.
A fourth site, the St. Elizabeth's Hospice Thrift Store in Red Bluff, is acting as a distribution point for paint collected through the County's household hazardous waste program and is selling the paint for a nominal fee; however, this site is not a drop-off site.
Tracy Color Center
318 West Grant Line Road, Tracy, San Joaquin County
Tehama County/Red Bluff Landfill
19995 Plymire Road, Red Bluff, Tehama County
Rancho Tehama Transfer Station
17605 Rancho Tehama Road, Corning, Tehama County
St. Elizabeth's Hospice Thrift Store
320 South Main Street, Red Bluff, Tehama County
Advertising to Promote Reuse Sites
KBLF interview with Kristina Miller and Heidi Sanborn 3/25/11
Objective 5. Paint Product Stewardship Program Roll-Out
5.1 Gather information on existing infrastructure, gaps, paint collection methods.
Preliminary Statewide Survey of HHW Programs: Paint Volumes, Costs and Program Cut Backs—San Francisco Department of the Environment 12/09, rev. 2/27/11
The City of San Francisco gathered information from July to November of 2009 from local governments on paint disposal costs, amounts collected and current or planned reductions in service due to budget constraints to develop baseline cost, tonnage and service data.
5.2 Work with industry and PPSI on determining steps for California program roll-out.
Calaveras County Considers Product Stewardship —Stockton Record 11/1/09
The San Joaquin paint product stewardship pilot project was mentioned in a recent Stockton Record article as an example of an industry-supported product stewardship program.
Disclaimer: This document was produced under a grant by San Joaquin County. The statements and conclusions contained in this document are those of the grantee and not necessarily those of the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), its employees, or the State of California and should not be cited or quoted as official CalRecycle policy or direction. The State makes no warranty, expressed or implied, and assumes no liability for the information contained in the succeeding text. Any mention of commercial products or processes shall not be
construed as an endorsement of such products or processes.
San Joaquin County was awarded a $400,000 17th Cycle Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Grant from the 
4.2 Determine target audience and disseminate reuse materials.
