Agenda - 06-26-1996 - VIII-E - Laserfiche WebLink

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14 January 24, 1996 MEMO TO: Chick Krauder - FR: Judy Kincaid RE: Hazardous household products disposal fees This memo summarizes my thinking to date with regard to strategies for implementing a fee to fund household hazardous waste collection programs. There are two basic approaches that might be taken toward state legislation to implement such a fee: (1) a fee imposed at the retail level and (2) a fee imposed directly on manufacturers. Each of these is discussed below. Fee imposed at the retail level North Carolina has already adopted legislation that imposes a fee on white goods and tires when they are purchased from retailers. Revenue from this fee is distributed to each county to assist it in disposing of white goods and tires, which are not allowed in landfills. This same approach was taken during the 1993 legislative session in the drafting of a bill, SB 54, which would have imposed a fee at the point of sale on certain hazardous household items. The bill was revised in the Local Government and Regional Affairs Committee,but it subsequently died in the Senate Finance Committee. Some of the difficulties with the bill were the following: (1) Defining which products were subject to the fee was difficult. The substitute bill imposed the fee on specific items: swimming pool chemicals, antifreeze, motor oil, paint solvents and strippers, oil-based paint, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and wood preservatives. The Department of Environment, Health, and Natural Resources would have been given the authority to exempt specific products based either on their non-hazardous nature or on their commercial, as opposed to household, customer base. (2) The bill also would have imposed a requirement on all counties to establish household hazardous waste collection programs. Not every county was interested in doing this. (3) The North Carolina Retail Merchants Association opposed the bill, since it would have imposed a burden on its members. Fee im2gsed on manufacturers Another approach is to impose the fee on manufacturers of hazardous household products. This approach was used decades ago when North Carolina began enacting fees on feed, seed, fertilizer, lime, and pesticide manufacturers to pay for the cost of inspecting these items sold within the state. These fees could be a model for imposing similar fees on manufacturers of hazardous household products to pay for the cost of the special disposal programs being established for these hazardous products.