Sustainable Management of Latex Paint: Life Cycle and Cost Analysis

1. Jeff Cantin jeff.cantin@erg.com Bev Sauer Franklin Associates (a div. of ERG) bsauer@fal.com May 19-22, 2008 Baltimore MD Life Cycle Analysis Meets Cost Benefit Analysis (in the Paint Aisle)

2. Latex Paint • 343 million gallons sold each year • 64 million gallons left over • Average retail price: $20 per gallon • Cost to municipalities to manage as HHW: $6.00 - $13.50 per gallon (PSI 2004) • “Largest volume material collected by most household hazardous waste collection programs” (EPA 2007)

3. Latex Paint • Basic ingredients • Pigment – color, protection, filler • Resin (binder) – adhesion and film forming • Solvent – water • Co-solvents – alcohols, ethylene glycol • Additives • Thickeners • Fungicides and preservatives • Plasticizers • Defoamers

4. Latex Paint • Health and environmental concerns • Older paints may contain mercury or mercuric compounds (banned in 1990) or lead (banned in 1978) • Contain some solvents (ethylene glycol, glycol ethers) • Bactericides may contain formaldehyde • Toxic to fish (CA DFG 1990)

5. Latex Paint • Disposal options • Liquid – not accepted for landfill disposal • Dried and solidified – nonhazardous, accepted at most landfills • Consumer confusion • Water-based vs. oil-based? • OK to landfill? • How to dry or stabilize? • Result • Substantial quantities brought to HHW collections • Mixture of latex and oil-based paint

6. Stewardship Opportunities Dry and dispose as MSW Increasing Levels of Stewardship • Product reformulation • Eliminate health and environmental concerns • Consumer education • —Buy what you need • —Store properly • —Use it up Direct consumer re-use Collect and reuse/recycle —Send offsite for recycling —Onsite swap or blending • Return to retailer • —Send to recycler • —Send to manufacturer to be recycled • —Onsite blending, re-sale Collect and downcycle Landfill cover or fuel blending

7. Multistakeholder Process • Product Stewardship Institute • National Paint and Coatings Association • 4 paint recyclers • 7 states, 18 municipalities • U.S. EPA Paint Product Stewardship Initiative (PPSI) www.productstewardship.us

8. PPSI Projects • Education Projects • Project #1 Leftover Paint Management Education Pilot • Project #2 Public Education Survey and Analysis • Infrastructure Projects • Project #3 Paint Reuse Guidance Manual • Project #4 National Leftover Paint Infrastructure Model • Project #5 National Leftover Paint Infrastructure Cost Analysis • Market Projects • Project #6 Market Development Strategy • Project #7 Recycled Paint Marketing Guide for Distributors • Project #8 Recycled Paint Certification System • Other Projects • Project #9 Health, Safety, Environmental & Regulatory Issues • Project #10 Financing System Research and Model Development • Project #11 Lifecycle Balance of Costs and Benefits

9. LCA / CBA of Leftover Latex Paint • What are the lifecyclecosts, benefits, and environmental impacts of alternative leftover paint management schemes? • Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

10. LCA / CBA of Leftover Latex Paint • Scoping phase • Define alternative leftover paint management methods • Define relevant categories of costs and benefits • Define the “functional unit” and “reference flow” • Define the system boundaries • Identify potential data sources • Identify data quality criteria • Analysis phase • Data collection • LCA modeling • CBA modeling • LCA / CBA integration

11. LCA Definition • As defined in ISO 14040, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the “compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle.”

12. LCA Process Internationally accepted ISO standards (14040, 14044) provide the framework for conducting LCA: • Goal and Scope Definition • Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) • Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) • Interpretation of Results Goal and scope defined in the first phase of the paint project.

13. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) • The inventory is the basic documentation process on which other parts of an LCA are built. • General concept is simple: LCI is a comprehensive input/output analysis or environmental accounting system • Inputs of materials and energy • Outputs of products and releases to air, water, and land

14. General Life Cycle Flow Diagram Energy Energy Energy Energy Energy Product Use or Consumption Final Disposition:Reuse, Recycle, Landfill, Incineration Raw Materials Acquisition Materials Manufacture Product Manufacture Wastes Wastes Wastes Wastes Reuse Recycle

15. Paint Management Methods

16. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) • Inventory of inputs/outputs from the inventory phase are translated into potential impacts on human health and the environment using impact assessment (e.g., U.S. EPA TRACI) • Classification • Inventory flows grouped into relevant impact categories • Example: Global warming impact category includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, many other substances. • Characterization • Within each category, normalize to common reference substance • For global warming, each substance multiplied by its global warming potential relative to carbon dioxide

17. LCIA Limitations • LCI does not track all the detailed information needed to accurately assess actual impacts of emissions • Individual release locations, concentrations • Direct and indirect exposure routes (inhalation, ingestion, dermal), etc. • Aggregated life cycle emission quantities can represent very different scenarios with different impacts • LCIA is not a replacement for toxicology or risk assessment, but is a useful way to condense long list of inventory flows to a set of meaningful impact categories for directional comparisons

18. Value of LCA • Comprehensive life cycle systems approach ensures that important upstream and downstream impacts are not overlooked • Provides quantitative information needed to make informed decisions • Baseline for tracking & measuring effect of changes for an individual system • Comparisons of alternative designs, formulations, processes • Useful for internal and external purposes • Internal process improvements and designs • Informing customers, stakeholders, or general public • Policy decisions

19. Data Collection • Surveyed HHW programs and paint processors across the U.S. to gather data on: • Quantities of paint collected • Incoming paint transportation (dropoff at facility, collection events) • Sorting • Processing of usable paint (swap shop, on-site consolidation, sent off-site for reprocessing) • Disposal of unusable paint (bulking, landfill disposal of liquid and dried paint, etc.) • Recycling or disposal of paint containers • Additional information/input from workgroup and Infrastructure Report • Model collection and processing system specifications and costs

20. Global warming Acidification Human health – cancer Human health – non-cancer Human health – criteria air pollution Eutrophication Ozone depletion Ecotoxicity Smog Water use Fossil fuel use Total energy use Mineral extraction LCA Results

21. CBA • Account for all private and public costs and benefits associated with each method • Determine which can be monetized

22. CBA • Monetizing LCA impact categories