County OKs membership stew
Melissa Flores • City editor
hollister
The San Benito County Board of Supervisors last week voted 3-2 to join the California Product Stewardship Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, and to write a letter of resolution in support of the agency’s “extended product responsibility.”
Supervisors Margie Barrios and Jaime De La Cruz voted against the item.
The goal of the agency is to make manufacturers responsible for products at the end of their life span. So far, it has brokered take-back programs for paint that will be implemented in San Benito in the coming months, for carpet and for mercury.
“The producer of the product takes responsibility for it at the end of its life,” said Mandy Rose, the director of Integrated Waste Management, at the meeting a week ago.
Rose said with other take-back programs, such as those with computers, residents pay an electronic waste recycling fee when they purchase the products. Retailers collect the fee and turn it over to the state’s board of equalization, which distributes it for programs that handle the materials at the end of their lifespan. Unlike that program, the legislation passed last year on the paint take-back program requires the manufacturers to create a program to take unused paint back.
“They got together and decided how to do it in a framework that would work,” Rose said. “Then they came back to CalRecycle with a contract.”
Rose said the agencies and manufacturers are still working out the final details, but the new program could save the county up to $50,000 a year from its Household Hazardous Waste Program that now accepts paint.
At the meeting, Rose went over the benefits of the county in joining the California Product Stewarship Council for $1,500 a year. The fee would be split among the three jurisdictions in the county, with the county paying $495 of the membership. Hollister would pay $945 and San Juan Bautista would pay $60, on a per capita basis.
Rose said the San Benito County Chamber of Commerce’s Green subcommittee started discussing the resolution in January and met about it the day before the board meeting.
Supervisor Margie Barrios asked if the county would receive the same benefits of the agency if the county submitted only a resolution supporting the agency and did not become a member. She also wanted to know if the Regional Council of Rural Counties or the California State Association of Counties were already a member and if the county could get the benefit of membership through those agencies.
Rose said she believed the agencies had supported the agency, but were not members of the Stewardship Council. Barrios wanted to support the resolution without the county putting money in for the annual membership to the Stewardship Council.
Supervisor Jerry Muenzer noted that the membership fee would not come out of the general fund. Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz said he did not want to join the agency without knowing more about the history of it and its mission.
“I want to research it,” he said.
Rose said the value of joining the stewardship council goes beyond the advocacy on the program.
“Recently, in particular with the take back issue contract, the stewardship council used their legal staff for legal advice on how to deal with it,” Rose said. “It would not be a cost to us or our staff time. But they will only give advice to the people who’ve paid in.”
