Peek inside any kitchen cabinet under the sink or scan the shelves in the garage and basement, and you’re likely to discover a familiar assortment: partially used paint cans, a jug of antifreeze, corroded batteries, and an aerosol can of unknown origin. According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates, a single household may accumulate up to 100 pounds of hazardous material, often left untouched until a move or a major cleanup.
Household hazardous waste, encompassing paints, solvents, pesticides, cleaners, and automotive fluids that become toxic, corrosive, or flammable when discarded, remains one of the least monitored waste streams in the U.S. Most of these items lack a producer-funded recovery pathway, ending up in trash cans, storm drains, or forgotten on shelves.
However, leftover paint stands out as an exception. It is the largest category by volume and benefits from a multi-state recycling system run by PaintCare, funded by the industry. This initiative offers insights into managing other types of hazardous waste.
In 2018, the last year the EPA gathered data, Americans generated approximately four pounds of household hazardous waste per person annually, totaling around 530,000 tons nationwide. Paint, used motor oil, batteries, pesticides, and cleaning chemicals are the major contributors.
The primary concern is not the quantity but the disposal method. Improperly discarded products, whether down the drain, on the ground, or with regular trash, can have tangible consequences. The EPA cautions that such practices can pollute groundwater and surface water sources, corrode plumbing, interfere with septic systems and wastewater treatment plants, harm sanitation workers, and pose risks to children and pets. The same properties that make a solvent effective in the garage render it dangerous in landfill leachate ponds.
The reason household hazardous waste often goes unmanaged is that federal regulations do not classify it as hazardous waste. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’s household waste exclusion means waste from routine domestic activities is exempt from industrial hazardous waste regulations. Instead, it is managed at state and local levels as ordinary solid waste.
This results in no federal obligation for businesses to manage these products once consumers are done with them. The responsibility for collection and safe disposal falls to municipalities and their taxpayers, if such programs exist at all. Many communities offer only a single collection day annually, or none at all. This gap highlights the significance of paint’s recovery system.
Paint manufacturers established PaintCare in 2009, a nonprofit created through the American Coatings Association to manage paint stewardship programs in states with relevant laws. Maryland’s program launched in April 2026, becoming the 12th state with such a program, along with the District of Columbia; Illinois joined a few months earlier in December 2025.
The program’s reach is notable. PaintCare reports managing approximately 85 million gallons of paint, stain, and varnish across participating states. Over 70 million gallons were collected through neighborhood drop-off sites and events, with an additional three million-plus gallons gathered via more than 10,000 large-volume pickups from contractors and institutions with significant stockpiles.
The majority of returned paint is water-based latex, which is remixed into paint with recycled content. In California, leftover paint is also repurposed into retaining wall blocks, landscape stones, and parking stops, demonstrating that “recycling” in this context involves real secondary markets, not merely diverting waste from landfills.
PaintCare provides free, year-round drop-off at paint stores, hardware stores, and municipal facilities, replacing the traditional once-a-year collection event.
Never do this:Â Pour paint, solvents, or automotive fluids down the drain, onto the ground, or into a storm sewer, and never dispose of liquid hazardous products in the trash. Keep products in their original, labeled containers, and never mix incompatible chemicals.
PaintCare is funded by a small fee added to new paint purchases. In Maryland, this fee ranges from 50 cents to $2.25 per container depending on size, with no fee for containers a half-pint or smaller. This fee is the visible cost to households and the mechanism that keeps the system operational. Maryland’s legislation mandates that 90% of residents must live within 15 miles of a collection site.
This initiative exemplifies extended producer responsibility (EPR), a concept where the cost of managing a product at the end of its life is incorporated into the product itself rather than being borne by the general taxpayer. The fee supports the drop-off network, transportation, processing, and public education. This creates a closed loop where paint buyers finance paint recovery, and the convenience of the system encourages its use.
The broader savings are harder to quantify: paint kept out of waterways, avoided landfill liabilities, and reduced disposal costs for municipal budgets. These benefits, while not always easy to express per household, are nonetheless real.
Paint is just one item in a broader category. Batteries, electronics, pharmaceuticals, mattresses, and packaging are all moving towards producer-funded recovery in various states, and paint serves as proof that the model is scalable. When a modest fee supports a truly convenient collection system, like bottle deposit programs, materials that used to disappear into trash or storm drains begin to return.
When New Hampshire’s governor vetoed a paint stewardship bill in 2026, the reason given was that the fee represented a new tax on residents. However, it’s more of a cost reassignment: the public already pays to manage household hazardous waste, albeit less efficiently, through municipal collection days and the environmental impact of uncollected paint. EPR makes this cost transparent, links it to the product, and funds a more effective recovery system.
The issue isn’t whether households pay for leftover paint management — they always have — but whether that payment funds an effective system.
PaintCare’s success across 12 states and the District of Columbia is the strongest evidence that it can. Expanding this model to other types of household hazardous waste and states without a paint program is the most straightforward way to address the gap left by federal law.
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