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Paint Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation

State paint recycling legislation will allow the manufacturers to design a program to recycle used architectural paint.

Status of Paint EPR Bill

The Paint bill has passed the full Senate as part of the Environmental Bond Bill!  The House does not and did not include ANY Senate policy provisions in its version on June 17, 2026.  Therefore, the next step is the Senate/House conference committee where a few people hash out differences between the two bills behind closed doors.

Details: On April 8, 2026 the Senate Ways and Means Committee released their rewrite of the governor’s Environmental Bond Bill (EBB S.3050).   Our paint bill (formerly H.886) language was included as Section 11.

Somewhat surprisingly, the House does NOT start with the language the Senate approved, but starts from scratch, referencing the governor’s original proposal, and leaving out most or all of the policy provisions, just looking at financial projects.  We were already advised that even if 100% of the House supported the paint language, it would be unlikely to make it into the House language, and since the bills won’t match, the entire 2 bills then go to conference committee in private, then to an up or down vote of each chamber, and then to the Governor.  If it makes it through these next steps, we will finally have a law!

The Journey of Paint EPR Legislation in Massachusetts

We think the 25-26 legislative session is the EIGHTH time Paint Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation has been introduced in MA.  What’s different this time?  We started a strong grass-roots effort, including from Greening Greenfield last session, pushing very, very hard, and while it still didn’t pass, we did get an EPR Commission established, whose charge is to report back to the legislature on a number of products including Paint. 

The Commission’s first session focused on Paint was held 5/21/25, and it received a favorable Recommendation at the June meeting.  Those minutes were approved in July, so the final, favorable recommendation from the Commission to the legislature is here.

This session’s Paint EPR legislation is S.647 and H.886.  They are very, very similar, but the House bill adds aerosol paints to the Covered Materials.  Each have passed out of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and moved on to Ways and Means (where they have traditionally died.) 

In early January, the NEW HAMPSHIRE house and senate approved their paint EPR legislation and sent it to the governor for approval, but she vetoed it, claiming it looked like a “tax”. 

Click here for testimony of GG member Peg Hall regarding the Paint EPR legislation.

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