Boss Gentz painted himself into an environmental corner

Product Stewardship is pure common sense, except to him...He called it "onerous"

By Will Collette

One of Rep. Donna Walsh’s top legislative priorities, right up there with the economy and ethics, is the environment. 

She has covered the full spectrum of environmental problems ranging from groundwater protection to open space, toxic waste to tick bites. And for her work, she has received accolades and awards from most of Rhode Island’s environmental organizations.

Among her major environmental initiatives is “product stewardship.” Product stewardship means requiring the manufacturers and sellers of problematic products to be responsible in some significant way for what happens to those products after consumers are through with them.

A quick look around most households – even those of truly dedicated environmentalists – and you’ll find such products. Paints. Mattresses. Tires. Fluorescent light bulbs. Old electronics (TVs, computers, printers, batteries, printer cartridges). Cleaners and solvents. Old medications. Plastics.

The concept behind product stewardship is to reorganize the way these materials are handled. In the absence of some sensible public policies, people simply throw problem waste away.

Then, somebody else has to pay to deal with it. Tax money goes into waste disposal and management. And toxic waste clean-up. And pollution-related health costs. Individuals suffer the consequences of polluted water sources.

A few days ago, I wrote about RIDEM’s advisory about eating fresh water fish due to high levels of mercury. Among the places where DEM recommends sharply limited consumption of fish is Watchaug Pond. No more than one meal a month of Watchaug Pond fish.

That mercury got into Watchaug Pond and most of Rhode Island’s other favorite fresh water fishing spots from manmade sources. From coal-fired power plants and from the necklace of municipal waste incinerators strung all across the Connecticut coast, conveniently upwind, due west of us. Also from toxic run-off.

While it seems to be simple common sense that those who profit from the manufacture and sale of problem products should be required to accept some stewardship responsibility for those products, not everyone agrees.

Indeed, Donna has had to fight every year to try to move two or three bills, each dealing with a different product category, through the General Assembly, usually having to settle for one bill out of the several.

This year, Donna got paint recycling passed. Given the extreme toxicity of paint when dumped into the environment, getting 2012-H 7233A passed was well worth the fight. The costs will be shared by paint buyers, makers and sellers.

As part of the push for product stewardship legislation, many municipal governments were asked to pass resolutions in support of the concept. After all, city and town governments share the cost of irresponsible disposal, especially when it comes time to close a municipal waste site, such as Charlestown’s old Narrow Lane Landfill.

On February 14, 2011, Charlestown joined in by adopting a resolution supporting product stewardship. But like most things with this Town Council, it didn’t come easy. Indeed, there was the usual 3-2 split vote in favor of the resolution, but the votes did not divide along the usual Charlestown political fault lines.

The three YES votes were Gregg Avedisian, Marge Frank and the CCA’s Deputy Dan Slattery.

Voting AGAINST the product stewardship resolution were the other two members of the CCA’s controlling majority, Boss Tom Gentz and Lisa DiBello. DiBello did not explain her NO vote, but Boss Gentz did.

What does Boss Gentz do with his old
paint?

Gentz declared he was strongly opposed to the whole idea of product stewardship because of the burdens it placed on the businesses who profit from the sales of problem products. Check the minutes and Clerkbase video for yourself. 

Over these past 18 months, I have come to realize that the Charlestown Citizens Alliance has an extremely narrow, in fact monomaniacal, view of what it means to be an “environmentalist.” There really is only one criterion – do you support, without question or reservation, the expansion of reserved open space? Say yes, and maybe you’re all right.

If you fail to pledge blind allegiance to open space über alles and you must be anti-environmental in the CCA’s eyes. You might even be some big nasty developer. If you look at the CCA’s website and go to the page on “Environment”, it’s all about conservation and mostly about open space.

But Boss Gentz and all of the CCA gang need to learn that there is a lot more to being an environmentalist than being in favor of open space. Like supporting green energy (including wind power). Like supporting public transportation – you have to go out of town to catch a bus, for example. Like supporting effective recycling programs, unlike Charlestown’s ineffective program. Like wanting careful, long-term monitoring of Charlestown’s several old waste sites, including the old town dump at Narrow Lane or the old military waste buried in Ninigret Park and the National Wildlife Refuge. And of course, there are lots more. Sure, open space is important, but it is but one of many important measures of environmentalism. 

Support for product stewardship is right up there among the hallmarks of a true environmentalist. Product stewardship is a simple and logical extension of one of the founding principles of the post-Earth Day modern environmental movement. “Make the polluter pay” is a central element of modern environmental values.

Boss Gentz not only flunked the test but roared so loudly against it that you’d think he was a lobbyist for Sherwin-Williams or Dow Chemical.

Or maybe the mattress industry (or “International Sleep Products Association”) – they crowed about their “victory” in Furniture Today  (which I read for their excellent movie reviews) about killing a Rhode Island bill that would have applied product stewardship principles to mattress disposal. As I’m sure Boss Gentz would explain, it’s much better to dump mattresses in gullies and streams, or by the side of the road than require manufacturers and retailers to take some responsibility.

Maybe one reason the CCA loves open space so much is that it provides convenient places to dump their old paint, mattresses and junk. Ingenious!