Thread: Why do they do it????

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Man you guys sound like a bunch of crabby ol' men!!

Jim,
You bring up a difficult question to answer in a way. Where do we draw the line?

A few years ago, about 10 or so, when I still had my shop, there was an attempt to figure out how big a "problem" this was/is. As a repair shop that used paint materials on a daily basis we fell under the pervue of the various environmental agencies. We were required to maintain records about every drop of hazardous, dangerous, etc. materials we purchased. How much did we buy, what did we do with it, how did we control what was on hand, and how did we properly dispose of it and where? It was a very complex process to maintain records that were as thorough as required. Not complying meant the potential for enormous fines, and possible jail time. By the interpretation of some bureaucrats I may still be responsible for that stuff that happened on my watch. Yes, I still have the records, and will til I die!

It was of interest to our association of shops to find out if we were in fact the primary users of this type of material, and if the enforcement of these environmental concerns was properly directed. The results were interesting. The jobbers that sell the materials were understandably reluctant to be fully forthcoming about what their customer bases were. To be fair, they weren't going to do much to track the stuff since they weren't required to. With a lot of digging and some use of windage and elevation we learned that somewhere between 35-45% of their total sales were to "non-registered" entities. In other words, folks without a "legitimate" business that had an EPA code (central control number for all the useage/disposal records). That's a pretty big percentage! And since most of us "official" shops bought at "wholesale", the margins they made on those other sales were very likely better (read, more profitable). Now some of those non-registered users were capable users who had sufficient experience, and common sense, to use the products correctly. Probably many of them were our painters doing work on the side at home, or whereever. But I gotta believe a lot of them were the schmucks like your example. And can we believe they handled the products correctly? Especially with regards to proper disposal? It was interesting to watch the politicians go into fade when we asked the questions about the significance of the environmental "police" not pursuing the 35-45% that weren't "registered", but that it was critical to hold those of us with legitimate businesses to an exceptionally high standard of handling. Typical bureaucratic BS.

So back to my original comment. Where to draw the line? Do we shut off anyone that doesn't have a fully functional shop, with all the proper containment, fire equipment, logged MSDS's, quarterly training, etc. etc. etc? Or do we cut some slack to the farmer, as an example, who paints his own stuff and has demonstrated a resonable history or responsible handling? How do we measure the skills of an advanced back yarder who knows how to read the instructions, takes the time and effort to learn how to use the proper materials in the correct manner, and is capable of "doing it right"? I don't know the answer. As often happens, we've ended up with a lot of regulations that can't be enforced anyway because there aren't enough "police", and certainly not enough budget. (not necessarily a bad thing). In many ways we're back to the market system doing it's thing.

I had to laugh during the above process of trying to identify the jobber's market spread. There were some allegations that our association was really just trying to eliminate competition. That our "real" objective was to keep the "little guy" from doing his own work and cutting into our ability to "over charge" people. Well, the reality of it is very similar to the experiences noted in the other posts. Most of those do-it-yourselfers weren't people we wanted to do business with anyway. We were set up to be efficient, follow a system of repair. The kind of work these folks want done would fall outside of that system, and they wouldn't be willing to pay for a professional's skills, and the attendant operational costs of overhead imposed on "real" businesses by a miriad of government entities.