WMA: Keep Watch on FL Door Code Change, Local Drives to Shift Packaging Cleanup Costs

The World Millwork Alliance (WMA) alerted its members this week to a pair of unrelated regulations in various states that ultimately could have wide impact. The first involves a disturbing change to Florida's building code that affects doors, while the other concerns a new push against initiatives in several states to make producers pay for the cleanup of single-use materials.

Florida Doors

Historically, Florida's residential building code said that side-hinged exterior doors didn't have to be tested for water protection if they were located beneath an overhang, Jessica Ferris, WMA's Director of Regulatory Affairs and Standards Development, told members.

Insurance companies pushed regulators to remove that exception as they wrote the code's 9th Edition.

Ultimately, the exception remains in the code, but now the door assembly needs to be labeled with a Limited Water rating. (AAMA/WDMA/CSA 101/I.S.2/A440, better known as the North American Fenestration Standard.) The change now is in the Florida Building Codes for residential homes, commercial structures, and buildings in the state's High Velocity Hurricane Zone.

This will matter to builders, said Rick Wright, a Florida-based building engineer. That's because the new codes will make it virtually impossible for them to build homes with in-swinging exterior doors, he said. Wright also pointed out that the overhang exception calls for such a deep projection that it's not an affordable alternative.

For older reasons, most homes built south of Interstate 4 in Florida already have out-swinging exterior doors, he added. Now homes from Tampa and Orlando north likely will have to do the same--and that may be just the start.

“A lot of [the impetus for change] is being pressured by insurance, so it more than likely will be required by other coastal areas in the country,” Ferris said.

Extended Producer Responsibility

Ferris defined EPR as shifting financial responsibility for collecting, recycling, and managing packaging waste from local governments to companies that place packaged products into the market. Thus, rather than local government bearing the cost of recycling programs, producers are required to help fund those programs through fees, along with reporting obligations, and requiring participation in state-approved Producer Responsibility Organizations.

Seven states--California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Minnessota, Maryland, and Washington--have enacted EPR laws, while a dozen others are considering the change. So far, only Oregon and Colorado have actively implemented the law, but California is on the verge of joining the duo with the enactment of SB54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act.

According to an analysis from the Pillsbury law firm, SB54 requires producers of single-use packaging and plastic single-use food-serviceware to:

• Reduce plastic packaging over time;

• Pay fees for covered materials to assist with funding waste management improvements;

• Ensure covered materials become recyclable or compostable by 2032; and

• Participate in and report data about covered materials to an approved Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO), currently Circular Action Alliance, or comply on an individual basis.

A 17-state coalition of attorneys general have filed a federal lawsuit challenging SB54. Trade groups such as the National Association of Wholesale-Distributors (NAWD) have joined in.

"EPR laws that enact regulatory and punitive financial burdens on wholesalers and distributors are ineffective policies ignoring the key players in any circular economy, shielding consumers and companies that would have the greatest impact on sustainability and consumer behavior,"NAWD declared. It also argued that distributors shouldn't be classified as producers.