After years of planning, the Maine state government is seeking a contractor to run a program that aims to cut down on packaging waste, but its success will depend on how many municipalities participate. 

Towns and cities will need to opt in to the new program to be compensated for recycling packaging material as part of a larger effort to temper the rise of municipal trash — but some town leaders said they are hesitant to sign up because they believe the program’s rules will be too cumbersome.

Maine was the first state to approve a stewardship program for packaging in 2021 to require large companies and manufacturers to help pay for the cost of recycling their packaging. Much of packaging is plastic, but any cardboard, metal, glass or paper material that packages a consumer good will fall under the program. 

The program isn’t operating yet but is expected to work as follows: Towns and cities that opt in will report to the state how many tons of packaging they recycle each year. They would then be eligible for reimbursement — funded by fees levied against companies that send disposable packaging to customers. How much a company will pay will vary based on the amount and type of packaging material it distributes.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is looking for an organization to operate the program for 10 years. Its request for proposals, issued June 15, is several months behind schedule, pushing the timeline for municipalities to be reimbursed until at least the end of next year. Bids are due Aug. 3.

Despite the far-off timeline, some municipalities told The Maine Monitor they have already decided to sign up — or not — for the packaging program. Many who already plan to participate tended to be larger, wealthier cities and towns, such as Falmouth, Portland, Yarmouth and Cape Elizabeth. 

Smaller towns appeared less likely to join up, citing the additional work they would need to do to meet program requirements. Many don’t recycle at all and therefore wouldn’t be eligible for reimbursements. Others were unaware of the program. 

The program rules set a goal of 60 percent of municipalities participating between 2030 and 2034, and 100 percent by 2040. Far more communities would have to sign up to meet those goals. 

The state gauged interest in the program by including a checkbox on its most recent reporting form about waste management and recycling practices. It received approximately 340 reports back out of about 500 municipalities. Of the 340 communities that returned the reports, 80 — or 16 percent of the state’s municipalities — said they would participate. Twenty communities said they did not plan to participate. The remainder were undecided or left the space blank. (The results were released in January, but the data came from 2023 and 2024.) 

David Madore, deputy commissioner of the department of environmental protection, said not all municipalities respond as required, even when the state follows up with phone and email reminders.

The process to pass legislation, establish regulations and now put out a request for an operator has taken five years. The most recent delay in issuing the request for proposals stemmed in part from the overall cost and complexity of the undertaking, Madore said.

“This particular contract involves a significant amount of state funding; therefore, a robust and substantial review was necessary which took longer than originally anticipated,” Madore wrote.

The state has been trying for even longer — decades — to reach its goal of recycling 50 percent of its waste. It is not close: Between 2016 and 2024, the amount of municipal solid waste going to landfills increased more than 47 percent.

The packaging program aims to change that in part by giving a financial boost to municipal recycling programs, which have often struggled in recent years. The program may also motivate companies to cut down on their packaging waste to avoid paying fees. 

It’s important to shift costs for disposal from taxpayers to larger companies, so they “have some more skin in the game,” said Troy Moon, Portland’s sustainability director. (Nonprofits and businesses that don’t produce much packaging are exempt from the packaging law.) 

“It’s local governments and towns that end up having to pay for the processing, the collection, the disposal of all that packaging,” Moon said.

Several organizations attended a bidders’ conference for the program on June 29, including Circular Action Alliance, a nonprofit that runs similar packaging programs in Oregon, California and Colorado. It announced in May that it intended to respond to Maine’s request for proposals once it was released.

Several other organizations also attended the conference and may submit a bid. Environmental and sustainability groups E2 Tech, HDR Inc., Reclay StewardEdge, Recycle-Me, Serlin Haley and one independent consultant attended, according to Madore.

Concerns about reporting requirements

While some towns said they plan to participate in the program, they also expressed reservations about how, exactly, everything would work. 

Jeff Buxton, director of public works in Falmouth, told The Monitor that the town plans to participate because of the reimbursements, though said he was concerned about how much staff time would be spent meeting reporting requirements for the program, a sentiment others echoed.

To be eligible for reimbursement, municipalities will need to submit a recycling report to the stewardship organization annually that provides details about their recycling costs, including collection, processing and transportation.

Lucy Sullivan, director of communications and public affairs for Portland-based ecomaine, the state’s largest recycling organization, said the main hurdle may be municipalities’ capacity to comply with requirements. If municipalities need to hire additional staff to accommodate “really onerous reporting requirements,” they may hesitate to participate, even if they would potentially be reimbursed for the cost of hiring additional staff, she said.

That is the case in The Forks, a plantation with 48 residents in Somerset County. 

“We do not want to get involved with yet another State Program that requires human resources that we do not have,” Charles Hathaway, second assessor of The Forks, wrote in an email to The Monitor.

“We are fortunate to be even functioning as a municipality,” Hathaway said. “We are not interested in enlarging our bureaucratic footprint in the community.” 

The state is working to make reporting requirements “as easy as possible,” Madore wrote, by revising existing reporting forms used for municipalities’ annual progress updates, and it has offered assistance. The stewardship organization will also be tasked with helping municipalities meet reporting requirements. 

Some municipalities told The Monitor they do not see a need for the program in their communities. Weston, a small town in Aroostook County with a population of 250 year-round residents and 500 summer residents, does not plan to participate because “it does not fit the scale” of the community, according to Dwayne Young, administrative assistant to the Weston and Orient selectboards.

According to Young, Weston only generates 150 tons of municipal solid waste annually, and the town only recycles metal.

Weston does maintain a reuse shed, where materials can be dropped off for others to take before they are sent to the landfill. But Weston’s low waste volume and its location in a remote area make it “unviable to sort, store, and market recycled goods,” Young wrote.

Dallas Plantation, on the outskirts of Rangeley, also opted out of the program because it does not have its own waste service, according to town clerk Katrina Gacki. Instead, the community contracts with the town of Rangeley for solid waste management, which has not responded to the state but told The Monitor it does not plan to participate.

The town of Industry in Franklin County said it did not recall answering the state’s question about participation. 

“Honestly, I hadn’t heard about the EPR program and had to look it up,” Industry clerk and treasurer Angel Davis wrote in an email. “I do not recall any discussion or decision being made by the Board regarding this issue.”

Packaging producers are also hesitant, according to Maine Grocers and Food Producers Association Executive Director Christine Cummings. Some companies may struggle with requirements to report the amount of packaging they sell, with the range of fees they may be required to pay, or with the overall implementation of the program’s specific rules, and companies lack information from the state on those details.

“Every conversation eventually comes back to ‘what is this actually going to cost me?’ And right now, nobody can answer that,” Cummings wrote in an email.

If the program does not meet its goal of having 60 percent of municipalities participating by 2030, the stewardship organization ultimately selected by the state must contact the uninvolved  municipalities and determine their reasons for opting out of the program.

The Maine Board of Environmental Protection, which oversees the department, discussed concerns about the participation of smaller municipalities when the packaging program rules were finalized. Board Chair Susan Lessard, who cast the sole vote against the 2024 updated rules, predicted rural communities would struggle to participate. 

Sullivan, of ecomaine, said municipalities may hesitate to join until the program has fully been established and they have more information about how it works.

“Because so much time has passed, a question people have is, ‘When can we expect this?’” Sullivan said.

The delay shows that the state is being thorough, Moon, of Portland, said.

“I think that DEP is trying to get it right, and so it’ll take a little bit longer to make sure that I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed,” Moon said. “I’d rather have them take care and get it off the ground on the right foot than to have some challenges after the fact.”