Maine EPR pays towns the median cost of similar towns, and every producer date still waits on one contract

Maine EPR at a glance: what the packaging law does

The Maine packaging EPR law sits in one section of Title 38, with 15 numbered subsections. It defines terms, exempts small producers, sets up the SO contract, bars sales of noncompliant packaging, fixes producer payments and reporting, allows producer-run collection programmes, sets town duties and reimbursement, and lists what the fund may pay for (Exhibit 2). The current text carries the history note PL 2021, c. 455; PL 2023, c. 589; and PL 2025, c. 383, which amended sections 1 to 13 of the 2021 law.

DEP describes the purpose in one line on its programme page.

The same page makes a second point that matters for packaging designers: the law prices packaging but does not ban formats.

That separates Maine from laws such as California’s SB 54, which sets source reduction and recyclability requirements. In Maine the lever is the fee: section 2146(13)(A) requires the payment schedule for producers above the low-volume tier to be adjusted to reward recycled content, recyclability, lower toxicity, less packaging, less litter, reuse and accurate labelling.

The fund has four uses under section 2146(12): municipal reimbursement, the SO’s operating costs subject to a third-party financial audit, fees owed to DEP, and education and infrastructure investments approved under subsection 11. The statute sets no percentage split among them. The only dollar caps SPI found are DEP’s annual fee, up to USD 300,000 under section 2146(13)(B), and an alternative collection programme oversight fee of up to USD 10,000 per participating producer under section 2146(13)(C).

Who is the producer under the Maine packaging EPR law

Section 2146(1)(O) assigns the obligation by a fixed order, and the first party that fits is the producer (Exhibit 3). The order mirrors Oregon’s and Colorado’s in broad shape, which helps multi-state brands, but it ends with a Maine-specific last resort: the person that first distributes the product for sale in or into the state.

Section 2146(7) then sets what each producer reports to the SO every year: the total amount, by weight or volume, of each packaging material type sold, offered for sale or distributed in or into Maine in the prior calendar year. Since the June 2025 amendments, producers are not required to report annually by Universal Product Code (UPC), although DEP’s September 2025 staff memo says a producer may still be asked for UPCs if audited.

Maine EPR exemptions, and the revenue threshold that two official texts describe differently

Section 2146(2) exempts a producer in a given year on four grounds. It is outside the law if it distributed less than one ton of packaging material into Maine in the prior year, or earned more than 50% of gross revenue from insurance salvages, closeouts, bankruptcies and liquidations. The first 15 tons of packaging used for perishable food sold in or into Maine in the prior calendar year are also exempt. The fourth ground is revenue, and there the official texts diverge.

Some packaging is outside the definition altogether. Section 2146(1)(I) excludes packaging for a durable product expected to stay usable for at least 5 years, Bottle Bill beverage containers, architectural paint containers while an approved paint stewardship programme runs, and anything DEP excludes by rule. Subsection 13(D) asks DEP to review certain federally regulated products, such as drugs, medical devices and tamper-evident over-the-counter drug packaging, for possible exclusion by rule.

On revenue, DEP’s programme page says producers with less than USD 2,000,000 in gross annual revenue are exempt for the first three years after the SO contract takes effect, and that from programme year four the threshold is less than USD 5,000,000. Section 2146(2)(A), as amended in 2025, reads differently. It exempts a producer under USD 2,000,000 in the prior calendar year, except that for the period beginning one calendar year after the contract’s effective date and ending 3 years after it, a producer under USD 5,000,000 is exempt. DEP’s own September 2025 staff memo to the Board describes the statute’s version, a temporary USD 5 million line.

The comparison with other states shows why the line matters. SPI’s tracker records give Minnesota’s de minimis line as under USD 2,000,000 of global gross revenue or under one ton (PR-US-006), and Oregon’s as under USD 5 million of worldwide gross revenue or under one metric ton (PR-US-002). Maine therefore sits at Minnesota’s figure in some years and Oregon’s in others, depending on the text. Ledger 05 sets out the thresholds for all seven states.

The low-volume tier: a flat USD 500 per ton below 15 tons

Above the exemptions, small producers can choose a simpler route. Section 2146(13)(A) requires the payment schedule to offer low-volume producers a flat fee option of no more than USD 500 per ton of packaging material and no more than USD 7,500 in total annual fees. The December 2024 rule text defines a low-volume producer as one that produced less than 15 tons of packaging in total in the prior calendar year, lets it report total tons by any estimation method by 31 May, and lets a producer that also reports by type pay the lesser of USD 500 per ton or the type-based amount.

SPI calculation: because the tier stops below 15 tons, and 15 tons at USD 500 is exactly USD 7,500, the annual cap cannot bind for an eligible producer; the most a low-volume producer can pay is just under USD 7,500. At 5 tons the flat fee is USD 2,500, at 10 tons USD 5,000 and at 14 tons USD 7,000.

The rate is also worth reading in the units Oregon and Colorado use. Circular Action Alliance (CAA), the producer responsibility organisation in both, prints its 2026 schedules in US cents per pound, and SPI’s line-by-line Ledger on those schedules converts them to tonnes.

How producer payments are built: material type, recyclability and incentive fees

For producers above the low-volume tier, section 2146(6) bases payments on the net amount, by weight or volume, of packaging not managed through an approved alternative collection programme, with separate calculations for readily recyclable and other material. Section 2146(1)(Q) defines readily recyclable as meeting the criteria DEP sets by rule, and those designations sit in Chapter 428 Appendix A.

DEP’s programme page lists the base materials in its readily recyclable table as glass, metal, paper, PET (#1), HDPE (#2) and PP (#5), and says fees include an annual registration fee, material-specific fees and incentive fees. The December 2024 rule text set three tests for a readily recyclable designation: at least two facilities in North America recycle the material into non-fuel products, with capacity at least equal to supply; the material is common enough to sort; and at least 60% of the type’s weight, on average, is made of materials routinely targeted for recycling.

DEP’s September 2025 staff memo explains how the list was built. Outreach from March 2025 drew 77 comments from about 300 entities, and DEP aligned most types with Colorado and Oregon reporting categories, added a readily recyclable scoring sheet and revised the paper-based descriptions. The draft list illustrates the line drawn: clear PET bottles, natural HDPE bottles and uncoated corrugated board were marked readily recyclable, while pigmented PET bottles, carbon black HDPE bottles and expanded polystyrene cushioning were not.

The fee arithmetic in the December 2024 rule text is where recyclability bites (Exhibit 8). Readily recyclable types pay the average per-ton cost of recycling, reuse and composting that type in the prior year. Types that are not readily recyclable pay, per ton, two times the average per-ton cost of the most expensive readily recyclable type, and the multiplier rises to three, four or five times in later years depending on whether goals are met.

Scenarios: what the multipliers mean for one ton of packaging

No SO means no cost data and no published fee per ton. The rule’s structure can still be expressed as an index, setting the average per-ton cost of the most expensive readily recyclable type at 1.00. That keeps the calculation in the rule’s own units and avoids inventing a Maine price.

SPI calculation: in the base case the incentive fees add 0.40 to a type fee of 2.00 (10% plus 10% of 2.00), for 2.40. In the high case they add 2.00 to a type fee of 5.00 (10% plus 10% plus 20% of 5.00), for 7.00. The spread between low and high is seven to one, all in one currency and before any per-ton cost is known.

The reimbursement formula: a framework of four municipal groups

Section 2146(10) is the heart of the Maine packaging EPR law for towns. Each year the SO pays participating municipalities the median per-ton cost of managing readily recyclable packaging, and separately the median per-ton cost of managing packaging that is not readily recyclable, calculated from municipal cost reports, recycling facility data and audits. DEP’s page puts it simply: a median cost is set for each group of similar municipalities, so towns below the median may receive more than their costs and towns above it less.

The December 2024 rule text sets out who is “similar” (Exhibit 10). Section 15 sorts participating towns by county and population. Eight southern and central counties split at an average population of 6,500, and eight northern, western and eastern counties split at 1,200. That gives a framework of four groups, which SPI uses to explain how the payments will behave.

The rule’s handling of tons follows the same logic. Material from retailers is presumed not to be packaging and is deducted, material from other sources is presumed to be packaging, and where towns manage material jointly the tons are split per capita unless they agree otherwise. The SO multiplies each town’s managed tons by the weight of each packaging type in a ton of the commodity, using audits sampled to 90% confidence, plus or minus 5%.

Reimbursement covers more than the readily recyclable stream. The rule text pays reusable and compostable types at the median reuse or composting cost, and pays recycled tons of non-readily recyclable types at the median recycling cost of readily recyclable material. DEP’s page says towns may be reimbursed for all packaging material they send for recycling, whether or not it is designated readily recyclable.

Cost studies: how the medians get built

The medians come from cost studies, and the study pipeline is slow by design. The December 2024 rule text states that the SO must conduct complete cost studies for 12 participating municipalities each year, prioritising three per group that lacks them, then towns never studied, then the oldest studies. A median for a pathway is set only when at least three current complete studies exist; if a group has fewer, all participating towns’ studies are used, and with fewer than three in total no median is set.

DEP’s 28 October bulletin confirms the pace from the town side: the SO will randomly select municipalities each year for cost studies, which set the median per-ton costs, and towns should prepare for possibly being among the first twelve. Studies cover labour, equipment, facilities, energy and contractor overhead or profit, with commodity revenue netted off, according to DEP’s page.

The annual cycle once the programme runs

DEP’s page sets a fixed calendar for each programme year (Exhibit 12). None of it applies until the SO contract takes effect and start-up registration has run, and DEP expects the first annual registration and reporting about one year after start-up registration, its 28 October bulletin says.

Start-up works differently. The 15 June 2026 bulletin said producers will have 90 days to register once the SO opens a start-up registration mechanism, and must estimate the tons they produced in a period the contract will set. The December 2024 rule text lets a producer that cannot estimate Maine tons report national tons, which the SO multiplies by Maine’s share of the US population, and it caps start-up fees at each producer’s share of one year of SO operating costs and the DEP fee.

Producers can also run their own scheme. Under section 2146(8), a producer or group may propose an alternative collection programme, which DEP must approve or deny within 120 days after public comment, for a term of 5 years. It offsets payment only for the same material type. DEP’s page says applications open on the day DEP and the SO sign the contract, and that tons managed in one year offset fees invoiced the next.

The contract clock: what starts on day zero

Every producer date in the Maine packaging EPR law counts from the effective date of the SO contract. DEP’s RFP-202605094, published on 15 June 2026, closed at 4 p.m. on 18 August 2026 with no proposal submissions, DEP’s 20 August bulletin said. On 28 October DEP said it had met interested organisations, revised the RFP and sent it to the Office of State Procurement for review and posting. Section 2146(3) allows DEP to reopen bidding where no compliant proposal is received.

Enforcement follows the general Title 38 rules. Section 2146 sets no penalty of its own, and DEP administers and enforces it under subsection 13. Under 38 M.R.S. section 349, civil violations carry USD 100 to USD 10,000 a day, and Class E criminal violations USD 2,500 to USD 25,000 a day, with a USD 5,000 daily minimum for knowing violations. In practice the subsection 4 sales bar, with public lists of noncompliant producers, is the sharper tool; DEP may still let a producer sell other products whose packaging complies.