Maine DEP says towns get no packaging EPR money for 2025 and 2026 after its first operator tender drew no bids

How Maine's packaging stewardship law pays towns

Maine passed its packaging extended producer responsibility (EPR) law in July 2021, as Public Law 2021, chapter 455, now codified at 38 M.R.S. section 2146 and amended in 2023 and 2025. EPR shifts the cost of handling packaging waste from taxpayers to the companies that put packaging on the market.

Maine’s model differs from the others in one structural way. In Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota and Maryland, a producer responsibility organisation (PRO) formed by producers runs the system. In Maine, DEP itself chooses one SO by competitive bidding, and the statute says the contract must cover 10 years of operation of the programme.

The money then flows one way. Producers pay into a privately held stewardship fund, and the SO reimburses participating towns. Section 2146(10) bases each payment on the median per-ton cost of managing readily recyclable packaging among similar municipalities, with a separate median for packaging that is not readily recyclable, rather than on each town’s own bills.

Producer payments vary by material type and are adjusted for recycled content, recyclability, toxicity and other design factors, so a readily recyclable format costs less than a hard-to-recycle one. Town participation is voluntary. Section 2146(9) says a municipality may elect to, but is not required to, take part.

The rule that sets out the detail, Chapter 428, was adopted by the Board of Environmental Protection in December 2024. DEP’s programme page says it was amended in March 2026 to include Appendix A, the packaging material types list, aligning the rule with the June 2025 changes to the law.

That sentence, from the 28 October update, sets the baseline against which the new delay is measured: the first payments to towns were meant to cover 2026 costs and arrive in 2027.

Who counts as the producer is set by a hierarchy in section 2146(1)(O). For goods sold in a shop, it is the manufacturer selling under its own brand or in unbranded packaging, then a licensee, then the brand owner, then the US importer of record. For internet and remote sales, the company that packs the order covers the shipping packaging, while the packaging in direct contact with the product stays with the retail producer.

Some packaging falls outside the law altogether. Section 2146(1)(I) excludes beverage containers covered by Maine’s Bottle Bill and packaging for durable products usable for five years or more. The first 15 tons of packaging for perishable food sold in Maine in the prior year are also exempt, the programme page says.

What changed between June and October

15 June: the first tender. DEP published RFP-202605094 for an organisation to run the programme day to day, its June bulletin said. It also set the producer sequence: start-up registration opens only after the contract is signed, producers then have 90 days to register, and they must estimate the tons of packaging they produced in a period the contract will set.

18 August: no bids. The tender closed at 4 p.m. on 18 August 2026. DEP’s bulletin of 20 August said no proposal submissions were received and that the department was evaluating its options.

Around the deadline: the obvious bidder steps back. Circular Action Alliance (CAA), the PRO in Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota and Maryland, says on its Maine page that it decided not to bid on the RFP released on 15 June. The page carries no date, and CAA says the decision relates only to the current RFP process.

11 September: a rewrite. DEP’s September bulletin said the department was reviewing necessary updates to the RFP and would notify stakeholders when a revised version was available. It gave no target date.

28 October: the cost of the delay. DEP’s latest bulletin says it met interested organisations to learn why they did not bid, revised the RFP, and sent it on.

The same bulletin then sets out the consequence for towns. Because the stewardship fund and the producer reporting and invoicing mechanisms are provided by the SO and have not yet been created, there will be no reimbursements for municipalities for material recycled in 2025 and 2026.

No new date. DEP did not replace the old schedule with a new one. Its programme page says the department is reassessing the schedule and will post a revised one later, and the bulletin ties that timeline to the procurement.

Alternative collection programmes. Producers may instead run, alone or in a group, a DEP-approved collection programme that offsets their payment obligation for the same material type. DEP’s programme page says applications open on the day DEP and the SO sign the contract, so that option is also on hold, and it marks the programme as coming soon.

More frequent updates. DEP said it intends to begin publishing newsletters at least monthly so that stakeholders have the latest implementation information. It is also writing producer guidance on identifying producers and material types, registration, reporting, estimation methods and alternative collection programmes.

What the 28 October update sets out for towns and producers

The bulletin is the most detailed statement DEP has made on how the programme will start. It splits into a section for municipalities and a section for producers, and the table below sets out each point against what it means for a business selling packaged goods into Maine.

Municipal sign-up. DEP says 111 municipalities have notified it that they intend to participate. To take part, a town must run a recycling programme that collects at least one material type, report recycling tonnages to DEP, and agree to a cost study if the SO selects it.

Reporting through an existing form. Towns will report through the existing Municipal Recycling Progress Report in DEP’s new digital Maine Enterprise Licensing System (MELS), which has been amended to cover packaging so towns do not file twice. The report due in April 2027 will include a packaging section so municipalities can practise.

Cost studies. The SO will study a sample of towns each year to set the medians. DEP’s bulletin says the first twelve municipalities will be selected for cost studies and that an additional 12 will be conducted each year. The programme page says a contractor generally takes part about once every 10 years.

Producer registration. DEP says no producer registration system exists yet, and that start-up registration will be a priority for the SO once it is contracted.

DEP expects the first annual producer registration and reporting approximately one year after start-up registration, the bulletin says. At start-up, the programme page says, producers may estimate Maine tons or report national tons for the SO to scale by population.

The statute’s own clock. Section 2146(6) requires producer payments no later than 180 days after the effective date of the contract, and annually after that. Section 2146(4) bars a producer from selling, offering for sale or distributing packaging that does not comply, beginning one calendar year after the contract takes effect.

Once the programme is live, DEP’s programme page sets a fixed annual cycle. Towns report costs to the SO by 31 March and file the Recycling Progress Report by 30 April. Producers report by 31 May, are invoiced on 1 July and pay by 1 September, and the SO reimburses towns on 1 October.

Who pays while Maine waits

Maine’s 111 participating towns. They carry the full cost of collecting and recycling packaging in 2025 and 2026, as before the law. DEP’s bulletin rules out reimbursement for both years, and gives no date for the first payment for 2027 material either.

Local taxpayers. NRCM puts the disposal cost paid locally at USD 16 million to USD 17 million a year. That figure is NRCM’s estimate for the state as a whole, not DEP’s, and it is not a measure of what reimbursements would have been.

Producers above the exemptions. They gain time and lose certainty. No payment covers 2025 or 2026, but the statute gives them only 90 days to register once the SO opens start-up registration, and a payment no later than 180 days after the contract. DEP’s programme page says producers with less than USD 2 million in gross annual revenue are exempt in the first three contract years, rising to USD 5 million from programme year four. Section 2146(2)(A) of the statute instead sets a USD 2 million line with a temporary USD 5 million line for the period from one to three years after the contract takes effect, and SPI has not yet confirmed how DEP reconciles the two.

Low-volume producers. Firms selling more than one ton but less than 15 tons of packaging into Maine a year may use a simplified tier. The statute caps their fee at USD 500 per ton and USD 7,500 a year in total.

Circular Action Alliance. CAA runs programmes in five states and chose not to bid on Maine’s first RFP, citing its scope. A revised RFP gives it, or any other organisation, a second chance at a 10-year contract.

Multi-state brand owners. Companies already paying in Oregon and Colorado carry the Maine obligation as a future line rather than a current one. In Oregon, CAA’s 2027 fee schedule splits invoices 50% in January and 50% in July, as SPI’s Oregon story reported, while Maine has no invoice date at all.

Recycling contractors and processors. Haulers and material recovery facilities that serve Maine towns will be drawn into the cost studies, and the programme page says a contractor generally takes part about once every 10 years. Until the SO exists, no study, and no study-based payment, can begin.

Maine DEP. The department’s annual fee from the SO is capped at USD 300,000 under section 2146(13)(B), and with no SO that fee is not yet flowing. DEP must still report to the Legislature’s environment committee every year from 15 February 2025.

The pinch point: a single contract no one has yet signed

Maine’s law hangs every producer duty on one event, the effective date of the SO contract. That design gave DEP control over who runs the programme, but it also means that a failed tender stops the whole sequence, as the August result showed.

The revised RFP is now in procurement review, but DEP has published no posting date, response window or award target. Each of those steps takes time, and only after the award does the SO start building the registration system, the stewardship fund and the invoicing tools that DEP says do not yet exist.

The bulletin also shows that DEP changed the RFP in response to bidder feedback. SPI has not yet confirmed what was changed, because DEP has not published the revised document or a summary of the edits. Whether the changes answer CAA’s concern about scope will decide whether the second round draws a bid.

The two-year gap also changes the data the SO will inherit. Towns will have reported 2025 and 2026 tonnages to DEP through the Recycling Progress Report, but cost studies, which set the medians that drive reimbursement, cannot start until the SO exists. The first payments will therefore rest on a small sample of studies, twelve a year on DEP’s plan, and the medians will move as the sample grows.

How Maine compares with other US EPR states

Maine legislated in 2021, the same year as Oregon, but it is now the only one of the two without an operator. Oregon producers have paid fees since 1 July 2025, and Colorado producers have owed dues since January 2026, under records PR-US-002 and PR-US-003 in the SPI Regulation Tracker for the United States.

Minnesota requires PRO membership from 1 July 2025 and phases in reimbursement of at least 50% of service providers’ net costs from February 2029, under record PR-US-006. Maryland’s rules took effect on 25 May 2026, with reimbursement of at least 50% of local cost per ton from 1 July 2028. Washington expects at least 90% reimbursement from 2030.

Rhode Island has no packaging EPR law, but its environment agency takes public input on 4 November 2026 on a draft study that models five options, as SPI’s Rhode Island story reported. Its final report is due by 1 December 2026, to inform the 2027 session.

The comparison shows that Maine’s local funding formula is not unusual in itself. Several states reimburse a share of local costs, and Minnesota and Maryland start at 50%. What sets Maine apart is that reimbursement is tied to median costs of similar towns rather than each town’s bills, and that the state, not producers, picks the operator.

In every other state in the table a PRO formed by producers is named or being registered. Maine is the only one that tenders a fixed-term contract, and the only one where no operator is yet in place.