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Vanessa Berry serves as the Sustainable Maine program manager at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, where she leads efforts to tackle challenges in the state’s materials management industry.
In 2018, a ripple effect from halfway across the world disrupted Maine’s local recycling systems. That year, China’s “National Sword” policy effectively closed the door to much of the world’s recycling, leaving municipalities across our state with growing piles of packaging waste and shrinking options for dealing with it.
That global policy shift sparked something remarkable here in Maine: action.
I’ve had a front-row seat to that action ever since. Over the past six years, I’ve attended nearly every public stakeholder meeting, Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) workshop, and committee hearing on Maine’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging law. I’ve watched hundreds of people — from small-town select boards to environmental advocates to waste professionals — come together to shape a policy rooted in fairness and common sense: producers should help cover the costs of recycling the packaging they create.
This law was not rushed. It was built through years of conversations, countless hours of public input, and dozens of resolutions from towns across Maine who said clearly: we need help. The Maine Legislature passed the law in 2021 after careful consideration, and the DEP has since done an extraordinary job leading a transparent, thoughtful rulemaking process that engaged stakeholders from all corners of the state, and beyond. No one should claim they didn’t have time to weigh in.
Which is why it’s so disappointing to see Senator Joe Baldacci, D-Bangor, introduce “An Act to Improve Recycling by Updating the Stewardship Program for Packaging” ( LD 1423) that would weaken our EPR for Packaging law.
From our perspective, LD 1423 would not improve recycling; it would undermine it. It would weaken the law before it has even begun, and it opens the door to exemptions for major industries that should be part of the solution. If passed, I think it would create confusion for municipalities, undercut the predictability the DEP has worked so hard to establish, and ultimately leave Maine people and small businesses paying more while large multinational producers get a pass. It should be no surprise that out-of-state corporations are lobbying hard for this rollback bill.
The law we have now is already a smart, effective solution. It will bring long-needed financial support to municipalities, reduce the burden on local taxpayers, and help rebuild and strengthen Maine’s recycling infrastructure. It was designed specifically for Maine — our towns, our capacity, our challenges. And it is ready to go into effect next year.
We owe it to our towns, to the DEP, and to all the people who showed up to shape this law to let it do what it was built to do. Lawmakers should defeat LD 1423.
There’s still time for Sen. Baldacci to withdraw this proposal. I hope he does, because Maine communities are ready for producers of packaging waste to start paying for the costs of recycling for the packaging they create.
