Maine is moving toward a system that would help cities and towns pay for their recycling efforts. The Maine Board of Environmental Protection will hold a public hearing on the program, created by a law passed three years ago. It requires manufacturers pay for the cost of recycling their packaging. “Producers of products, they’ll pay a fee based on the packaging they put into the state. That fee will be collected by a stewardship organization that’s overseen by the Department,” says the Brian Beneski with the Department of Environmental Protection.
Beneski says the money collected will go first to cities and towns to offset the cost of recycling programs. “The funds that don’t go directly toward the recycling costs will also be made available to make improvements to the state’s recycling infrastructure and also to education outreach efforts to help educate the public on how to recycle and how to recycle in a manner that it reduces contamination in the recycling stream,” he says.
Oregon, Colorado and California have enacted similar requirements. Beneski says Maine is trying to work with those states to minimize any problems companies encounter as they begin to comply with the new recycling fees.