A growing chorus of cities and towns across the U.S. now support laws that would force the companies who make products pay for the cost of recycling or disposing of these products when consumers are done with them. These laws, called extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging bills, shift those costs from consumers and cities to the companies selling the products in the first place. States including New York, Massachusetts, and Washington are considering EPR-for-packaging bills, and Maine seems poised to pass one in the next few months. Maine’s legislature already passed a law last year directing the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to draft legislation to establish an extended producer responsibility law for packaging in the state. “Governments can no longer ignore the fact that the recycling system is not working,” says Scott Cassel, chief executive of the Product Stewardship Institute, a Massachusetts-based environmental group supporting these EPR laws.
Support for Maine’s law comes from many towns in the state whose recycling costs went up so much that they’re struggling to keep their programs going. The town of Windham, Maine, which never had to pay for recycling pickup before, now has to pay $35 a ton for recycling; if the recycling is more than 25% contaminated with things that can’t be recycled, the town has to pay $130 a ton, and the load ends up in the landfill, says David Nadeau, a town councilor. Since people “wish-cycle,” and throw things in the recycling that contaminate the bins, the town is increasingly finding that recycling is significantly more expensive than just putting everything in a landfill.
One of the big problems facing towns in Maine and across the country is this sort of contamination. Some plastic and paper packaging can be recycled, but only if it isn’t also combined with other things like food waste, metal, and non-recyclable plastic. Most recycling facilities use automated Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions to separate plastic from paper from metal, but plastic bags and plastic film (like dry cleaner bags) can gum up the equipment and shut down the plant. The cost of operating these facilities has only grown as buyers of recycled plastic demand less and less contamination. To help sort through materials, many recycling facilities are adding workers, which increases costs.