Rethinking Waste: Can a New Policy Reduce Packaging Waste in Maine and Beyond?
Article by Sonja Heyck-Merlin
Erin Victor and her colleagues on the Mitchell Center鈥檚 Materials Management Research Group (MMRG) recognize that Maine is stuck in a disposal mode of waste management. Despite significant investments in programs and policies to reduce solid waste, the tonnage ending up in landfills continues to increase each year.
Victor, who completed her doctorate in anthropology and environmental policy from the University of Maine in 2024, remembers long brainstorming sessions with the group about potential solutions to Maine鈥檚 waste conundrum. One problem in need of a solution is the amount of non-recyclable packaging material making its way into Mainers鈥 trash cans.
In 2025, Victor was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship with the MMRG, funded by a grant from the (EREF), to study the novel and complex laws that Maine and other governments have passed to help remedy these solid waste challenges.
Consider the sleek, rectangular soy, rice, or oat milk container sitting on a store shelf rather than in the refrigerated section. Known as an aseptic package, its contents are shelf stable, requiring neither preservatives nor refrigeration.
But it poses a serious environmental problem. Because the container is a multilayered concoction of paperboard, polyethylene, and aluminum foil, also known as multi-material packaging, it is nearly impossible to recycle and most likely bound for the trash.
It鈥檚 not just aseptic packaging that鈥檚 difficult to recycle. Many cosmetics and personal care products use plastics other than types #1 and #2 which most Maine municipalities don鈥檛 accept (if they accept plastic at all). The list of non-recycleable packaging materials goes on and on. Even more common materials like cardboard come in different forms that can make recycling more difficult; it鈥檚 easier to recycle corrugated cardboard than a colorful waxy cereal box.
To top it off, it鈥檚 expensive to run recycling programs. Maine towns and cities, and by extension the taxpayer, currently bear the full cost of recycling and disposal according to Victor.
Maine isn鈥檛 alone in these complex solid waste management challenges. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2018 the U.S. only recycled 32.1% of its municipal solid waste. The remaining waste, whether it鈥檚 landfilled or incinerated, causes land, water, and air pollution.
In an effort to tackle these challenges, in 2021, the Maine legislature was the first state in the nation to pass a stewardship program for packaging material, also known as extended producer responsibility (EPR). Several other states have since passed EPR legislation, some of which have already been implemented.
When Maine鈥檚 new law goes into effect in 2027, producers who generate a lot of packaging 鈥 large companies like Amazon, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, Mondelez and others 鈥 will be required to chip into the recycling and disposal costs of the packaging they bring into Maine.
Some of these funds will go directly to municipalities to support their recycling efforts if they choose to join this voluntary program. Aroostook Waste Solutions (AWS), a non-profit, municipally-owned recycling and waste disposal service serving 40 towns in Aroostook County is an early adopter.
AWS currently sells their recyclables on the open market, and prices fluctuate dramatically according to AWS鈥檚 director Mark Draper who has collaborated extensively with the MMRG. Sometimes cardboard goes for $20/ton and sometimes it鈥檚 $200/ton. This inconsistent revenue makes it difficult for municipalities to budget for their recycling programs. But with the new EPR law, towns that sign up will get money from the packaging producers based on their recycling rates. Plus, the towns will continue to collect the money from selling their recyclables.
Draper said, 鈥淭his is a way to get what I call 鈥榮tabilizing revenue鈥 to help fund this recycling program that we鈥檙e doing for the benefit of society and the environment but also at the cost to taxpayers. EPR will help keep this program viable by having an additional revenue stream. 鈥 Draper also hopes the additional revenue might spur municipalities that don鈥檛 have recycling programs to implement them.
The Maine EPR law will also require packaging producers to pay additional fees, called malus fees, for selling packaging materials (like aseptic packages) that aren鈥檛 recyclable, explained Victor. Some of this money will be distributed to participating municipalities to cover disposal costs. It will also be used to invest in infrastructure to improve the management of packaging materials and to educate Maine residents on what and how to recycle. Additionally, some funds will support solutions designed to prevent waste generation in the first place through returnable and refillable packaging programs.
Rather than imposing stringent laws on producers, such as an outright ban on certain materials, Maine鈥檚 EPR law uses market-based incentives to nudge producers to change their packaging. For instance, if the producer of ready-to-assemble furniture packs the pieces in non-recyclable polystyrene, they will pay more than if the packaging was made from molded cardboard.
The long-term hope is that EPR will drive packaging innovation. The difficult-to-recycle aseptic package will cost more for producers and might eventually be replaced with a more easily recycled material.
EPR requires a significant amount of data collection, like tracking how much packaging a company is bringing into Maine and how many pounds of cardboard a municipality recycled. So a stewardship organization, hired by the state, will help administer the program. They will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the program with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection providing oversight.
At face value, EPR seems simple. It requires companies to take financial responsibility for the end-of-life costs associated with recycling and disposal of their packaging. In fact, Maine has a long history of leading the nation in EPR. The five cent deposit on cans and bottles is a form of EPR. So are Maine鈥檚 drop-off systems for batteries, paint, and mercury thermostats.
With over 70 countries plus several other states having some form of packaging EPR in place or under development, it would seem that these laws would be easy to write and implement. However, as Draper put it, 鈥溾滶PR is extremely complicated. Maine鈥檚 bill is probably one of the most complicated bills I鈥檝e ever seen.鈥
For Draper, it鈥檚 difficult to wrap his head around how EPR will impact AWS on a day-to-day basis: Will it make extra work? Will it pay for itself? Will it incentivize recycling if taxpayers realize they are earning money for their town?
Draper will have to wait until Maine鈥檚 EPR law goes into effect in 2027 to learn the answers to these questions. Victor, who studied EPR policies as part of her doctoral dissertation, is delving into broader questions: Does EPR actually increase recycling rates? How much should packaging producers be charged? What sorts of additional EPR policies would help Maine and the world reinvent their approach to solid waste management? Victor even wrote her dissertation comparing EPR policies between Canada and the U.S.
Victor said, 鈥淲e鈥檙e at this critical junction where EPR could be a really powerful tool to help revitalize waste management infrastructure throughout the U.S., but it needs to be done carefully.鈥
Victor moved from Massachusetts, where she was employed as an environmental analyst with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Air and Waste, shortly after the EPR law was passed. Cindy Isenhour, a Mitchell Center faculty fellow and longtime member of the MMRG, served as her doctoral advisor.
鈥淚 came to 91福利 specifically to work with Cindy given the overlap in our research interests, especially around waste reduction, reuse, and consumption,鈥 Victor said.
One of Victor鈥檚 concerns about EPR policy in Maine and the U.S. is that EPR laws are market driven, requiring a nudging of producers to change their behavior. With this system, producers can continue to produce packaging containing toxic chemicals as long as they pay the associated malus fees. Victor explained that a more effective policy might be to ban the use of certain toxic chemicals that are known to cause adverse environmental and human health impacts.
鈥淭here are some cases where EPR may not be the best solution for our disposable packaging problems,鈥 she said.
Another aspect of EPR policy that concerns Victor is the lack of uniformity between states. Currently, seven states 鈥 Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota, Washington, and Maryland 鈥 have laws in place, and they鈥檙e all written differently.
This lack of uniformity might impact the success of Maine鈥檚 EPR law, according to Victor. For example, if Maine is setting incentives differently than California, which is a much larger market, producers will be more likely to follow California鈥檚 law.
Victor has also been thinking about how EPR can help accomplish something more ambitious 鈥 a shift from recycling to reuse. After all, recycling alone, Victor said, will not solve the problems created by the growth of single-use plastic packaging materials like straws and coffee cup lids.
鈥淭he true goal of an ambitious EPR system is to look beyond recycling to solutions higher up the waste hierarchy, such as source reduction and reuse,鈥 she said.
The waste hierarchy is simply an inverted triangle. Different models exist but in general they move from worst to best. At the bottom sits disposal (like landfills), followed by energy recovery (like generating power via incineration), followed by recycling, reusing, and reducing.
Victor believes a well-designed EPR policy has the capacity to revolutionize how humans consume and thus where waste falls on the hierarchy. Imagine a scenario where instead of buying deodorant in an unrecyclable plastic tube, it comes in a reusable stainless steel container. When it鈥檚 empty, the consumer drops it off into a bin at the store where it will eventually be cleaned and refilled with another round of deodorant.
One of the topics Victor will research over her two-year postdoctoral position is what types of EPR policies might spur this transition to reusables.
She鈥檒l study the social, environmental, and economic tradeoffs that occur when packaging materials are handled in different EPR scenarios. The research will use single-use plastic containers like shampoo bottles as its subject because the U.S. uses a staggering amount of these products. In 2018, almost 7.9 billion units of rigid plastic were created just for beauty and personal care products.
First, Victor wants to understand the costs when a shampoo bottle is pitched into the trash with no EPR in place. Then, she鈥檒l compare these baseline costs with an EPR scenario where the packaging company switches to a readily recyclable plastic, like #2. Beyond that, she鈥檚 keen to consider what happens when the company shifts to different reuse systems.
Victor hypothesizes that EPR policies that require packaging producers to move up the waste hierarchy 鈥 rather than allowing them to pass the disposal costs for their packaging onto society 鈥 could drive systemic change.
There鈥檚 already an example of this happening in the European Union which in 2026 created a unified EPR framework for all member states. For example, In France, McDonald鈥檚 is piloting reusable washable containers for their food and beverages.
鈥淭his indicates a potential future direction for waste management that could be spurred by EPR in the U.S. I think it鈥檚 important to shift the costs off of communities, but that鈥檚 not my sole motivation with EPR. I hope that we鈥檙e moving towards more ambitious policies in the U.S. that push us up the waste hierarchy. The goal should be redesigning our materials management system so that we are consuming less packaging material, and the ones that we are consuming are either easily recycled or reusable,鈥 Victor said.