Maine's First-in-the-Nation Product Stewardship Law Embraces Business, Environmental Groups

Last month, Maine became the first U.S. state to enact legislation that encourages industry to take financial responsibility for the recycling or environmentally sound disposal of a wide range of potentially hazardous products that would otherwise end up in the trash.

Currently, Maine residents recycle just over a third of the products they discard each year, many of which contain toxic chemicals, mercury and heavy metals that could harm human health and the environment if disposed of improperly, said Rep. Melissa Walsh Innes, the bill’s sponsor. Eighty percent of products that consumers throw out could instead be recycled, she said.

A key objective of the new law, LD 1631, is to shift the financial burden to industry from municipalities, which are currently charged with the lion’s share of hazardous-waste disposal.

Portland, Maine’s largest city, spends $100,000 a year on disposal of products including paint, thinners and pesticides, the city’s solid waste manager told the Portland Press Herald.  But that cost just includes the items that residents drop off at the state’s hazardous waste disposal sites.

 “The vast majority of people living in Maine do not have convenient access to those facilities,” said Innes, in an interview. For many residents, drop off, which carries a fee, is neither easy nor economical, she said.

The new law calls on the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to identify products that would be appropriate for a product stewardship approach, and to forward a report annually to the Legislature. Once lawmakers agree to propose an item for product stewardship, separate legislation or regulations will need to be formulated to establish core components of a producer-financed recycling system. Each new proposal will be subject to public review, and there will be a written comment period for businesses to make their voices heard on any given product up for consideration.

Those details enabled the measure to garner key support from business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which was critical to the bill’s passage, said Innes.

The Maine law does not guarantee that any particular product will be designated in a given year, said Innes, or whether the Natural Resources Committee, on which she serves, will vote to move forward with legislation on an item that is recommended to it.

In Maine, unlike many other states, every bill that gets submitted for consideration must be heard. That means that individual bills calling for a product stewardship approach for a particular item must be heard by the committee, even if few committee members believe that such an approach is warranted.  

This requirement can divert valuable time and energy from more pressing measures, said Innes. “We feel like the process [established by the new law]  is better than what we have now,” she said.

Rep. Innes said that lawmakers’ success in enacting the Maine bill was evidence that it is possible for the environmental and the business communities –which are often at odds – to work together. 

“That’s what we want to show, that it can be done,” she said.

Maine has a history of promoting product stewardship. In 2003, the state became the first in the nation to require manufactures to recycle consumers’ unwanted computers and TVs. Eighteen other states have enacted producer responsibility laws for electronics since then. Earlier, in 2001, Maine became the first state to compel car makers to pay for the recycling of mercury switches, used in lights found in the hood or trunk of cars. The toxin can be released when a car is crushed or shredded for use as scrap metal  Innes emphasized that such approaches can be an important economic development tool, and help create jobs in the hauling and recycling industries.

California, Minnesota, and several other states are considering product stewardship legislation.  Minnesota’s lawmakers requested and funded a 2009 study that proposed guidelines for product stewardship recommendations through a pre-existing voluntary program in the state’s Pollution Control Agency, and for coordinating specific recommendations with legislative actions.

A 2008 report conducted for the British Columbia, Canada Ministry of Environment showed that programs in the province that hold manufacturers responsible for recycling or safely disposing of tires, beverage containers and used oil generated 2,100 full-time jobs and avoided the emissions of 267,000 metric tones of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is comparable to taking nearly 73,000 cars off the road. It also led to reduced landfill costs, the report said.

A recent draft report from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) calls  for the use of product stewardship to fund waste disposal programs for a variety of items, including electronics, household hazardous waste, paints, carpets, mercury-containing thermostats, and batteries. The report urges the state to adopt legislation promoting product stewardship by 2012.

"Product stewardship is a trend that is sweeping the globe, in Europe, Canada and Asia," Resa Dimino, a special assistant to DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis, who helped prepare the report, told the Albany Times Union on March 23.

-- By Rona Cohen