LD 1631: An Act to Provide Leadership Regarding the Responsible Recycling of Consumer Products
End of session update:
(Learn even more about this first-in-the-nation bill here.)
Consumers generate too much waste, with too little recycling. Ideally, manufacturers of consumer goods would help pay for the collection and responsible recycling of the products they produce, keeping them out of land fills. This approach, called “product stewardship,” is well established in Europe and Canada, and is beginning to take hold in Maine.
The Legislature passed an important bill this year that establishes product stewardship as a fundamental tenet of Maine’s solid waste policies. An Act to Provide Leadership Regarding the Responsible Recycling of Consumer Goods (LD 1631), introduced by Rep. Melissa Walsh Innes (D-Yarmouth), initially drew strong opposition from Maine business interests and lobbyists representing a host of manufacturers. But Rep. Innes and NRCM’s Matt Prindiville spent long hours explaining the merits of the bill and working through amendments to address concerns, eventually earning the support of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. “In the end, we reached a consensus approach that received unanimous support in committee,” said Prindiville.
The new law sets up a first-in-the-nation program to systematically review and recommend products for manufacturer-financed collection and recycling programs. It builds on the success of Maine’s 2004 electronic waste (e-waste) bill, which has resulted in the collection of more than 25 million pounds of e-waste. Under the new law, Maine’s DEP will systematically evaluate products that might be suitable for producer-financed collection programs and report annually to the Legislature, which may draft bills to establish new product stewardship programs. “This bill is a win-win for Maine. It will help save money for taxpayers and move us closer to a holistic approach to waste management that protects our environment and results in responsible recycling of consumer products,” said Prindiville.
Read NRCM's testimony on this bill.
Many consumer products contain toxic materials, which are dangerous when disposed of in incinerators or landfills.
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Hundreds of products make our lives easier, until we don’t need them anymore. Then, if they’re not disposed of responsibly, the acids, toxic chemicals, mercury and other heavy metals they contain become a danger to our health and the environment (1).
While most consumer products can be recycled, the vast majority end up in the trash, wasting valuable resources and threatening our health and the environment.
- Each person in the United States creates 4.5 pounds of garbage a day. That is twice what we each generated thirty years ago (2).
- Manufactured products and associated packaging make up 75% of what we throw away (3).
- We’re missing a tremendous opportunity to make today’s waste tomorrow’s products.
Municipalities need help affording the growing cost of consumer product waste.
- As more and more products are identified as potentially hazardous, they are rightly banned from disposal and instead required to be recycled or disposed of as hazardous waste.
- These disposal bans must be enforced by local governments and this can increase municipal costs to operate local solid waste facilities.
- Without additional financing, municipalities are left without the resources to protect people and the environment.
Maine already has the roadmap to solve this growing problem: Maine’s product stewardship laws for electronic waste, mercury thermostats and lamps are innovative and effective success stories that are now national models.
- These laws direct producers to fund the collection and recycling of their products at the end of the product’s useful life, promoting the sustainable reuse of materials and preventing the release of hazardous chemicals into the environment.
- These laws reduce costs for local governments and taxpayers and create jobs through the collection and recycling of formerly discarded products.
Maine needs to establish a framework to systematically expand partnerships with manufacturers to increase the collection and recycling of consumer products. The bill would:
- Direct the state to systematically evaluate which products are most appropriate and top priorities for product stewardship recycling systems.
- Develop rules to create producer-financed, shared responsibility recycling systems subject to review by the public and oversight through the Board of Environmental Protection.
For information, please contact Matt Prindiville at mprindiville@nrcm.org or 207-430-0144
References:
1 "The Problem: Manufactured Product Waste.” California Product Stewardship Council – “a coalition of local governments and their associations related to solid waste, recycling, resource conservation, environmental protection, water quality, and other cross-media issues (Associates).” http://www.calpsc.org/solution/problem.html
2 "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling and Disposal In the United States. Facts and Figures for 2007.” US Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw07-fs.pdf
3 Ibid.