On March 25th, Maine Governor John Baldacci signed a first-in-the-nation “framework product stewardship” law, introduced by Rep. Melissa Walsh Innes (D-Yarmouth). The law creates a systematic approach for identifying troublesome products in the waste stream for new “product stewardship” programs – which assign end-of-life recovery and recycling costs to product manufacturers. The approach will be similar to Maine’s electronic waste (e-waste) law, signed in 2004, which has resulted in the successful recycling of more than 25 million pounds of e-waste, keeping toxic materials out of land fills. Over the past six years, NRCM has provided leadership in the development and enactment of product stewardship laws, and we played a big role in passage of this law. More information.
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