Maine | Returnable Beverage Container Law
The state of Maine introduced their Returnable Beverage Container Law in 1978, becoming the second state in the United States to introduce a bottle bill behind Oregon. According to the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), Maine’s DRS program has been the “most successful waste and litter reduction law” in the state’s history.
Despite the program's success, NRCM notes that lobbyist pressure, inflation, and labor shortages threatened and continue to threaten the success of Maine’s bottle bill. This led to Maine Governor Janet Mills signing An Act to Modernize Maine’s Beverage Container Redemption Law (LD 1909) in August of 2023. LD 1909 is designed to restructure funding so unredeemed deposits are used to improve the bill, make sorting at redemption centers easier by allowing employees to sort by material instead of brand, and incentivize reuse and refill systems.
Packaging Dive reports that LD 1909 followed an “emergency bottle bill update” in May of 2023, that raised handling fees (paid to retailers, redemption centers, etc. to help with operation costs of reverse logistics programs, machines, and staff) to six cents USD per container from four cents USD, and was in response to fifty redemption centers closing in the state over a three-year period from 2020 to 2023.
What’s Included?
The Bottle Bill’s Resource Guide states that Maine’s bottle bill covers “all beverages except dairy products, unprocessed cider, and Maine-produced apple cider and blueberry juice” that are packaged in glass, metal, and plastic and are four liters or less.
The bill exempts cartons and aseptics from the DRS scheme.
What’s the Refund Value?
Similar to California’s AB 2020, Maine’s DRS scheme has a tiered deposit refund value, including:
Wine and liquor above 50ml: fifteen cents USD
All other beverages (and wine / liquor under 50ml): five cents USD
Impact of DRS in Maine
As an early mover in DRS, EPR, and championing other environmental legislation, the state of Maine has the highest recycling rates in the nation for PET, aluminum, and glass. We used the same source for all of the states featured in this index, and this is what we found for Maine:
PET recycling rate (2018): 75% (highest in nation)
Aluminum recycling rate (2018): 83% (highest in nation)
Glass recycling rate (2018): 76% (highest in nation)
*data from 50 States of Recycling 2.0 by Ball Corporation & Eunomia
A National Leader in Recycling
Maine’s recycling rates are impressive and way ahead of the national average—they’re even high compared to other states with DRS programs:
Maine’s PET recycling rate for 2018 of 75% is 55.96% higher than the national average (19.04%) and 28.2% higher than the average of the ten states with DRS (46.80%).
Maine’s aluminum recycling rate for 2018 of 83% is 51.72% higher than the national average (31.28%) and 15.4% higher than the average of the ten states with DRS (67.60%).
Maine’s glass recycling rate for 2018 of 76% is 50.14% higher than the national average (25.86%) and 22.2% higher than the average of the ten states with DRS (53.80%).
Read more about Maine’s DRS program and work to uphold its success despite macro economic shifts and industry pressure here.
Read about the bottle bills in the nine other US states here.
