An Act to Clarify the Approval Process for and the Operation of the
Maine Legislature, Session 132, LD 2036
Sponsors: CAMPBELL
Amends: 38 MRSA §3107

Legislative Document
No. 2036
H.P. 1366
House of Representatives, December 5, 2025
An Act to Clarify the Approval Process for and the Operation of the 
Commingling Program for the Management of Beverage Containers
Approved for introduction by a majority of the Legislative Council pursuant to Joint Rule 
203.
Received by the Clerk of the House on December 3, 2025.  Referred to the Committee on 
Environment and Natural Resources pursuant to Joint Rule 308.2 and ordered printed pursuant 
to Joint Rule 401.
ROBERT B. HUNT
Clerk
Presented by Representative CAMPBELL of Orrington.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1.  38 MRSA §3107, sub-§3-B, ¶B, as amended by PL 2025, c. 241, §§7 and 
8, is further amended by amending subparagraph (1) to read:
(1)  The method by which the program will facilitate and, no later than October 1, 
2026, complete the transition from beverage container sorting at redemption 
centers by brand to sorting by material type and, for redemption centers that 
manually sort containers, by size and deposit value within each material type.  The 
program must be designed to complete this transition no later than October 1, 2026, 
as long as at least 90% of the initiators of deposit included in the program have 
provided auditable beverage container sales data to the commingling cooperative 
by June 30, 2026.  The program may facilitate the negotiation of agreements with 
redemption centers to gather brand data through use of reverse vending machines, 
account-based bulk processing programs or similar technology as long as the cost 
of such data collection is paid by the program;
Sec. 2.  38 MRSA §3107, sub-§3-B, ¶C, as amended by PL 2025, c. 241, §9 and 
affected by §21, is further amended to read:
C.  Within 120 days of receipt of a plan submitted by the cooperative under paragraph 
B, the department shall review the plan and approve the plan, approve the plan with 
conditions or reject the plan.  Prior to determining whether to approve or reject a plan, 
the department shall hold a public meeting on the plan.  The department shall notify 
the cooperative in writing of its determination and, if the plan is approved with 
conditions or rejected, shall include in the notification a description of the basis for the 
conditions or rejection.  Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the 
department's review of and determination of whether to approve or reject a plan 
submitted by the cooperative under paragraph B is not a license or permit decision or 
other final action of the department and is not subject to the rules adopted by the 
department regarding the processing of applications.
(1)  If the cooperative's plan is rejected, it may submit a revised plan to the 
department within 60 days of receiving the notice of rejection.  The department 
may approve the revised plan as submitted or approve the revised plan subject to 
the implementation of specific changes required by the department.
(2)  If the cooperative's plan is approved in accordance with this paragraph, the 
cooperative shall implement the plan on or before January 15, 2026 in accordance 
with the timeline for implementation described in paragraph B, subparagraph (13), 
subject to any changes or conditions imposed by the department.  If the cooperative 
fails to implement an approved plan on or before January 15, 2026, the initiators 
of deposit that are members of each of the commingling groups included in the 
cooperative are deemed to be in violation of this chapter and are subject to penalties 
pursuant to section 3111.
Sec. 3.  Retroactivity. This Act applies retroactively to January 1, 2025.
SUMMARY
This bill amends the laws governing the beverage container redemption program to 
provide that the operation plan for the management of beverage containers under a single 
commingling program submitted to the Department of Environmental Protection by the 
commingling cooperative must be designed to complete the transition from beverage 
container sorting by brand to sorting by material type no later than October 1, 2026, as long 
as at least 90% of the initiators of deposit included in the program have provided auditable 
beverage container sales data to the commingling cooperative by June 30, 2026.  It also 
provides that the department's review of and determination of whether to approve or reject 
an operation plan submitted by the commingling cooperative is not a license or permit 
decision or other final action of the department and is not subject to the rules adopted by 
the department regarding processing of applications.  These changes to the laws governing 
the beverage container redemption program are made retroactive to January 1, 2025.