PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 17, 2021
Plastic is everywhere. It is filling up landfills, littering our roadways and choking our oceans and wildlife. Very little is ever recycled. In terms of municipal waste management and environmental degradation, the cost is enormous. Someone has to pay it — and it should be those who decide to use all that plastic, and who have the power to change course. Maine could become the first state to do that with two bills now under consideration that would create extended producer responsibility programs for plastic and cardboard packaging.