Municipal Recycling Progress Report

Municipalities are required to report to Maine DEP every two years on their solid waste management and recycling practices (38 M.R.S. § 2133.7). Municipalities can use the information from this report to assess their progress toward achieving a Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) recycling rate of 50%. This 50% is a statewide goal, not a municipal-specific goal. However, decisions and actions on the local level contribute to the overall statewide MSW recycling rate.

The next biennial recycling progress report is due April 30, 2027, and will require solid waste management information from your municipality for calendar years 2025 and 2026.

The Department will be implementing a new online licensing and reporting system, known as the Maine Enterprise Licensing System (MELS). This online resource will be used to submit the next Biennial Recycling Progress Report.

To help municipalities prepare, we plan on creating two user guides, which will be sent via email to our current list of municipal contacts and posted to this webpage.

The first user guide will show municipalities how to set up their MELS account and connect their municipality to their user profile. We anticipate releasing this guide in November of 2026. The second user guide will provide detailed instructions on how to complete the Municipal Recycling Progress Report in MELS. We anticipate releasing this guide in January of 2027. There will be specific reporting guidance within these instructions for municipalities participating in the packaging program.

If you have not heard from the Department by January of 2027, that likely means we do not have accurate contact information for your municipality. We are currently verifying our contact list for the municipalities in Maine. We are primarily working off the contacts who filled in the last Municipal Recycling Report, which was due in April 2025. If you know there has been a change in your municipality’s contact information in the last year or so, please contact Courtney Hafner Courtney Hafner and/or Megan Mansfield-Pryor Megan Mansfield-Pryor for assistance.

For more details about the packaging program or to be added to list of municipalities interesting in participating please email MainePackagingEPR@maine.gov.

This will be the preferred method of reporting for the foreseeable future. If you have any questions about MELS, please see the supporting resources at the MELS Hub. We understand this will be a change for many of us, and we thank you in advance for your patience and understanding during this transition period.

Please note that this biennial municipal recycling progress report is separate from the annual reports submitted to DEP by permitted solid waste facilities such as transfer stations. Submission of this biennial report is required by all Maine municipalities, and this report does not meet the annual reporting requirement for permitted facilities including transfer stations. More information on annual facility reporting is available on our Forms and Fees webpage.

Resources for Regional Solid Waste Facilities

Regional solid waste facilities are an important source of information for Maine municipalities working on their recycling progress reports. The documents below are intended to help regional solid waste facilities provide municipalities with better data on their solid waste management.

  • The “Regional Facilities Apportioning MSW” spreadsheet may be used to quickly and easily divide up the total tons of MSW trash and recycling managed by your facility amongst the municipalities that use the facility based on population.  This allows facilities to provide municipalities with a rough estimate of their MSW trash and recycling tonnage. 
  • Detailed instructions for apportioning solid waste activities based on population, property values, and other factors are provided in the “Regional Solid Waste Facility Guidance” document. 
  • The “Hauler Data Request” document provides another option for collecting data on where the materials delivered to a facility were generated.

Contact

Please contact Courtney Hafner (207) 314-3357 for assistance with municipal recycling progress reports.