Maine is now the first state in the nation to require vape and e-cigarette manufacturers to fund end-of-life management for their products.
Gov. Janet Mills signed LD 1519 on April 23, giving producers until November 2027 to join a producer responsibility organization (PRO) and stand-up collection infrastructure.
The people who have been trying to build that infrastructure for years have already been watching as policy has unfolded, such as Michael Duckworth.
The founder of Positive Energy Environmental Solutions launched his Nebraska-based vape recycling company in 2023 after identifying what he described as a near-total absence of collection systems and processing capacity for vaping devices nationwide.
He told Resource Recycling that even well-designed EPR programs will stall without the logistics networks, retailer participation and consumer convenience that make collection actually work.
During a recent conversation with RR, Duckworth about what Maine’s first-in-the-nation law means for recyclers already operating in the space, what it will take to build functional infrastructure before the 2027 deadline, and whether this moment finally gives the vape recycling sector the foothold it’s needed.
Is the 2027 deployment deadline too ambitious?
The deployment timeline is realistic for getting the basic program stood up and bins placed, Duckworth said, but he cautioned that retailer enrollment is historically one of the hardest parts of any collection program to execute, and Maine’s rural geography compounds that challenge.
“To meet the 90% coverage requirement, rural locations are going to have to get creative about where collection sites are placed,” he said. “You’re not going to hit those numbers relying solely on traditional retail.”
He also pushed back on expectations for early recovery rates, drawing on his own experience in Omaha. His program started at 12 to 20% recovery before reaching the 40 to 70% range after a year or two of operation, once consumer awareness had time to build.
Maine’s law allows for multiple producer responsibility organizations to operate concurrently, a departure from most state EPR frameworks. Duckworth sees that flexibility as a potential liability if it’s not managed carefully.
“If this becomes a hybrid program – multiple PROs, multiple collection methods, mail-in kits, kiosks, retail drop-off all running in parallel – someone has to own the standard,” he said. “Fragmented programs produce fragmented data and a confusing consumer experience.”
He also flagged the law’s two-device return limit as a friction point. “A lot of people are sitting on a handful of devices, and enforcing that consistently across multiple formats and operators is harder than it sounds on paper.”
Diversion targets versus awareness campaigns, which matters more?
LD 1519 gives PROs the option to pursue either a 50% diversion rate or a 50% consumer awareness benchmark. Duckworth was direct about his preference.
“Diversion is the only number that actually keeps material out of landfills and out of refuse trucks,” he said. “Awareness without infrastructure is just marketing.”
He described the awareness option as a potential escape valve, or a way for PROs to demonstrate progress without doing the harder work of building collection density.
“The downstream consequence of choosing awareness is simple: you’ve bought more time and less accountability, and the material keeps going in the trash,” he said.
Will EPR resolve the regulatory tangle around RCRA and e-manifest requirements?
Federal hazardous waste regulations have long been one of the biggest cost and compliance barriers for vape recyclers, and Duckworth said whether Maine’s law improves that picture depends heavily on rulemaking.
The federal household hazardous waste exemption under RCRA could meaningfully reduce the compliance burden for consumer drop-off programs, he said, but that protection evaporates once a business takes custody of the material for transport or processing.
Cannabis vape waste adds another layer.
“Unless cannabis devices are being segregated at the point of collection and kept separate through transport, you’re looking at additional regulatory oversight, potential hazmat classification questions and real operational burden on whoever is running the logistics,” Duckworth stated.
“Maine’s law is only as strong as the regulatory framework built underneath it,” he said.
Can EPR hold overseas manufacturers accountable where outright bans have failed?
The UK’s single-use vape ban as well as manufacturers’ rapid pivot to devices with USB-C charging ports that technically qualified as rechargeable illustrated the limits of product bans as a policy tool, Duckworth indicated.
Around 6,000 e-cigarette products were available in the US as of June 2024, yet only 41 have been authorized for sale by the FDA, meaning the vast majority of products on shelves are operating outside regulatory approval.
China exported an estimated $3.7 billion in vapes to the US in 2024, according to Chinese export records, but US Census Bureau import data for the same period recorded only $333 million, a gap that suggests a share of those devices are entering the country through channels that aren’t being captured in official figures. When enforcement agencies try to trace those products back to a manufacturer, they often find nothing.
“When you try to chase down a distributor for compliance purposes, you often hit a wall,” Duckworth said. “Nobody’s reachable, nobody’s registered, nobody’s accountable.”
Under a well-structured EPR model, he said, that obligation doesn’t disappear when the producer is overseas or the distributor goes dark. It flows to whoever is selling the product, including individual retailers and small shop owners, requiring them to have an approved PRO or DEP-approved program in place.
“EPR pushes the obligation to the point of sale, which is where you can actually find someone to hold responsible,” he said.
What does model vape EPR legislation actually need to include?
Looking across Maine, Nebraska’s Safe Battery and Recycling Act and stalled legislation in New Jersey, Duckworth outlined what he sees as the core requirements for vape EPR laws that function on the ground: mandatory retailer participation; fee structures tied to units sold rather than weight alone; clear language on how state obligations interact with federal RCRA requirements; and real enforcement consequences for non-participation.
He referenced Oregon, where a proposed $5 deposit model is under discussion.
“If that gains traction it could be a significant lever for driving consumer return rates in a way that a $2 incentive probably can’t,” he said.
Duckworth said, however, that legislation alone cannot create the infrastructure needed.
“You can write collection into law, but you can’t write recycling capacity into existence,” he said. “The few stewardship organizations capable of taking on statewide programs aren’t fully prepared for this type of regulatory complexity.”
Is Maine’s $2 incentive enough to change behavior?
Mandatory retailer drop-off locations are a genuine improvement over HHW facilities with limited hours, but Duckworth said he was skeptical the $2 incentive moves the needle on consumer behavior.
“Convenience is everything,” he said. “It’s not that consumers don’t care, most of them do. It’s that returning a used device has to be easier than throwing it in the trash, and right now it usually isn’t.”
He called for close tracking of actual bin weights at collection locations in the program’s first year before drawing any conclusions about whether the incentive structure is working.
“The data will tell the truth faster than any assumption will,” he said.
What else moves the needle beyond EPR?
Duckworth said federal universal waste exemptions for vapes, which are being actively discussed, could lower the compliance burden on collectors and recyclers.
Producer design mandates requiring removable batteries would make the entire downstream process cheaper and safer. And some form of national PRO framework, even a voluntary one, would relieve operators from navigating a different compliance regime in every state.
While not dismissive of the potential of a federal program coming into play, for now, Duckworth said, battery recovery legislation will reside at the state level.
“Is federal action realistic? There’s more political will around lithium battery fires and the EPA battery conversations than people give it credit for. But honestly, we’re looking at a state-by-state build for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Scaling for the future
As for Positive Energy, the company is continuing to expand its collection network across the Omaha metro targeting vape shops, tattoo studios, apartment complexes, high-traffic retail while pursuing school pilot programs that Duckworth said is a step toward reaching younger users and building recycling habits early.
A facility expansion is also underway, an infrastructure investment he described as a signal that the company is building for the long term.
However, Duckworth said the bigger issue the industry needs to reckon with runs deeper than collection logistics or program timelines.
“There’s a difference between disposing of vape waste and actually recovering it,” he said. “EPR laws are only as good as the operators they fund, and right now the default solution from the big players in this space is incineration or thermal treatment. That solves a fire hazard and creates a carbon one.”
What Positive Energy is building toward, he said, is something different: lithium, cobalt and other critical minerals returned to the supply chain, with plastics recovered and the material loop actually closing. A circular vaping economy rather than a waste-to-energy one.
“We’re one of the only operators in the country actively building toward that outcome, and we’re doing it from Nebraska, without a mandate, without PRO funding, because we believe the infrastructure has to exist before the policy can fully work,” he said.
