Maine DEP’s Stewardship Organization solicitation, RFP-202605094, was published on June 15, 2026 and closed on
August 18, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. with zero proposals submitted. DEP announced this on August 20 and said it “is assessing all options at this time; further information will be forthcoming in a future newsletter.” The Circular Action Alliance, which holds the equivalent role in California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington, publicly declined to bid, as Resource Recycling reported on August 19. CAA said the RFP’s scope did not align with its operational practices, systems, and data stewardship standards, and that it had no visibility into the full requirements until the RFP issued. It left open the possibility of bidding on a future solicitation. The program is at step four of DEP’s nine-step process, contracting with a Stewardship Organization. (Corrected October 12, 2026.)
What this means for you: nothing changes today, and that is the whole point. Maine producers still have no registration, no reporting, and no fee obligation, because the registration clock only starts within 90 days of a Stewardship Organization making a registration mechanism available, and there is no Stewardship Organization. Maine is now the only state with an enacted packaging EPR law and no organization in place. If you had Maine startup fees in a late 2026 budget, take them out: DEP has said it intends to reassess the anticipated dates for producer start-up registration and invoicing, so the previous “late 2026” expectation no longer rests on anything. Alternative Collection Program applications are also frozen, since DEP only begins accepting them the day it and a Stewardship Organization enter into a contract. Source:
Maine DEP, Stewardship Organization RFP-202605094 Announcement (August 20, 2026); CAA’s decision reported by
Resource Recycling (August 19, 2026).
Update, September 24, 2026: two points in this entry are corrected. The August 19 date is the date of Resource Recycling’s report, which says CAA announced its decision “this week”; CAA’s own Maine page says it “has decided not to submit a bid in response to Maine’s RFP”, and its August 2026 newsletter carries the statement. (Corrected October 12, 2026.)
Update, September 25, 2026: CAA’s August 2026 newsletter carries no send date; it is headed “August 2026” and lists press items dated August 20, so cite it as the August 2026 newsletter, not August 21. And the program had not sat at step four since December 2024: DEP’s program page lists step three as Packaging Material Types List Adoption, Chapter 428 was amended in March 2026, after its December 2024 adoption, to add that list as Appendix A, and step four, contracting with a Stewardship Organization, began with the June 15, 2026 RFP. (Corrected October 12, 2026.)
(Corrected October 8, 2026: DEP’s announcement names no expected bidder, so CAA should not have been called the only one. CAA is the PRO in the six other enacted states, and its Maine page says the RFP “as scoped is not aligned with our operational practices, systems and data stewardship standards”.)