Maine

Professional painting contractors are one of the groups most affected by PaintCare. If you are a painting contractor, please review the information below to learn more about PaintCare, the fees, and paint recycling services available from PaintCare.

As required by state law, a paint stewardship assessment (“PaintCare Fee”) must be added by manufacturers to the wholesale price of all architectural paint sold in the state. This fee is paid by manufacturers to PaintCare to fund setting up drop-off sites for leftover, postconsumer paint, and for the transportation, recycling, and proper disposal of that paint. The fees also pay for consumer education and program administrative costs. Effective December 1, 2018, sales tax is not applied to the PaintCare fee in Maine.

The fees are based on container size as follows:

Retail drop-off sites provide a convenient and no cost recycling option for painting contractors and other businesses. Businesses that generate less than 220 pounds of hazardous waste* per month are able to use these sites to recycle all program products (both water and oil-based) with some restrictions on quantities per month. Larger businesses (those that generate more than 220 pounds of hazardous waste per month) may use the drop-off sites for their water-based program products only; they are not able to use the sites for oil-based paint or other solvent-based products.

*220 pounds is about 20-30 gallons of paint. When counting how much hazardous waste you generate in a month, oil-based paint counts (because by law it is a hazardous waste), but latex and other water-based paint does not count toward the 220 pound monthly total.

If you have a large amount of unwanted paint, PaintCare offers a service that benefits both you and our volunteer drop-off sites — you don’t have to take your paint to a drop-off site a little at a time, and they don’t get overwhelmed with large volumes of paint. This free service is available to households or businesses with at least 200 gallons of paint. To learn more, please review the following fact sheet. Then call PaintCare to request an appointment.

Large Volume Pick-Up Service Fact Sheet

Find out how the service works and how to request a pick-up.

LVP Fact Sheet
Also in Spanish

LVP Form to Request a Pick Up

Please use our new online form to request a pick up. Must be a minimum of 200 gallons:

LVP Form (Online)

You can also use the excel or PDF versions of the form and send by e-mail, fax or regular mail:

LVP Form (Excel)
LVP Form (PDF)

Information for painting contractors is available below.

English

French

Let your customers know that you are a paint drop-off location!  Visit our Drop-Off Site Promotion Toolkit for artwork for digital advertising, social media, or print advertising.

You can also order free point-of-sale (POS) materials or signage for your business or organization.

• Drop-Off Site Promotion Toolkit. Use these digital and print ad templates to promote your store as a PaintCare drop-off site on a website, in social media, or in a print newspaper or other publication.
• Order signs and point-of-sale materials
• Connect with us on Facebook

Retailers who are drop off sites must maintain these required records for three years:

a. Employee training logs for the PaintCare program. Download training log here.

b. Shipping documents provided to the retailer by PaintCare’s contracted transporter.

c. PaintCare provides exempt generator certification forms to drop-off sites to be signed by all businesses and organizations that drop off oil-based paint or other solvent based program products. Signing the form is not necessary for those with only latex or water based program products. The form was updated in August 2017 due to changes to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act regulations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Download the current form here: Exempt Generator Certification Form

Not a drop-off site, but are interested in becoming one? Please see the information in the Partnering with PaintCare section at the bottom of this page.

The Maine Paint Stewardship Law requires retailers of paint to include the PaintCare Fee in the sale price of program products and only sell products registered with the program. (Retailers may also volunteer to become a drop-off site – see fact sheet below). More details are provided here:

a. Add Assessment Fee: Manufacturers must add the PaintCare Fees to their wholesale price of each container of paint. Retailers must ensure these fees are passed down to the consumer. Effective December 1, 2018, sales tax is not applied to the PaintCare Fee in Maine. Fees are by container size and are as follows:

b. Sell Registered Brands: Retailers must make sure they do not sell unregistered architectural paint brands. Retailers can verify the registration of manufacturers and brands using the following lists which are updated regularly. If you are a retailer and do not see a manufacturer or brand of paint sold in your store on these lists, please contact PaintCare at (855) 724-6809 so we can contact them to help get them registered.

• Registered Manufacturers
• Registered Brands

c. Provide information to consumers about the paint stewardship program and recycling opportunities in Maine. PaintCare has developed the General Poster and Program Brochure to help retailers meet this requirement. See ordering information below.

PaintCare held a series of online Webinars on May 12 and June 16, 2015. These Webinars discussed Maine’s Paint Stewardship Law and the role of paint retailers.

• To view slides from these presentations click here.

Brochures and other printed materials are available to retailers and facilities at no charge. Order additional materials online, or place an order by calling PaintCare at (855) 724-6809 or by sending a completed form by email, fax, or regular mail.

• Order Form for Brochures and Other Printed Materials (PDF) Also in Word

The following materials are available:

• Program Brochure (“Recycle with PaintCare”)
• Mini Card (Find a paint drop-off site). Also available in Spanish
• General Poster for Retailers This poster is intended for use in stores in the paint department or near the cash registers to help explain the PaintCare program and Fees to customers.
• Leftover Paint Receipt Form Use this receipt if someone dropping off paint asks for one. (Some county or city inspectors ask businesses to show receipts to demonstrate that they disposed or recycled of their paint.)

• Fact Sheet: Paint Retailers Informs all paint retailers in Maine of their responsibilities under the paint stewardship program.
• Fact Sheet: PaintCare Fees Answers to common questions from retailers about fees.

PaintCare welcomes partnerships with municipal agencies, especially those that operate household hazardous waste collection programs, landfills, and transfer stations. PaintCare covers the cost of paint storage bins, paint transportation and recycling, and public outreach and education. There is no monetary compensation for operations or labor costs associated with serving as a drop-off site. To learn more, please see the following fact sheets and interest forms. For municipal agencies that wish to offer services to PaintCare in addition to serving as a drop-off site, monetary compensation may be negotiated. These services include reprocessing paint at your site, bulking paint in situations where storage space is limited, offering usable paint in original containers to the public (“Reuse Program”), and transportation from municipal-owned satellite locations (e.g., landfills) to a main site. Read more about becoming a PaintCare drop-off location:

• Fact Sheet for HHW Programs, If you would like to partner with PaintCare, please fill out our Online HHW Interest Form (or use the Word or PDF version and send by email, fax or regular mail).
• Fact Sheet for Transfer Stations and Recycling Centers. If you would like to partner with PaintCare, please fill out our Online Interest Form (or use the Word or PDF version and send by email, fax or regular mail).

Watch our video about becoming a PaintCare drop-off location:

Municipalities that have contracts with PaintCare may request partial funding for pre-approved joint outreach activities with PaintCare to promote PaintCare drop-off sites and events. Past projects have included newspaper advertising, direct mail, and radio campaigns. For details, please read the following fact sheet.

• Fact Sheet: Joint Outreach Projects
• Proposal Form (Word). Form also available as PDF

PaintCare encourages household hazardous waste programs, reuse stores and others to operate paint reuse programs (i.e., swap shops or exchanges). Reuse programs return good quality unused paint to the local community at low or no cost. Reuse is a preferred method of waste management. To encourage reuse, PaintCare compensates paint drop-off sites operating a reuse program under a contract with PaintCare. PaintCare allows two different reporting methods by container or by volume as described here.

• Fact Sheet: Reuse Pricing

PaintCare prepares an annual report for the 12 months ending June 30. The first report for Maine covers 9 months because the program started in October 2015.

• Maine Annual Report 2018 (July 2017 – June 2018)
• On January 17, 2019, PaintCare hosted a public webinar to review the most recent Annual Reports for its programs in Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and provide an update on program activities. A recording of the webinar is available here.
• Maine Annual Report 2017 (July 2016 – June 2017)
• Maine Annual Report 2016 (October 2015 – June 2016)

Effective December 1, 2018, sales tax is not applied to the PaintCare Fee in Maine. To review the law that exempts the fee from sales and use tax, visit the Maine State Legislature’s website.

The Maine Paint Stewardship Law requires retailers of paint to include the PaintCare Fee in the sale price of program products and only sell products registered with the program. These fees are used to fund all aspects of the paint stewardship program:  paint collection, transportation, recycling, public outreach, and program administration.

PaintCare’s program plan for Maine was approved in August 2015. this plan describes the operations, outreach, and other activities proposed for the Maine Paint Stewardship Program.

• Maine Paint Stewardship Plan (June 2015)

The Maine paint stewardship program is required by the Maine Paint Product Stewardship Law (July 2, 2013).

The oversight agency for the Maine paint stewardship program is the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.