Some Mainers may have to drive an hour or more to dispose of the propane canister they used when camping or at a cookout, which is why the small containers often end up in household trash or tossed into the woods.
That’s a problem lawmakers aim to solve with a new bill to study the safe disposal of single-use propane canisters, which often still contain enough propane to cause an explosion if punctured. There currently is no central repository or list of places that take the one-pound, nonrefillable propane canisters, making it hit or miss for people who want to dispose of them responsibly. The Maine Legislature’s environment committee will hear testimony on the bill on Monday.
“The problem of litter was one of the main motivators around it,” Rep. Ambureen Rana, D-Bangor, said. “People don’t have an option or any convenient or efficient way of disposing of them, so they just end up being littered.”
Rana introduced the bill, which has six co-sponsors in the Maine Senate and House. The bill requires the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to evaluate the current infrastructure for disposing of single-use propane canisters and make recommendations for improvements to the environment committee by Dec. 3. Possible outcomes might be a trade-in program or outright banning of the single-use canisters.
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“The problem is, there is no kind of disposal or recycling system for these,” Alexander Cole, a research engineer at the University of Maine in Orono, said. “And there’s no incentive for them [the manufacturers] to go into the market of refillable propane tanks.”
Cole, who lives in Bangor, proposed the bill to Rana after noticing the canisters tossed into the woods and stacked in people’s garages. He spends a lot of time in the woods camping, but he found the closest facility to dispose of the small canisters is in Lewiston, about a two-hour drive for him. He solved the problem by purchasing a five-pound propane tank that can be refilled.
The one-pound canisters are popular among campers both for cooking and warmth at night. They are widely available from supermarkets to sporting goods stores. Amazon.com advertises two Coleman single-use canisters for $22.59. Refillable canisters are more expensive, with two Flame Kind canisters running $35.68 on Amazon.com.
Camping continues to be popular in Maine state parks, where 288,000 visitors camped last year, according to the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands. Total park visitors were up more than 6 percent at 3.12 million compared with 2023.
Currently, there is limited evidence of how many of the one-pound propane canisters are used in Maine. Nancy Driscoll, office manager at N ‘n M Recycling in Hancock, New Hampshire, said her company collects about 428 canisters each week from 15 locations in Maine. The recycling service collects several thousand weekly throughout New England. Other than the canisters her company collects, Driscoll has no idea how people are disposing of them. She supports Rana’s bill.
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“They may just put them in a black garbage bag and throw them in the dumpster,” Driscoll said. “That’s no good because, if there’s any propane in it, it’s going to explode.”
Single-use propane tank along with two reusable tanks on a stoop in Bangor, Tuesday. The single-use tank warns that refilling it could cause an explosion. Credit: Sawyer Loftus / BDN
Some canisters make it into the waste stream, causing concern for Jon Chalmers, director of administration at the Hatch Hill Solid Waste Disposal Facility in Augusta.
“It’s definitely an ongoing safety concern because it’s a fuel source under pressure,” Chalmers said. “We found them in our single-stream recyclables and mixed in with tin cans and glass.”
The landfill charges $2 to people disposing of the canisters and then recycles them with N ‘n M. Chalmers figured he sees several hundred canisters in the landfill’s waste stream over the course of a year.
He is happy to see that the Legislature may weigh in on hazardous disposal, saying other items such as lithium batteries and marine flares also are big concerns because of an ongoing fire risk.
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Chalmers said he can’t definitely identify canisters as the cause of any fires at the Augusta landfill. But canisters have caused fires elsewhere. The explosion of a propane tank at a waste processing plant in Hampden in January 2020 injured a worker and forced the plant to temporarily shut down. The canister came to the former Coastal Resources of Maine plant with a delivery of household trash and exploded as it made its way through the plant’s processing equipment, according to a plant spokesperson at the time. The tank still had fuel in it, and the puncture caused a fireball.
It can be difficult to tell if a canister is empty, Victor Horton, executive director of the Maine Resource Recovery Association in Newport, said. The center helps communities develop sustainable waste management practices.
“It’s a problem because it’s not convenient for a lot of people to get to places that will take the canisters,” said Horton, who plans to testify in favor of the bill. “Someone who lives up in Caribou or Frenchville is not going to be able to drive to Augusta or Lewiston with four or five canisters.”
There are two hazardous waste collection facilities, in Lewiston and Portland, that will take hazardous waste from anywhere in the state. Riverside Recycling in Portland charges $5 per canister disposal and the Environmental Depot in Lewiston charges $8 per canister. Some transfer stations will take them, but others will not, Horton said, saying it is best to call first.
If the bill passes, one option would be to study how to manage the canisters through its Stewardship Program for Packaging, David Madore, deputy commissioner of the state’s environmental department, said. Single-use propane canisters would fit under the program, he said, which aims to push some of the burden of recycling onto product manufacturers starting in 2027. Producers that send the canisters into the state would have to report sales and pay a fee, or set up their own program to collect and manage the canisters.
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Other states are looking into how to handle disposal of the single-use canisters. California took the strongest action so far last September when it became the first state to ban canisters that are not reusable or refillable by Jan. 1, 2028. The state consumes some 10 percent of the up to 60 million single-use canisters sold in the United States, according to Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. When the law was announced he said the propane cylinders have placed a great burden on California’s park systems, beaches, trash facilities and local governments.
“The hope is to look into all of the options to mitigate harm,” said Rana of the proposed bill in Maine. “It is a possibility that the study will come back and say banning is the best option, or maybe recycling might make more sense such as the stewardship program that fits into policies that already exist.”
Lori Valigra reports on the environment for the BDN’s Maine Focus investigative team. Reach her at lvaligra@bangordailynews.com. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation and donations by BDN readers.
TJ Biel scored 21 points and Newport native Ace Flagg added 10 points and seven rebounds as the University of Maine men’s basketball team held on for a 74-70 win over the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey.
Logan Carey added 11 points and five assists for the Black Bears, who improve to 3-15 overall and 1-2 in the conference. Yanis Bamba chipped in 14 points.
Maine led by seven at the half, but NJIT went on a 13-0 run in the first four minutes to take a 43-37 lead. The Black Bears recovered and took the lead on a dunk by Keelan Steele with 7:53 left and held on for the win.
Sebastian Robinson scored 24 points and Ari Fulton grabbed 11 rebounds for NJIT (7-11, 2-1).
Clarissa Sabattis, Chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseets, foreground, and other leaders of Maine’s tribes are welcomed by lawmakers into the House Chamber in March, 2023 in Augusta. (Robert F. Bukaty, /Associated Press)
Maine’s gambling landscape is set to expand after Gov. Janet Mills decided Thursday to let tribes offer online casino games, but numerous questions remain over the launch of the new market and how much it will benefit the Wabanaki Nations.
Namely, there is no concrete timeline for when the new gambling options that make Maine the eighth “iGaming” state will become available. Maine’s current sports betting market that has been dominated by the Passamaquoddy Tribe through its partnership with DraftKings is evidence that not all tribes may reap equal rewards.
A national anti-online gaming group also vowed to ask Maine voters to overturn the law via a people’s veto effort and cited its own poll finding a majority of Mainers oppose online casino gaming.
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Here are the big remaining questions around iGaming.
1. When will iGaming go into effect?
The law takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns this year. Adjournment is slated for mid-April, but Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman noted it is not yet known when lawmakers will actually finish their work.
2. Where will the iGaming revenue go?
The iGaming law gives the state 18% of the gross receipts, which will translate into millions of dollars annually for gambling addiction and opioid use treatment funds, Maine veterans, school renovation loans and emergency housing relief.
Leaders of the four federally recognized tribes in Maine highlighted the “life-changing revenue” that will come thanks to the decision from Mills, a Democrat who has clashed with the Wabanaki Nations over the years over more sweeping tribal sovereignty measures.
But one chief went so far Thursday as to call her the “greatest ever” governor for “Wabanaki economic progress.”
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3. What gaming companies will the tribes work with?
DraftKings has partnered with the Passamaquoddy to dominate Maine’s sports betting market, while the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Mi’kmaq Nation have partnered with Caesars Entertainment to garner a smaller share of the revenue.
Wall Street analysts predicted the two companies will likely remain the major players in Maine’s iGaming market.
The partnership between the Passamaquoddy and DraftKings has brought in more than $100 million in gross revenue since 2024, but the Press Herald reported last month that some members of the tribe’s Sipayik reservation have criticized Chief Amkuwiposohehs “Pos” Bassett, saying they haven’t reaped enough benefits from the gambling money.
4. Has Mills always supported gambling measures?
The iGaming measure from Rep. Ambureen Rana, D-Bangor, factored into a long-running debate in Maine over gambling. In 2022, lawmakers and Mills legalized online sports betting and gave tribes the exclusive rights to offer it beginning in 2023.
But allowing online casino games such as poker and roulette in Maine looked less likely to become reality under Mills. Her administration had previously testified against the bill by arguing the games are addictive.
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But Mills, who is in the final year of her tenure and is running in the high-profile U.S. Senate primary for the chance to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Thursday she would let the iGaming bill become law without her signature. She said she viewed iGaming as a way to “improve the lives and livelihoods of the Wabanaki Nations.”
5. Who is against iGaming?
Maine’s two casinos in Bangor and Oxford opposed the iGaming bill, as did Gambling Control Board Chair Steve Silver and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, among other opponents.
Silver noted Hollywood Casino Bangor and Oxford Casino employ nearly 1,000 Mainers, and he argued that giving tribes exclusive rights to iGaming will lead to job losses.
He also said in a Friday interview the new law will violate existing statutes by cutting out his board from iGaming oversight.
“I don’t think there’s anything the board can do at this point,” Silver said.
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The National Association Against iGaming has pledged to mount an effort to overturn the law via a popular referendum process known as the “people’s veto.” But such attempts have a mixed record of success.
While influenza remains the top concern for Maine public health experts, other viruses are also currently circulating, including norovirus and COVID-19.
“Influenza is clearly the main event,” said Dr. Cheryl Liechty, a MaineHealth infectious disease specialist. “The curve in terms of the rise of influenza cases was really steep.”
Maine reported 1,343 flu cases for the week ending Jan. 3, an uptick from the 1,283 cases recorded the previous week, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitalizations increased to 147 from 108 during the same time periods.
“I hope the peak is now,” Liechty said, “but I’m not really sure.”
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday that all of New England, except for Vermont, is currently experiencing “very high” levels of influenza. Vermont is in the “moderate” category.
“What we are seeing, overwhelmingly, is the flu,” said Andrew Donovan, associate vice president of infection prevention for Northern Light Health. “We are seeing both respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses in our patients.”
Norovirus also appears to be circulating, although due to its short duration and because it’s less severe than the flu, public health data on the illness — which causes gastrointestinal symptoms that typically resolve within a few days — is not as robust.
“Norovirus is the gastrointestinal scourge of New England winters and cruise ships,” Liechty said.
According to surveillance data at wastewater treatment plants in Portland, Bangor and Lewiston, norovirus levels detected in those communities are currently “high.” The treatment plants participate in WastewaterSCAN, which reports virus levels in wastewater through a program run by Stanford University and Emory University.
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Dr. Genevieve Whiting, a Westbrook pediatrician and secretary of the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said viruses are prevalent right now, especially the flu and norovirus.
“For my patients right now, it’s a rare encounter that I hear everyone in a family has been healthy,” Whiting said. “I’ve had families come in and say their entire family has had norovirus. Several of my patients have had ER visits for suspected norovirus, where they needed IV fluids because they were dehydrated.”
Both Liechty and Whiting said they are seeing less respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, likely because there has been good uptake of the new RSV vaccine, which is recommended for older people and those who are pregnant. The vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2023.
“The RSV vaccine has been a real success, as RSV was a leading cause of hospitalizations for babies,” Whiting said.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases increased to 610 in the final week of 2025, compared to 279 the previous week. Influenza and COVID-19 vaccinations are available at primary care, pharmacies and clinics across the state.
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“If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet,” Liechty said, “you should beat a hasty path to get your shot.”
