Maine
Maine lawmaker wants a better system for throwing out explodable propane canisters
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.
“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.
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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This story will be updated.
The Maine Department of Transportation is moving to slash up to $400 million in projects from its agenda, a shocking and abrupt cutback that is rattling the state’s construction industry at the start of building season.
Roughly $50 million across six pavement projects have already been delayed, according to a memo exclusively obtained by the Bangor Daily News. The agency plans to cut or delay another $150 million in bridge, highway, intersection and multimodal projects later this month. A further $200 million or more in cuts are planned in the next three-year work plan.
Those figures were outlined by Transportation Commissioner Dale Doughty in the May 18 memo to Gov. Janet Mills that has since circulated widely in the transportation sector, which has been getting drip-by-drip details on the wide scope of the cuts over the past three weeks.
It comes at the beginning of the state’s relatively narrow construction season. Companies have hired workers and ordered materials for projects they expected to begin this summer. The severity of the transportation budget problems was not raised to lawmakers during the 2026 legislative session.
Kelly Flagg, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Maine, called the shortfall “deeply troubling” in a statement.
“We stand ready to work with policymakers, stakeholders, and industry partners to identify both immediate and long-term solutions,” Flagg said. “Maine cannot afford to fall further behind.”
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The cuts stem from a structural funding gap of at least $130 million in the state’s current work plan, according to Doughty’s memo. Losses are magnified because state money from the gas tax and other revenue sources is matched by federal funds. Lawmakers have long grappled with politically difficult long-term problems with the state’s transportation budget.
A Mills spokesperson said Wednesday morning that the administration was working on a response to questions from the BDN. The department says it needs roughly $240 million more in state capital funding annually to maintain the existing system, and that anything less than $200 million will erode it over time.
Doughty’s memo the only near-term solution is a series of bonds beginning as soon as possible. Lawmakers would have to return to Augusta to authorize that if one is going to appear on the November ballot.
The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Michael Capeci is the former chairman of the Bangor GOP.
Let’s be honest about Maine’s current state.
For many families, the cost of living has become unsustainable. Housing is out of reach for many young people. Energy bills keep rising. Many small businesses are struggling under taxes and regulations that make it harder to grow. Rural hospitals are under strain and despite years of increased state spending, the results are not showing up in people’s daily lives.
Concurrently, Maine continues to lose young workers to other states. That is not a statistic, it is a warning sign.
To me, the question in this Republican primary for governor is not about slogans. It is whether we continue with a political approach that has failed to reverse these trends, or whether we nominate someone with new ideas. I think that someone is Owen McCarthy.
Owen is not a political insider. He is an entrepreneur from Patten, a small town where opportunity is not assumed, it is built. He grew up in a working-class family, became the first in his family to graduate from college graduating from the University of Maine, and founded MedRhythms, a healthcare technology company focused on neurological treatment.
He didn’t just talk about opportunity. He built it. That distinction matters, because Maine’s problem is not a lack of debate it is a lack of results. We have seen the trajectory: higher costs, slower growth, and a steady outmigration of young workers. I believe Owen McCarthy represents a break from that pattern.
His Maine 2040 plan focuses on creating 50,000 new jobs in sectors where Maine has real advantages — maritime and defense, advanced forest products, and life sciences. These are export-driven industries tied directly to Maine’s workforce, geography, and institutions. What sets Owen apart is not only what he proposes, but how he approaches governing.
He prioritizes modernizing permitting so projects do not stall. He supports using technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency. He focuses on making it easier to build, hire, and expand in Maine.
That same practical mindset extends to healthcare. Expanding telehealth, strengthening EMS systems, improving provider flexibility, and shifting toward earlier intervention are not abstract reforms. They are system upgrades designed to improve access while controlling costs.
Maine voters consistently respond to competence. They reward candidates who understand problems and present plans to solve them. I believe they are tired of rhetoric that does not translate into results, and skeptical of politics that prioritizes messaging over execution.
Owen’s approach is grounded in solving the issues that shape daily life — affordability, healthcare access, job creation, and government efficiency. That is not just policy positioning. It is a governing model that speaks directly to voters.
Some will point to his lack of political experience. But I believe Maine’s core problems are not the result of insufficient political experience; they are the result of policies that have failed to deliver measurable improvement. Experience inside a broken system, by itself, is not a solution.
If Republicans want to win, this primary must be taken seriously. From my perspective, it is not about choosing a nominee for governor who can energize the base. It is about selecting someone who can compete in a broader electorate that is frustrated and looking for change.
That requires a candidate who can speak beyond the base, not by abandoning principles, but by demonstrating competence and a credible plan to address Maine’s challenges. I believe Owen McCarthy offers that combination. He represents a shift away from managed decline and toward economic execution.
This is not just another primary. It is a decision about whether Republicans position themselves to win Maine or whether they remain trapped in a cycle of repeating the same strategies and expecting different outcomes.
If Republicans want to compete for Maine’s future, they cannot afford to nominate a candidate who only motivates part of the electorate. They need someone who expands it.
I believe Owen McCarthy is that candidate.
And if the goal is to win Maine, then the choice should be unmistakable
The only notable change in the top-seven of the Varsity Maine baseball poll is that Gorham now has eight first-place votes, two more than last week. The order of the seven teams is identical. In fact, the only change in the top-seven over the past three polls is the swap at the top after Gorham’s win over South Portland on May 19.
Furthermore, Gorham, South Portland, Oxford Hills, Cheverus, Bangor, Mt. Ararat and Fryeburg have been ranked in the top seven for four straight weeks, and six of those squads have been among the top seven in every poll this spring.
Meanwhile, Scarborough is ranked for the first time since May 5, and Ellsworth and Thornton swapped spots.
The Varsity Maine baseball poll is based on games played before June 2, 2026. The top 10 teams are voted on by the Varsity Maine staff, with first-place votes in parentheses, followed by total points.
1. Gorham (8) 89
2. South Portland 79
3. Oxford Hills (1) 75
4. Cheverus 55
5. Bangor 42
6. Mt. Ararat 41
7. Fryeburg Academy 30
8. Ellsworth 27
9. Thornton Academy 25
10. Scarborough 12
Also receiving votes: Washington Academy 8, Monmouth Academy 4, Cony 4, Leavitt 2, Falmouth 2.
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