A Maine based start-up is getting a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to scale up its packaging that is fish friendly. Paramount Planet Product uses cellulose to create materials that can be molded into take-out food containers.

Founder Adriadne Dimoula said many plastics are made with chemicals that can’t be recycled, but cellulose will naturally break down in the environment.

“That natural ability to dissolve, to biodegrade, and to not have toxic materials in it is one of the principles that we utilize in the design in our products. Nature can process it or digest it because it’s never gone through a synthetic process,” Dimoula said. “The materials that are plastic don’t have an end of life design. They have a multitude of chemicals mixed in that make it hard to reuse at the end of its life and can make it very toxic.”

Dimoula said her products can be recycled in paper streams, are ocean compostable, and don’t harm fish.

Paramount Planet Product hopes to have products ready for the hospitality industry at a commercial scale in a few years.

Dimoula is also starting a foundation to test other packaging and wants to help producers improve the circular design of their packaging to make it recyclable and more environmentally friendly.

Paramount Planet Product has offices in Westbrook and Orono. They also use a lab at the Roux Institute.

Marking the two year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end the legal right to abortion, Maine Gov. Janet Mills joined state lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates in Portland on Monday to mobilize voters to turn out for reproductive freedom in November.

In the past two years, 21 states have enacted abortion bans or restricted abortion earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, which had generally recognized the right to abortion in 1973. The high court overturned this precedent on June 24, 2022, in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. 

At least 100 people gathered in Monument Square on Monday to hear from Speaker of the Maine House Rachel Talbot Ross, Executive Director of Maine Women’s Lobby Destie Hohman Sprague and others who highlighted the legal protections Maine has added for reproductive health care in contrast to restrictions passed in many Republican-led states. 

However, the speakers cautioned that Maine’s reproductive rights landscape is subject to the whims of the party in power and urged attendees to encourage others to vote in the November election to maintain the state’s Democratic trifecta. 

“The Dobbs decision is what created our rage, fueled our rage, but we cannot let rage be what keeps us out here,” Hohman Sprague said. “It needs to be hope. There’s got to be hope for a better future, a more expansive future, a future that protects all of us — people of color, trans people, rural people, poor people. We need to demand the rights and access to control our lives and our bodies and that’s what we’re here for today.”

Reproductive rights in Maine

Maine’s abortion laws are currently some of the least restrictive in the country.

In 2023, the Legislature narrowly passed a bill in a mostly party line vote to allow abortions at any time during pregnancy if deemed medically necessary by a doctor. Before that, Maine law only allowed abortion after the fetus could be viable outside the womb, about 24 weeks, if the pregnant person’s life was at risk. The 2023 bill, introduced by Mills, was hotly contested with hundreds showing up for the hearing and most testimony coming from opponents. 

That state law and others, including a requirement for private insurers to cover abortion and another to prevent cities and towns from enacting restrictive abortion rules, are subject to change depending on those in office. During the rally, Mills said this is why Maine still needs a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive freedom. 

A proposal to enshrine the right to abortion, fertility treatments, and other reproductive health care in the Maine State Constitution fell short of the votes needed to put the question on the November ballot. 

“We still need a constitutional amendment here in Maine to protect abortion care once and for all, so no politician can tell you or me, or our kids or grandkids, what rights they have or do not have,” Mills said.

Despite the failure of the constitutional amendment, the speakers celebrated other protections passed by the Legislature this session. 

A “shield law,” which will take effect mid-July, protects the state’s health professionals who provide reproductive and gender-affirming care from being targeted by other states’ bans. 

“We passed laws that make clear that we treat abortion for exactly as it is — a safe, medical procedure,” Talbot Ross said, “and we made it clear that we trust medical professionals to provide care that is in their best judgment. We strengthened protections for health care providers so they may offer care to people traveling to Maine […] for abortion care safely without threats for their ability to practice medicine.”

This proposal spurred some of the lengthiest floor debates during the last session, largely about what the shield law would and would not allow. In particular, conservative lawmakers and groups circulated false claims dismissed by legal authorities that the bill would permit kidnapping and trafficking.

Talbot Ross said she and other state lawmakers took action to protect reproductive freedoms “because we knew Maine people are with us and Maine people are counting on us,” however cautioned that “the Dobbs decision and the rollback of our rights wasn’t just about abortion.” 

“This is about the criminalization of our health care,” Talbot Ross said. “And, if this can be taken back, what do you think is going to happen to all our other rights if we aren’t still fighting? This is just the beginning.”

A call to mobilize voters

The governor also used the rally as an opportunity to contrast the reproductive rights records of the likely presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. 

“Let’s be clear,” Mills said. “The damage that [the Dobbs] decision has wrought on millions of people across this country falls at the feet of a single person, one man: Donald Trump.”

Mills attributed the overturning of Roe to Trump’s Supreme Court nominations and expressed skepticism about his shift on abortion law this spring, when the former president said he thinks abortion policy should be left up to the states and backed away from supporting a national ban. 

“Do you trust him?” Mills asked the crowd, which responded, “No!” 

“I sure as hell don’t,” she added.

The potential implications of another Trump presidency on abortion rights was also a focus of Mills and other Democratic officials at the Democratic state convention earlier in June. On Monday, speakers reiterated their belief that actions by Trump and Republican-led states will have consequences come November. 

“The victims of these extreme policies and laws across our country,” Mills said, “those victims — they may be Republicans, or Democrats, they may be Greens or independents, or just non-political — but this year they will be standing up for their rights. They will be voting.”

Maine’s housing market isn’t getting any better, and new numbers prove it.

The Portland Press Herald reported that the demand for single-family homes is still very high in Maine. That demand has pushed the average price up over seven percent to just under $400,000. People are paying that and more as closings are up for the fourth straight month in Maine.

The last record was set last year at $385,000 for the median price of a single-family home. The Portland Press Herald quotes Paul McKee, the association president and a broker with Keller Williams Realty in Portland,

Sellers have become more active in 2024. The 3,896 homes for sale in May were the highest number since August 2022 – 21 months ago – and the second-highest in 32-months – since September 2021. With more homes for sale, more transactions are happening.

Mainers are in a catch-22

Maine is a big state and there are many different real estate markets. In some markets in Maine, you might have some wiggle room to negotiate. But in many others, there simply aren’t enough homes on the market, and that puts bidding wars in place and it raises the median price. The average price for a home nationally (all housing types) was $419, 300, a new record and almost six percent higher than last year’s record price of $396,500.

There are Mainers who are trapped in the home they own right now. For reasons like expanding the family, or a new job at a different location – some Mainers simply can’t move. Sure, you may be able to get top dollar for your home, but you can’t move, because you can’t afford anything. Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors said this about mortgages,

The mortgage payment for a typical home today is more than double that of homes purchased before 2020. Still, first-time buyers in the market understand the long-term benefits of owning.

Everybody understands the benefits of owning! But if mortgages have ‘more than doubled’ and your salary hasn’t, that math does NOT add to being a homeowner. He did say that prices should calm down when more homes get on the market, but we continue to see an unfriendly housing market if you don’t have a lot of cash.