Bath is one of three coastal Maine communities that will join a new program next year to tackle challenges the restaurant industry faces in adopting reusable food containers.

The University of Maine conducted a survey of restaurants in Bar Harbor, Bath and South Portland, which found establishments face significant barriers in packing food and disposing of the waste. The survey revealed the cost of food packaging for restaurants in Bath was $736 per month and had the highest single-use plastic waste generation; second was South Portland at $1,300 per month and Bar Harbor was costliest at $2,039 per month.

In 2023, UMaine and the Maine Sea Grant received a $2.9 million Marine Debris Reduction Challenge Grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to work on developing several alternatives for single-use plastics, according to UMaine professor Cindy Isenhour.

“We were surprised by how much money businesses are spending each month to dispose of their waste; it was a much larger expense for many businesses than we realized,” Isenhour said.

UMaine is launching a pilot program called ReuseME to address the increasing costs, supply chain issues and explore potential reusable food packaging for restaurants.

“There are very few business owners who are content with the current rate of waste generation,” Isenhour said. “Despite the potential for reusable takeout food packaging to save businesses significant money and time, there is also a real hesitancy among businesses to switch to reusables.”

ReuseME aligns with Bath’s Climate Action and Resiliency Plan adopted in 2024, with one strategy involving a Green Restaurant Association certification program to better manage restaurant waste, said Rod Melanson, Bath’s director of sustainability and environment. Bath is one of the few larger municipalities that manages a landfill, with the city focusing on reducing its waste to make the landfill last longer.

“Marine debris has become a real challenge — and yet many of the proposed solutions focus on cleanup without addressing the ongoing generation of waste,” Isenhour said. “Our project seeks to address marine debris at its source.”

According to the UMaine survey, many restaurants in Bath were mildly to moderately interested in getting more environmentally friendly food packaging but held back on taking action with concerns over the quality of plant-based disposable containers and cost. Some of the cost burden is due to federal tariffs on imports, which shifted the costs onto restaurants looking to purchase environmentally friendly disposables.

“For businesses that struggle with staffing shortages and thin profit margins, the idea of transitioning toward reusable packaging can be overwhelming,” Isenhour said.

The ResuseME pilot program will launch in January, with UMaine collecting data from the program through September 2026. UMaine hopes to recruit three to four restaurants within each community for the pilot program.

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