Lawmakers, healthcare officials and harm reduction advocates have long been searching for a solution to the needle litter that many say has become a safety problem in Maine’s communities.
One bill seemed like it had it.
Rep. Ambureen Rana, D-Bangor, proposed a bill in 2025 to establish a state-run biohazard waste disposal grant program. Municipalities and community organizations could apply for grant funding to purchase and install disposal boxes, contract with disposal companies and hire clean-up staff ― services many are already providing.
The bill, LD 1738, passed in January, but not before the Legislature’s appropriations committee slashed nearly $240,000 in funding requested for a two-year state health position to lead the program.
Instead, lawmakers dedicated $500 to open an account that Rana, who served on the appropriations committee, said she hoped to fill with other funding. It still sits empty.
“I’m really disappointed that we didn’t fund it in the first place,” Rana said. “We were confident that we were going to be able to find funding sources outside of appropriations. And what I’m seeing now in my community ― in Bangor ― is just how much of a difference this would make.”
Without funding, the grant program is at a standstill.
At the same time, residents in communities across Maine, including Augusta, Bangor, Lewiston and Portland, are increasingly concerned about discarded needles and public safety. As organizations across Maine work to reduce the ways HIV and hepatitis C can spread through shared needles, local leaders also bear the expensive burden of collecting and disposing of the ones on the ground.
Courtney Gary-Allen, executive director of Maine Recovery Access Project, said grant money would support stronger syringe disposal efforts across Maine. The Augusta nonprofit has distributed hundreds of disposal boxes and gathers volunteers for regular community cleanups.
“I think that communities could use every single one of those dollars to go out and do community cleanups,” Gary-Allen said. “It’s a real problem all across Maine. If we had the funding, there would be organizations ready to go on day one.”
‘Show good faith’
The disposal waste grant program is open to municipalities, community organizations and syringe services providers (SSPs), like Maine Access Recovery Project, which the state certifies to exchange used needles for clean ones.
In Penobscot County, where an ongoing HIV outbreak has grown to 44 cases — spread mostly among people who have used injection drugs or experienced homelessness within one year of testing positive — syringe services are a proven tool to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis C.
Lawmakers tapped the Maine CDC to run the program. Through the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC had requested roughly $120,000 a year from the Legislature for a health planner position to administer it. The position was approved by the Senate and the House before it was cut in appropriations, Rana said.
She now realizes that position was crucial.
“The CDC has a lot on their plate, and they administer a lot of programs, and especially with this HIV outbreak in Penobscot County, they’ve had to take on a lot more work,” Rana said. “So I actually do understand now that this position is going to be necessary to administer the program, and that’s not clarity that I had initially.”
The final version of the law also added a requirement that communities with access to opioid settlement funds use them to match the amount they request from the grant program. Gary-Allen said that was a “great way to ensure that the program would be supported by the local community,” but “unfortunately, the Legislature just didn’t have the money to put into the bill.”
The city of Augusta budgeted $10,000 this year to fund its annual Household Hazardous Waste Collection Program, which allows residents to safely dispose of medications, paints, waste fuels, batteries, pesticides and other materials. City officials say they plan to cut the program’s cost in half next year by increasing participant fees, which are currently free for the first unit of disposal and $15 per additional unit.
But Augusta has $300,000 available in opioid settlement funds. More are expected in coming years. City officials said they “would welcome opportunities to pursue grant funding that could support syringe cleanup, disposal efforts and related public health initiatives.”
Gary-Allen said she budgets about $30,000 a year for Maine Recovery Access Project’s biohazard cleanup and disposal. Anyone can come to the nonprofit’s Access Center in Augusta for a free syringe disposal box. Since last summer, staff have hosted more than 50 community cleanups in downtown Augusta, Waterville, Bangor and Lewiston.
Cleanup and syringe services are paid for entirely by private donations, Gary-Allen added, not state or federal funding.
Some people believe syringe services providers are why they see more needle litter on the ground. Sanford, Auburn and Lewiston have all taken steps to reduce or preclude programs in their communities in the past year.
However, several studies have found that syringe services reduce needle sharing — and disease incidence — without increasing litter. As part of its inaugural buyback program, the city of Portland distributed more than 1 million needles in 2025 and collected 86% of them.
Gary-Allen said syringe services providers are the solution, not the problem.
“Harm reduction is facing really a challenging moment all across Maine, where the public is not understanding our work, or some are not supporting it,” she said. “I think that this would be a way that we can show good faith to our communities that we want exactly what they want:
“We want safe, healthy communities, and we want to be able to ensure that children and everybody has access to these public spaces,” she said. “But we need the resources to be able to do so.”
Cleaning it up
Bangor city councilors earlier this month extended a public health program run in partnership with Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness, a local syringe services provider, after the program collected nearly 8,000 used needles in about a year.
The Bangor Public Health Department, which offers health programs, HIV case management and education in the city, is also planning to apply for syringe services program certification, said Jennifer Gunderman, the department’s director. She said the health department often receives calls from people who don’t know what to do with needles they use to inject medications, like insulin.
“There’s a lot of people storing their needles at home,” Gunderman said.
A syringe disposal plan will be part of Bangor’s application to be certified as a syringe services provider.
Rana said the city should not have to foot the bill to clean up syringes on its own. She plans to spend the coming weeks and months searching for creative ways to fund the biohazard waste disposal grant program, including looking to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, which has more opioid settlement funds that could be distributed.
Sharing the financial burden of syringe disposal with the state would not only help local programs sustain services, Gary-Allen said, but also build something lasting.
“It would be wonderful if the attorney general would consider this program as an answer to the call of communities across Maine to address syringe waste,” Gary-Allen said. “This isn’t going to be the answer to all of our problems across Maine, or to homelessness in general, but it can ensure that one part of the solution can be implemented.”
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Hannah Kaufman can be reached at hkaufman@centralmaine.com.