Sarah Nichols

Sarah Nichols serves as the Sustainable Maine Director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine and is a nationally recognized policy expert on the subject of waste management.Sarah leads local and state efforts to reduce waste, encourage reuse, while increasing recycling and composting in Maine. Some of her notable accomplishments include policies that banned the distribution of plastic shopping bags and foam food containers in Maine. More recently, she helped pass the nation's first Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging law. It is now Maine's policy to move to a “polluter-pays” model, like Canada and the European Union have already implemented. ​Closing the out-of-state waste loophole was another big win for Maine this past legislative session. LD 1639 stopped allowing private construction companies to dump their demolition waste, which included lead, arsenic, PFAS, mercury, and other toxic materials, into Maine's Juniper Ridge landfill. ​For more information on programs to safely dispose of toxics, visit www.ERCM.org.