AUGUSTA — City councilors showed support Thursday for a proposed new single-stream recycling pilot program but wondered how the city would determine whether it was successful.
Residents could recycle more types of items without sorting them from each other under the proposed new single-stream program.
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The proposal, offered by Portland-based Ecomaine at the request of city officials, calls for installing covered roll-off recycling containers at the Hatch Hill landfill, Augusta City Center and the Public Works Department site on North Street. Unlike the city’s current system, which requires recyclable materials to be sorted, residents and other users wouldn’t have to separate the various materials from each other, as Ecomaine has an automated process that sorts the materials after they are collected. Residents still would need to separate their recyclables from their household rubbish, which still would go to Hatch Hill.
“The bottom line is everything that is on our acceptable items list can be thrown in together,” Lissa Bittermann, Ecomaine’s business development manager, told city councilors Thursday. “You have one container for your garbage and one for recycling, and that’s the only decision you need to make. It removes the burden off residents, off businesses, off the transfer station or landfill attendant for sorting and puts it all on Ecomaine and our automated system. We live in a busy world. If you make something easier for people, you’re just going to get more participation.”
Once sorted, the materials would be baled and sold to be reused to make new items.
Ecomaine wouldn’t charge the city to process the materials. The cost to the city — about $17,000 for the six-month trial period — would be for transporting the containers to Ecomaine, according to Public Works Director Lesley Jones. That figure is lower than Jones’ estimate from earlier this week, about $25,000. Jones said the city opened bids for the work this Wednesday, so it now has a more accurate figure.
About $10,000 of that would cover the cost of transporting the recycling container from Hatch Hill to Ecomaine. The Hatch Hill container would be used by all users of the landfill facility, which takes waste and recyclables from several area communities, so the cost of hauling it wouldn’t come directly from the city budget. Instead, it would come from the Hatch Hill budget, which is funded by all users of Hatch Hill.
Jones said the costs associated with the Hatch Hill container are projected to be higher because she anticipates it will get more use than those at Augusta City Center and the Public Works Department. The estimated $7,000 cost to transport the other two containers, Jones said, would come from the city’s rubbish budget.
The city now accepts recyclables including newspapers, magazines, steel cans, corrugated cardboard, clear glass containers and No. 2 clear plastic such as milk jugs. It doesn’t take noncorrugated cardboard such as cereal boxes, or white milk jugs or other types of plastic.
The city accepts recyclables at Hatch Hill, and city crews also pick up some recyclables curbside, though Jones said residents’ use of that program has been limited.
Ecomaine accepts a wider variety of recyclables, including plastics No. 1 through No. 7, most types of paper, clear or colored glass, cans, aluminum, cereal boxes, plastic grocery bags and wrapping paper.
For several years, some residents have expressed a desire to recycle more items in Augusta.
Councilors expressed support for the proposal, which is scheduled to go back to them for a vote at their business meeting next Thursday.
Mayor David Rollins said the proposal was impressive but wondered how the city would determine, after the six-month trial, whether it should continue single-stream recycling and contract with Ecomaine longer-term.
“How are we going to evaluate the test? I want to know how we’re going to measure this,” Rollins said.
City Manager William Bridgeo said they should be able to come up with metrics to measure the program’s success, but he said the prime measure will be whether people use it, which will be revealed in the amount of recyclables it collects and diverts from entering Hatch Hill landfill.
Bridgeo said the landfill probably has about 15 years of life left before it will be full.
Ecomaine, which opened a facility to process single-sort recyclables in 2007 that can process 18 tons of single-sort recyclable material in an hour, would accept and process recyclables from Augusta at no charge. However, the city also would not receive any revenue for the recyclable materials taken there, including cardboard. Depending on markets, sometimes some recyclable materials have resale value, while other times they don’t, or there could be a cost to get rid of them.
Ecomaine is a nonprofit waste management company owned and operated by 20 municipalities in Maine.
Bittermann said in her 25-page proposal to the city that the commodities markets are depressed now, so Ecomaine would take an immediate financial loss processing Augusta’s single-sort materials. As a result, the proposal includes a requirement that the city also send Ecomaine all its “clean” cardboard received and compacted at Hatch Hill, which, she said, Ecomaine then would intend to sell to recoup the cost of processing the city’s single-sort materials.
“The hope is that both parties will benefit from this arrangement,” her proposal to the city states. “Augusta will have its single-sort recyclables processed at no cost and Ecomaine will hopefully cover our losses on this processing by receiving the city’s clean cardboard and being able to sell it and retain the revenue.”
Bridgeo said the city will continue its existing curbside recyclables collection during the trial period.
Bittermann said Ecomaine would work with the city during the trial period to help educate residents on how to use the system and the benefits of recycling.
Some area municipalities, including Manchester and Richmond, already offer single-stream recycling to their residents.
Councilors first discussed the idea in October, when they agreed to have city staff contact Ecomaine to explore the possibility of a deal.
Municipalities taking recyclables to Ecomaine are expected to make their best efforts to ensure nonrecyclable materials are not placed into the containers by users. If a load of recyclables contains 10 percent or more contaminants, Ecomaine’s proposal states, the entire load would be disposed of as trash at Ecomaine’s waste-to-energy facility, also in Portland, for which the municipality would be charged $70.50 per ton.
Keith Edwards — 621-5647
kedwards@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @kedwardskj
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