SKOWHEGAN — More and more trash is heading to Maine’s landfills.

Meanwhile, the cost of sending trash to the landfill is only going up. And Skowhegan residents are paying for it.

“There’s really no going down in sight,” Cynthia Kirk, Skowhegan’s waste management and recycling supervisor, told the town’s Board of Selectmen on Friday.

Kirk has recommended the town consider stopping paying to throw away trash from commercial establishments, which she said no other Maine community of a similar size does, and encouraged more revenue-generating recycling.

Town officials discussed Kirk’s ideas at an informational workshop Friday afternoon and made no decisions, other than to look into the topic further, as budget preparations kick off for the next fiscal year that begins in July.

Skowhegan’s trash disposal costs are budgeted at $606,325, for the current fiscal year, running from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, according to the town’s budget. Next year, that figure could approach $700,000, Kirk said Friday.

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That is up from a budgeted figure of $528,000 in 2022, according to budget documents. Ten years ago, in 2015, the town paid about $500,000 for disposal.

That budget line includes the disposal of most regular trash produced in the town, from residential and commercial sources, whether it is dropped off at the transfer station at 29 Transfer Station Drive or picked up by a licensed hauler.

transfer station

The recycling building at the Town of Skowhegan Regional Recycling Center & Transfer Station at 29 Transfer Station Drive, photographed Saturday. Jake Freudberg/Morning Sentinel

Most trash produced in Skowhegan is picked up by haulers and brought to the Waste Management Crossroads Landfill in Norridgewock. Biweekly bills for trash disposal show that over the past six months, 65% to 75% of the trash from Skowhegan that has been brought to the landfill has come from haulers, not the transfer station. The billing amount is calculated by weight.

Haulers pick up trash from residential and commercial sources, Kirk said, and both sources are included in the billing breakdown.

With an estimated hundreds of commercial establishments in town, and development ongoing, it is safe to say that taking them out of the equation would have an impact, according to Kirk.

Although haulers are required to submit their collection routes to the town, Kirk said it is impossible to know if loads from Skowhegan that are delivered to the landfill contain trash from other communities, leaving Skowhegan responsible for the disposal cost.

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Skowhegan is unique among Maine municipalities of its size in that it pays for commercial trash disposal picked up by contracted haulers.

Kirk said she reached that conclusion after surveying 16 municipalities with populations similar to Skowhegan’s, which the U.S. Census Bureau says is about 8,600, across the state: Bath, Berwick, Brewer, Buxton, Cape Elizabeth, Cumberland, Ellsworth, Freeport, Gray, Kittery, Lisbon, Old Orchard Beach, Presque Isle, Topsham, Winslow and Yarmouth.

“When I talked to most of these people, they could not believe that we’re still paying for all the trash that comes out of Skowhegan, residential and commercial,” Kirk said. “A few of them laughed at me and said, ‘That is ridiculous.’”

Of the other Maine municipalities, many have instituted a pay-as-you-throw program for residential trash. Those programs, also in place in cities, including  Waterville and Portland, generally require residents to buy special bags for their trash at a set cost.

Kirk told Board of Selectmen she does not think that is the solution now for Skowhegan. Older residents on fixed incomes, for example, might struggle to pay, she said.

Instead, Kirk said passing the cost of commercial trash disposal onto the businesses that produce the waste would reduce the impact of rising disposal costs on property taxes and encourage businesses to recycle more. More recycling would, in turn, reduce their new trash disposal fees and generate more revenue for the town,  which Kirk called a “win-win.”

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“Unfortunately, most of the time, in order to get people to comply, you’ve got to say, ‘It’s going to cost you more if you don’t,’” she said.

recycling bins

Residents can place materials into designated bins at the Town of Skowhegan Regional Recycling Center & Transfer Station at 29 Transfer Station Drive, photographed Saturday. The materials are then sold. Jake Freudberg/Morning Sentinel

Skowhegan has a multistream recycling center at its transfer station. Anybody, including those from outside Skowhegan, can bring recyclable materials — cardboard, mixed paper, newspapers, magazines, glass and certain metals and plastics — that the town then sells. The town also collects food scraps, which Kirk said are generally heavy and add significantly to disposal costs, for composting.

The sale of recyclable materials brings in about $40,000 per year, according to budget figures. Other municipalities that offer single-stream recycling, in which all materials are collected together and later sorted, ultimately pay for that service, Kirk said.

Though Skowhegan’s Solid Waste Ordinance requires certain materials be separated and recycled, that is not always the case, Kirk said.

Some larger businesses, including Walmart, Hannaford and New Balance, separate cardboard from their waste, according to Kirk. She said she has also worked with two motels and some apartment owners to set up recycling systems.

“Some are great about it,” Kirk said. “Some basically said: ‘Eh, I don’t want to. I’m just throwing it in the dumpster.’”

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The three members of the Board of Selectmen — Chairman Paul York, Amber Lambke and Elijah Soll — who were at Friday’s workshop said they would consider the information that had been presented. Lambke requested more detailed financial information about the transfer station.

“I think that this is a numbers game,” Lambke said. “I think that we need to play around with some numbers.”

Other ideas floated at the meeting included requiring under ordinance that trash receptacles be covered to limit the snow, ice and water weight included in disposal costs; seeking an entrepreneur to start a recycling pickup program; and determining if a multiunit dwelling would be considered residential or commercial.

At its regular meeting Tuesday, the Board of Selectmen also authorized Kirk to apply for a $27,975 Waste Diversion Grant from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The money would be used to buy trailers, carts and totes to provide additional recycling options.

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