Mandatory recycling looms for cities

Publication: Portland Press Herald

By Larry David Hansen

Staff Writer

BIDDEFORD – Mandatory recycling is coming, Saco City Administrator Harvey Rosenfeld said Wednesday.

“At some point, Biddeford and Saco will have mandatory recycling,” Rosenfeld told the Biddeford-Saco Solid Waste Committee. “We may even have trash police.”

At the meeting in which a recycling program was proposed to the committee, Rosenfeld said residents should start voluntary recycling programs now.

Mandatory programs will result from frustrations by Biddeford and Saco officials in battling the solid waste problem, he said.

An effective recycling program is critical to Saco, Rosenfeld said, as the city will use up its waste disposal capacity at the Maine Energy Recovery Corp. in Biddeford sooner than expected. He said Saco’s 20-year trash estimates at MERC were too low.

By recycling, Saco will stay within its capacity at MERC and will not have to take its trash elsewhere, Rosenfeld said.

Saco began a recycling program two months ago when Dumpsters were placed in two locations for tin can collection. This week, the city also began programs to recycle paper, cardboard, plastic and glass.

Mark Johnston, a member of a joint recycling subcommittee between the two cities, told the committee that Biddeford, without a recycling program, should implement a program identical to Saco’s. The recycling proposal, developed over the last few months by the 12-member subcommittee, says Saco should continue its present program and Biddeford should begin a similar one.

The proposal calls for recycling centers where residents can take recyclable items such as newspapers, tin cans, glass bottles covered by the bottle bill and cardboard boxes. Johnston said the subcommittee believes curbside collection, which could cost a city like Saco $500,000 a year, is too expensive.

Business and organizations in Biddeford should also participate in a paper collection method used in Saco. Goodman & Sons of Scarborough picks up white paper and computer paper from businesses there at no cost to the companies.

Johnston said Goodman & Sons, Saco Steel Co. and Maine Beverage Container Services in Portland, picking up recyclable items in Saco, have also agreed to collect trash from Biddeford at no cost to the city.

Randy Parenteau, MERC spokesman, said his company offers a rebate of $8 per ton for ferrous metals and glass that are recycled.

While committee members discussed the need for recycling, others at the meeting weren’t as enthusiastic. Some were concerned that effective recycling programs in Biddeford and Saco would create extra capacity at MERC, thereby allowing the company to bring in trash from elsewhere.

Janet Fernald of Saco, a member of Maine People’s Alliance, is concerned that MERC may bring in trash from outside of Maine. “What’s the sense of everyone rallying around recycling if they’re going to import garbage,” she said.

Rosenfeld said Saco’s high trash increases at MERC don’t allow for much unused capacity.

The recycling proposal will be reviewed by the solid waste committee and discussed at the next meeting on March 15.