JAY – Town officials are asking residents to download an app to help double check their recyclables, after the company that processes the material indicated that a penalty fee would be applied if current trends continue.
Ecomaine, a single-sort recycling company out of Portland, currently accepts Jay’s recyclables at the cost of $15 per ton. Single sort is a system in which recyclable material can be transported in unsorted loads – newspaper, aluminum cans, glass jars, etc. – to a plant which then organizes the material for sale. In addition to the obvious environmental benefits, recycling saves money for Jay taxpayers; transporting the same ton of material to the Waste Management landfill in Norridgewock, for example, costs $59.75 per ton.
Jay is also benefiting from its three-year contract with ecomaine. The $15/ton cost is low, according to Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere. At Monday evening’s meeting, LaFreniere noted that other towns were paying $100 to $115 per ton.
However, the market for recyclables is now on a downswing. Partially in response to this, ecomaine has indicated that single sort recyclables it receives need to be free of contamination: that is to say, material that doesn’t belong. Examples of this include plastic bags (which can be recycled at special kiosks at some supermarkets), paper towels, Styrofoam, clothing and shoes, spoiled food items (such as used paper plates) and wax-covered packaging, like ice cream containers.
Loads that are found to include more than 5 percent contamination will be assessed a $40 per ton fee. More than 10 percent will trigger a $70 per ton fee. That latter fee would result in nearly $1,000 per load transported to Portland, according to LaFreniere. Funds for penalty fees were not included in the 2018-19 budget.
“They’re very serious,” LaFreniere said Monday, referring to ecomaine. “They don’t have a market for [contaminated material].”
In a bid to raise awareness, a town crew sorted through the curbside collection this week. They found a large amount of items that would qualify contamination, exceeding the 10 percent threshold. Furthermore, many people have taken to bagging their recyclables, rather than leaving them loose in a bin. Not only are plastic bags not recyclable, but they can impede the sorting machines at ecomaine.
Town officials are asking people to download the Recyclopedia App produced by ecomaine, which includes information about what can and cannot be recycled through single sort. A simple list of allowable items can be found here.
The Board of Selectpersons has asked the Solid Waste Committee to further consider the issue and look into possible options.
Single sort is so easy to do. People are just lazy if they don’t separate trash from recycles.
The problem is not laziness, Nell. It’s lack of knowledge about what you can recycle. It’s about time that the town addressed this. Good idea.
Nell:
This price increase has less to do with single sort than it does with Chinese companies changing their acceptance level of contaminated recyclables. Let us all hope that the President can benefit financially from giving the appearance of attempting to resolve the issue.
Don’t blame it all on the citizens . I have watched more than once the trash truck guys throw both trash and recyclables in the same compartment on the trash trucks . I’m not talking about the red truck with 2 compartments but the white truck . 2 guys hop off and one grabs the trash and the other guy grabs recycle and they throw it all together … Makes me mad to see my efforts of sorting is disregarded .
The town sent information to all home owners when they went to single sort. I don’t know why there should be a lack of knowledge. We have the paper handy and if there is a question we check. It is much easier than the prior way when paper, cans and bottles had to be separate. We do not put anything for out for collection but take it to the landfill when needed.
I say we save the $120 Thousand next time around and put that money to go use(police,fire,roads) If only the select people in Jay had some nads they would of told the people it’s cut and deal with it. Speaking of laziness that’s why we are in the mess we are in. Take your own trash to the recycling facility or hire a local company to pick it for you.
So there’s the difference Nell. Of course, you follow the rules when you take it to the transfer station yourself. You can’t however, make sure that the people picking up your trash and recyclables are following the same rules. I wonder if the town would be facing the same dilemma if we had kept curbside pick up OUT of the budget LIKE WE VOTED TO last year.
Help me figure this out. I can save $50 on my taxes by doing away with curbside pick up. Then I spend $100 to haul it myself , or $300 to have it picked up by someone else. My old school math does not not show me the savings here.. Where did my saving money go? Also when you find the ecomaine site. a fourth grader would find it easy to do it right. Curbside pickup or not, recycling items are still the same.
Well, Nell, houses are bought and sold. Not everyone, myself included, is a lifelong resident of Jay, so a one-time dispensing of information may not be enough.
I agree with Doug Smith. So many times I have witnessed the people collecting the trash throw both recycling and trash all together. Have them sort the trash they are the ones combining it.