Improved Recycling Rate Lowers Municipal Costs

The results showed an increase in recycling percentages for both towns, as compared to the same three-month period last year, with a 12.25 percent increase for Harrison and a 28.6 percent increase for Ogunquit. These rates are derived by comparing the total waste tonnage to the number of recycling tons received at Ecomaine.

        

Harrison Town Manager Bradley Plante and Ogunquit Town Manager Thomas Fortier stress that recycling is not only an environmental concern; it is also a financial concern for municipalities. Each of Ecomaine’s 21 owner-communities pays $88 per ton of trash, but is entitled to recycle at no charge. As items get recycled instead of thrown in with the trash, the town’s volume of waste is reduced. From June through July 2009, compared with the same period in 2008, Harrison saved $2,990 and Ogunquit saved $919 in waste disposal fees.

        

In September, one month after the summer recycling pilot campaign ended, Harrison benefited from a 7.9 percent increase in recycling compared to last September, and Ogunquit increased 1 percent over last year.

        

The experiment was funded jointly by municipally owned Ecomaine and by the Maine State Planning Office’s waste management and recycling division. Ecomaine board Chairman and Windham Town Manager Anthony Plante says, “These two towns were chosen because they have small populations that swell with tens of thousands of visitors from June through August. And, with those thousands of visitors come tons of extra waste that cost the towns money.”

        

Each of the two participating towns were given 70 recycling bins, a supply of posters and several thousand 5-inch-by-7-inch cards printed with detailed recycling information and using the theme, “Families recycle…even on vacation.” Though the materials were created by Ecomaine and ideas for distribution were discussed, it was left to the individual towns to determine how the pilot campaign would be implemented. “The materials we provided were catalysts and tools, but the successful outcomes were due to the planning and implementation done by volunteers with the support of their town managers,” Plante adds.