SCS Engineers submits due diligence report for Maine MRF

SCS Engineers, headquartered in Long Beach, California, reports that it recently submitted its due diligence report supporting the construction of an advanced materials recovery and processing facility (MRF) in Hampden, Maine.

SCS was hired as the independent engineer and construction monitor by Catonsville, Maryland-based Fiberight LLC and conducted the technical, financial and contract due diligence to support the bond issuance for the public-private partnership. The project financing included a $45 million Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) tax-exempt bond issuance underwritten by Jefferies LLC and $25 million in private equity. 

The facility will serve 83 municipalities and public entities represented by the Municipal Review Committee, a nonprofit organization that currently manages the waste disposal activities in eastern and northern Maine, SCS says. The facility plans to start accepting waste from municipal customers in the second quarter of this year.

Fiberight and its vendors are providing the Hampden facility with technologies that have been proven at its demonstration facility in Lawrenceville, Virginia, and at many automated material recovery facilities in the United States and in Europe, SCS says. The end product is cleaner and provides more diverse types of materials that can then be reused to create new products.

“The Hampden facility features an advanced MRF with a high degree of separation, recovery and monetization of commodity products, and then employs additional processes for generating clean cellulose, engineered fuels and biogas from traditionally nonrecyclable materials,” SCS says in the news release announcing its submittal of the due diligence report.

SCS says it was hired for its technical expertise and experience planning large municipal solid waste and biogas programs and facilities and provided an examination and analysis of the technologies, program sustainability and potential economic impacts of the facility.

“We want to encourage sustainable materials management because it reduces our dependence on landfilling and other disposal options, and this facility does that,” says Bob Gardner, SCS Engineers senior vice president. “The technologies at the Hampden facility will help citizens, local municipalities and private waste haulers to offset the impact of China’s ban on their recycling programs by processing more municipal solid waste into high-value commodities.”