Click here to view/download:

• Recycling Committee Memo (Word)
• Recycling Data History Memo (pdf)
• Town Council Aug. 9 workshop pay-per-throw handout (pdf)
  

The Town Council will hold a public hearing on Monday, Sept. 13, 2010 on a pay-per-throw method of trash disposal. Consideration of pay-per-throw is one of the council's goals for 2010.

Currently the Town spends approximately $500,000 a year to transport and dispose of trash deposited at the transfer station to the ecomaine facility in Portland, with funds from property taxes. "Pay-per-throw" would transfer the cost of waste disposal to a user fee based on the number of bags used. Other communities that have adopted pay-per-throw sell large and small trash bags at local stores at a price set to recover the cost of disposal.

The Town's citizen Recycling Committee has endorsed the concept of exploring a pay-per-throw system, primarily for its potential to increase recycling and decrease the cost of waste disposal as it has in other towns.

But the change would be significant. "Challenges would include site configuration, lack of a gate house, and the number of available personnel," according to a memo from the committee to the Town Council dated May 1, 2010. "The biggest challenge is a philosophical one, the change from a property tax funded program to a user fee system," the memo says.

The committee's memo recommends that the Town develop a plan for how pay-per-throw would work in Cape Elizabeth, offer educational outreach, and allow time and opportunities for public feedback.

The hearing Sept. 13 will be one of those opportunities. "We the council want to hear any and all thoughts on this, it's going to be pretty wide open session, so come on down and say what you think," said Council Chair Anne Swift-Kayatta at the council's meeting Aug. 9. Councilors met in a workshop session just before the meeting to discuss the proposal.

Cape recycling improved, but could do better

In a memo to the Town Council, Town Manager Michael McGovern summarized recent waste disposal data from ecomaine. Since fiscal 2007, Cape Elizabeth has had the largest percentage increase in recycling and the largest percentage decrease in solid waste among 11 ecomaine communities. On a per capita basis, Cape Elizabeth recycles 34 percent more than the mean of the 11 communities, but still produces 43 percent more solid waste than the mean. "In 2006-2007 we had 64 percent more than the mean, so we are reducing trash per capita but are still significantly above average," McGovern's memo says.

Recycling has saved the Town $163,000 per year in solid waste disposal costs since fiscal 2007. But, if 1 percent of the 2,626 tons of solid waste produced in fiscal 2010 were recycled, the net savings would be $3,676.40, assuming a recycling cost of $40 per ton and a solid waste hauling and fee cost of $180 per ton, the memo says.