10/15/2018

Town may face new fee for processing recyclables beginning Nov. 1

Cape Elizabeth will be supporting an ecomaine proposal to implement a $15-per-ton tipping charge for recyclables for member communities beginning Nov. 1.

The Town Council on Oct. 10, 2018 directed Councilor Jamie Garvin and Town Manager Matthew Sturgis, both representing the town on the ecomaine Executive Committee, to support the proposal for the mid-fiscal-year fee, as well as a new, $35-per-ton fee for recyclables beginning July 1, 2019.

The move is a response to the dwindling market for recyclables, which "have collapsed to historic levels," said Sturgis. Recycling had been free for many years, but a glut of recycled paper, as well as China's ban on many scrap imports, have caused the municipality-owned waste management cooperative to recommend the fee for its member communities.

The $15-per-ton fee to begin Nov. 1, however, is something member communities have pushed back on, said Sturgis. "It's very difficult for us to just throw that possibly up-to-$25,000 item on to our budget we didn't anticipate as an expense for our waste handling," he said.

Councilors, however, said they would support paying now, rather than paying a possibly even higher fee in the next budget year.

Fees for solid waste to increase next year

Already decided by the ecomaine board is a 3.5-percent increase in tipping fees for solid, non-recyclable waste for fiscal 2020, which begins July 1, 2019. Cape Elizabeth and other ecomaine member communities will pay $73 per ton for solid waste, up from the $70.50 ecomaine has charged for the last five years.

Recycling contamination

Not included in the fee projections, said Garvin, is the potential for extra charges for recycling hauls contaminated with non-recyclable material such as plastic bags and greasy cardboard boxes. As a member community, Cape Elizabeth has not been charged for hauls that have contained as much as 25-percent contamination, coming largely from the unmonitored recycling bin behind Town Hall.

That day may come, however, and it may cause Cape Elizabeth to follow the lead of other communities that have removed recycling bins from unmonitored areas, councilors said.