March 29, 2024
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State campaigns for more recycling Web site, advertisements bring renewed attention to 50 percent goal

PORTLAND – The state kicked off a new promotional and advertising campaign Monday that aims to get Mainers to recycle more trash.

The State Planning Office’s “Maine Recycles!” program includes new ads, a Web site, posters, brochures and other initiatives to get Mainers back on track toward the state’s goal of keeping half of the state’s waste from going into incinerators and landfills.

The Legislature in 1989 adopted a goal of 50 percent recycling. But as a whole, the state has never recycled more than 42 percent of its waste, and the rate has been less than 40 percent in recent years. In 2005, the rate stood at 36 percent of the nearly 2 million tons of solid waste generated by Maine residents and businesses.

“What we’ve seen is a kind of drop and plateau, and now we want to go back up,” said Jetta Antonakos, who is leading the recycling push at the State Planning Office.

Many communities have offered curb recycling pickup for years. Some now are turning to single-sort recycling programs so residents don’t have to sort their recyclables but can lump them all together and let others do the sorting.

That added convenience, along with an increased visibility of recycling statewide, should help the recycling rate go up, said Shelley Dunn, spokeswoman for ecomaine, the Portland-based waste-disposal and recycling operation that is owned by 21 southern Maine communities.

The single-sort system is already boosting recycling rates and saving money, Dunn said.

Scarborough, for example, saved $32,869 in disposal fees in July and August compared with the same two months a year ago by increasing the amount it recycles and reducing the amount of waste it incinerates at a cost of $88 a ton, she said.

During the same two months, Portland saved $11,581, Hollis saved $9,563, and Cumberland saved $8,114, Dunn said.


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