AUGUSTA – Maine hospitals are considering four sites in three central Maine towns – Pittsfield, Palmyra and Newport – as potential locations for a sterilization plant to handle all of the state’s medical waste.

The plan was developed as a cost-saving venture by the Maine Hospital Association that would end the current practice of shipping medical waste out of state.

Instead, waste from Maine’s 39 hospitals would arrive at a 10,000-square-foot plant, where it would be sanitized, shredded and transferred to nearby landfills.

“This is extremely needed in the state of Maine,” said Jack May, president of Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield and a leader in developing the plant. “We need to take care of our own waste, we need to work together as 39 hospitals and we need to reduce health care costs.”

The Maine Hospital Association began looking at less expensive waste options three years ago. A state law that bars the opening of a medical waste plant unless it is majority-owned by a hospital or hospital association led the association to take a leading role in developing the facility.

“This is unusual for us,” Steven Michaud, association president, said. “What we’ve been doing is trying to figure out a better way to handle and dispose of our waste.”

Pittsfield, Palmyra and Newport were selected as possible sites because the towns are centrally located, adjacent to Interstate 95 and near landfills in Norridgewock and Old Town.

The hospitals are likely to lease an existing building, which they would retrofit with an estimated $1 million in equipment for the not-for-profit venture.

Officials in the three towns have been receptive to the project, the association said, but public opposition is likely to surface. The plan’s backers say the plant will produce no emissions and truck traffic will be minimal.

“I cannot find any reason why anybody should be concerned,” May said. “This is an extremely safe and efficient process.”

Sterilogic Waste Systems Inc. of Syracuse, N.Y., would run the plant, which would employ 10 people.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection would license the facility and prohibit the plant from processing body parts or chemotherapy-related waste. Such material would be trucked into the plant, however, and held there until transferred out of state.