Dynamics of Waste

Many people in Old Town and beyond are newly concerned about out-of-state waste. Opponents of a proposed expansion of the former Georgia-Pacific landfill in West Old Town cite importation of trash as a reason to stop those plans. Although there may be reasons for the state to re-think its role as a trash importer, such a review should not be done in the context of one landfill.

The issue of out-of-state waste, despite its recent appearance in the news, is not new. More than 20 years ago, five towns, including Bangor, got together to consider a serious solid waste problem. With the impending closure of municipal landfills, due to new state and federal regulations, the towns were forced to find a new place to put their trash. The solution they agreed upon was building an incinerator in Orrington that would turn trash into energy. It would also reduce the volume of material that was ultimately sent to a landfill by as much as 80 percent. Once they decided to build an incinerator, the towns had to decide whether to build it small to simply meet their needs or to build it bigger and to bring in more waste to fuel it. The towns, which grew to include more than 160 communities that are now part of the Municipal Review Committee, decided to go big because it would lower their tipping fees, the charge assessed for taking the garbage.

Once they decided to go with the bigger incinerator the towns also had to deal with the uneven seasonal generation of trash in Maine. There is a lot in the summer and less in the winter. The incinerator, however, in order to make a profit and to meet the terms of its energy-generation contracts, has to supply a steady amount of electricity throughout the year. The solution again was to import waste. And this decision again was driven by communities’ desire to keep tipping fees low, therefore more of the incinerator’s revenue had to come from power generation.

Similar dynamics surrounded the state’s other three waste-to-energy incinerators.

The result has been an increasing gap between Maine’s waste imports and exports. In 1997, imports and exports were both about 138,000 tons a year. Since then, the amount of waste exported has dropped and imports have nearly doubled, largely due to trash going to the state’s four incinerators. In 2001, Maine exported nearly 78,000 tons of waste and imported nearly 219,000 tons, with more than 198,000 tons going to the incinerators. Maine exports some solid waste and all of its hazardous and medical waste.

Since the decision to import waste has to do with the operation of incinerators, turning a former paper mill dump into a municipal landfill, as is slated to happen in West Old Town, will not increase the demand for out-of-state waste. Under the terms of its pending license, the landfill would not accept unburned out-of-state waste.

Burning trash under controlled conditions makes a lot of sense. It saves space in landfills since a cubic yard of garbage is reduced to one-fifth of a cubic yard of ash. This means towns, which pass the bills to taxpayers, save on waste-disposal fees. It also produces electricity from a source other than fossil fuels. To make the system work, out-of-state waste was added to the picture. Removing it would dramatically alter a system that has worked relatively well for 20 years.