The Lebanon Board of Selectmen visited the Eco Maine facility located in Portland on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010. The Selectmen have been working to find ways to increase recycling while decrease the amount of trash being disposed of and decrease the financial obligations for taxpayers.
Eco Maine has been providing single sort recycling since 2006. Single stream is leading-edge technology that eliminates the need to separate recyclables by category for collection. The many ripple-effect benefits are both economic and environmental and include: increased participation in recycling, less idling time for trucks (resulting in less pollution), and fewer trips to the recycling facility.
“We have been meeting for several months trying to find ways to continue to build on our excellent recycling rates. Lebanon has one of the highest recycling rates, but we can always do better. The more we recycle, the less we are hurting the earth and also more money we can save the taxpayers. The staff at the Transfer Station have been doing a tremendous job when large items are brought in to remove the metal and other items that we can either recycle or sell to save taxpayers money. They also break down larger items to allow more room in the containers and have less trucking costs.” Selectman Chairman Jason Cole added.
The Selectmen are looking at compactors to be able to pack more recyclables into the containers, resulting in less trucking fees.
Transfer Station Manager Ronal Patch was honored by the State in 2009 as “Manager of the Year” for his work to increase recycling rates.
In 2009-2010, the transfer station budget was $368,398. This year, (2010-2011), the budget was cut to $355,986. Revenues from recycling and the hard work of the staff has been increasing as well, last year over $30,000 in revenue was received.
We are continuing to find ways to trim the costs of government and we are excited to find ways to increase recycling and cut transfer station fees. The staff at the Transfer Station have done a great job and we appreciate the assistance of the staff. We also appreciate the residents who have worked hard to recycle.
The selectmen are looking for options on possibly changing the recycling program we currently have.
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