AUBURN — Joe Kazar will step down as executive director at Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp. at the end of April, after 20 years on the job.

“It worked out great,” Kazar said. “It’s been a great opportunity and I’m glad I had it.”

Kazar will be replaced by John King, manager of the Auburn-based incineration plant. He said his job going forward is to continue to serve MMWAC’s board while managing costs.

“The most important thing is making sure those 12-member communities have an inexpensive place to dispose of their waste,” he said. “That’s what they set out to do long ago, and that’s what I need to make happen.”

MMWAC is jointly owned by 12 communities — Auburn, Bowdoin, Buckfield, Lovell, Minot, Monmouth, New Gloucester, Poland, Raymond, Sumner, Sweden and Wales.

The facility takes solid waste from its 12 communities and several others — about 73,000 tons per year. It’s burned to ash at 1,800 degrees, creating steam that generates about 5 megawatts of electricity.

The sale of that electricity and the tipping fees are MMWAC’s main revenue sources.

MMWAC sold its electricity under contract to Central Maine Power until the beginning of 2014. The incinerator has been competing on the wholesale market since the contract ended, and getting a much lower price for its power.

The incinerator had to increase tipping fees for its members from $29 to $41 last year to make up the lost revenue from selling electricity. It’s still less than the fees charged to nonmembers, which average about $55 per ton, but King said he does not want to see that increase duplicated.

“Hopefully we can keep it there,” he said. “If it has to go up, we’ll try to keep even with (the consumer price index).”

Kazar said it’s important for the state to maintain its policy, called the hierarchy of solid waste, that sends municipal solid waste to landfills as a last resort. That policy urges residents to reduce what they throw away, and then recycle and compost what they can. The rest should be burned in a waste-to-energy incinerator and anything that can’t be burned and the resulting ash should be sent to a landfill.

“It’s still the preferred way to handle solid waste,” Kazar said. “As long as the state does that, there will be a bright future for waste to energy and for MMWAC.”

staylor@sunjournal.com