OTISFIELD — The Board of Selectmen agreed Wednesday evening to look into finding a new business to handle the town’s recyclables.
Chairman Hal Ferguson said selectmen decided to “reach out to someone other than who we’ve been dealing with.”
“We have many people unhappy with what we have at the transfer station right now,” he added.
The board signed a three-year contract with Tice Waste Management of Norway at the end of June. Tice agreed to pick up all of the recyclables from the Otisfield Transfer Station and sell them to another company, and would cut a check to the town for “5 percent of the profits,” he said at the June 28 selectmen meeting.
Selectman Rick Micklon said that for more than four months, “we have not been provided the service and product we were promised.”
“We’ve had complaints from residents, and we had an accident down there where someone was cut on a sharp object,” Micklon said. “People aren’t recycling down there anymore because of it.”
Ferguson said he reached out to ecomaine of Portland and spoke with Business Development Manager Lissa Bittermann, who attended Wednesday’s meeting.
“We talked about how long (before) they could get containers out to the transfer station if we decided to go with them, what the containers would look like, what they would cost and things like that,” Ferguson said.
Micklon said he went to the Hannaford Supermarket in Scarborough, which uses ecomaine’s containers, and found them to be “more easily accessible than (the containers) we have there right now.”
Ferguson said he has spoken with people in four towns who have used ecomaine for recyclables, including Porter and Hiram, and heard positive things.
He said the town was looking into the “possibility of getting a compactor at some point to go with the (containers)” and asked Bittermann for a “ballpark figure” for one.
Bittermann said her colleague at Atlantic Recycling in New Hampshire estimated it would cost between $13,500 and $14,000 for the actual compactor, $1,500 to $1,600 for the installation fee, $7,000 for a 40-yard receiver box, and between $2,500 and $3,500 for a 40-by-10 foot concrete pad for the compactor to sit on.
“This is just an estimate,” Bittermann said. “I can reach out to other places to get a formal bid.”
Ferguson said the board would wait until Bittermann had information on how long it would take to place containers at the transfer station before making any decision on ecomaine.
In other business, selectmen said any volunteers who wish to serve the remainder of former SAD 17 board member Dave McVety’s three-year term can submit their applications to the town.
“The selectmen would appoint them afterward,” Micklon said, adding that the position would be filled as soon as someone submitted an application.
McVety submitted a letter of resignation because of a conflict of interest between serving on the board and being a substitute teacher within the school district.
Chairman Hal Ferguson, left, and Selectman Rick Micklon discuss the possibility of switching to a new business to handle their recyclables at Wednesday evening’s Board of Selectmen meeting at the Otisfield Town Office. (Matthew Daigle/Sun Journal)
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