Woolwich selectmen haven’t given up trying to unload tens of thousands of orange trash bags left over from when the town was a Pay As You Throw member. They’re now offering to include an extra roll for free on bulk purchases.

Selectmen’s Chairman David King Sr. said all revenues from the sales would go into the solid waste and recycling budget.

The idea to sell the bags isn’t new. Last May, selectmen announced plans to sell them for 28 cents a bag regardless of size. The bags, made in the U.S., are available in two sizes: large (30-gallon) and small (15-gallon) and come in rolls of 10.

On Monday, Aug. 22, the Wiscasset Newspaper received an email from Lynette Eastman, town administrator, stating when someone purchases 10 rolls of either the large or small bags, the town will toss in an eleventh roll for free. Ten rolls of large bags cost $14 and 10 rolls of small bags are $28.

Eastman stated, Woolwich isn’t going back to requiring residents to use the orange trash bags.

Selectman Jason Shaw said the town has plenty of bags to sell. “There’s three pallets in the town office basement and we’re storing another pallet and a half at Shaw’s Construction because we ran out of room here.”

Cartons of the bags are now stacked in the lobby of the town office.

“We’ve been selling them right along for three months or so, just not so visibly,” added Shaw. He said selectmen had looked at other options for unloading the bags including having the school sell them as a fundraising event.

Shaw said one party was interested in buying all the bags but backed out when he saw how many there were.

In an email to the Wiscasset Newspaper, Selectman Allison Hepler said the Recreation Committee was approached about selling bags as well but “there was no interest.”

Selectman Dale Chadbourne said the town might sell a few more boxes when people see them in the town office.

“I’m not for giving them away. If we did we’re sure to have people who wouldn’t get any and that wouldn’t be fair. It’s better to sell them and put what money we make back in the town coffers; that way all the taxpayers benefit.”

Not everyone is happy about the town selling the trash bags. Don Adams, a member of the Solid Waste and Recycling Committee, said selectmen should give the trash bags away to residents.

“The taxpayers have already paid for these once. Why are we selling them,” he asked. Adams said he’s advocated giving the bags away since the town bought them from WasteZero, the company that furnished them when the town was a PAYT member.

Adams made the same point at the selectmen’s Aug. 15 meeting and plans to bring it up for discussion again at a September board meeting.

He said he’s also questioned how the town wound up with so many leftover bags. “According to the contract they were only supposed to provide us with two months’ worth of bags,” he said. “We’ve got a lot more than that.”

Adams said selectmen might have had better luck selling them in bulk to another town or vendor if the bags didn’t have Woolwich printed on them.

Jonathan Appleyard, chairman of the Solid Waste and Recycling Committee, said that when the committee met Aug. 16 it unanimously passed a motion recommending “that the Select Board proceed to develop a plan to distribute the bags to the citizens of the town as soon as possible.”

The committee serves in an advisory capacity.

Appleyard said he was planning to contact Riverside Disposal and Recycling, the town’s waste hauler, about selectmen’s decision to sell the bags for residents to use.

“We want them know it’s okay to pick up the orange bags,” he said.

Selectmen were left with the bags after voters rejected a petitioned article at the May 7 annual town meeting that would have brought back PAYT.

Woolwich was forced to buy back the bags from WasteZero when the program ended in January. The town paid WasteZero $10,547 for three pallets of bags and another $520 for other bags remaining in inventory.

The town office refunded another $946 to residents who returned bags, and paid out $2,710 to six retailers for their unsold bags.