In the past three years since Woolwich has paid for its recycling program, the trash that is collected and residents pay money to be hauled away has decreased by more than 110 tons.

Since March of last year, the town has paid $87.40 per ton of trash hauled. A chart compiled by the Woolwich Solid Waste and Recycling Committee shows that since January 2010 the amount of trash collected decreased from more than 1,012 tons to just over 901 tons. That means a savings (approximately $9,570) in tipping fees Pine Tree Waste/Casella Waste Systems charges the town to haul the trash.

The amount of trash has decreased over the past three years, because residents have been using a zero-sort, single stream recycling program. 

The town pays $50,000 each year for Casella Waste Systems to pick up single stream recyclables from Woolwich residents, according to Solid Waste and Recycling Committee chairman Fred Karhl. The cost of the recycling program outweighs what the town is currently saving in tipping fees, but the more people recycle, the more the town saves.

“The trick is to separate as much zero-sort recycling out of the trash as possible,” Karhl said.

On two Mondays per month people can recycle a whole list of items (viewable here). 

The following items can go into a single-stream recycling bin: boxboard (such as cereal boxes and paper egg cartons); sheet paper; magazines and paperback books; newspapers and envelopes; glass jars; aluminum cans, foil, and pie plates; empty metal aerosol cans; rigid plastics and plastics with numbers 1-7. Items not collected are: plastic grocery bags, styrofoam, motor oil containers, plastic housing on electronics and biodegradable plastics.

Karhl said he and the other committee members are not sure how many residents are recycling. Individuals merely need a trash can on which the word “recycle” is clearly printed. He said they are trying to do a rough survey to see how extensive the act of recycling is in Woolwich. “We're trying to do this by polite encouragement,” he said, hoping more residents will become interested in recycling.

Where do recyclables go?

“A good percentage of it does go to China,” Caron McNaughton of Pine Tree Waste said.

About half of the communities in the state of Maine are on some kind of single-stream recycling program, she said. But the amount of material brought in from Maine represent just a portion of what they get throughout the overall system. Casella Waste Systems, operating out of its New England headquarters in Rutland, Vermont, takes in recycled material from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and New York.

The company operates recycling facilities in 15 states in all and just last year recycled over 3 billion pounds of traditional waste, according to their website. Seven of these facilities uses the zero-sort recycling system.

While a lot of material goes to processing facilities within the United States, companies from China buy up excess material when they run low. These materials are recycled to manufacture new products, which are then sold to consumers. 

“You could probably write a book on the recycling industry,” McNaughton said. 

New frontiers in the recycling world continue to be explored, as companies find ways to convert trash to make new household products and bio-fuel. McNaughton said the company's Rutland, Mass., facility is looking into recycling compost and cow manure. She said the company anticipates the opening another zero sort transfer facility in Lewiston sometime soon.