Bar Harbor Talks Trash—and the Price Tag That Comes With It
Pay-as-you-throw, waste streams, recycling all discussed
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Edward Jones Financial Advisor: Elise N. Frank.
BAR HARBOR—Bar Harbor will continue to investigate how its trash and recycling choices could be potentially changed. Those changes may help the taxpayer or the budget.
“Waste disposal is expensive,” consultant Thomas Henaghen told the town councilors, February 18. “More weight equals more money.”
Henaghen, program lead at Sevee and Mahar Engineers gave an assessment of the town’s transfer station and waste to the Bar Harbor Town Council during its Tuesday night meeting.
Back in September 2024, Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt told councilors of Henaghen’s work. “This is the first step to move us in the right direction. We’ve got to study the problem and find the solutions.”
After that, she said, the community has to come together to figure out how to move forward with those solutions.
“It’s key to changing the outcome for us in Bar Harbor,” she said.
Her department, which is in charge of Bar Harbor’s infrastructure (streets, sewers, sidewalks, water mains, parks) also wanted to look at what potential exists for selling recyclables such as cardboard, which is currently a cost to the town rather than a revenue.
It isn’t an easy solution.
Cardboard, she said, “takes up a lot of space and doesn’t compact well.”
Any potential changes or possibilities would also involve consideration of the potential change’s return on investment. It would also take into account the best use for the limited amount of space available at the transfer station site off Ledgelawn Extension for any expansion of operations.
“The first place we looked was just to understand the cost,” Henaghen said of his report, Tuesday. That report comes during the town’s preparation of the next budget.
The town currently pays approximately $800,000 in just disposal costs for its waste. That number includes the tipping and hauling and surcharge fees. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is the largest piece of the waste stream and cost.
The town is contracted with the Municipal Review Committee (MRC) until 2033, committed to bring its solid waste to the disposal facility. The cost for that is $85 a ton. The town has a contract that states it must send 5,056 tons of MSW to the disposal facility every year.
This means that the town paid approximately $590,000 for its solid waste and $205,00 for recyclables. That money comes from the budget.
Single-sort recycling (SSR), Henaghen said, is costly and shifting toward it might not benefit the towns. The cost to dispose of SSR averages at $226 per ton.
Town Council Vice Chair Maya Caines asked if food waste comprised more of the waste stream in Bar Harbor than is typical.
Henaghen said he would assume it did though they haven’t had the granularity of data to explore that.
Caines also asked if there’s been any talk of curbside pick-up and if that would be useful and relieve the burden of the transfer station.
It hasn’t been looked at, but it isn’t off the table either, Leavitt said.
Henaghen also shared the month-by-month tonnage over the past ten years where summer use is consistently larger. He looked at the seasonal fluctuation that occurs every year. The baseline is 240 tons each month.
PAY-AS-YOU-THROW AND RECYCLING PROGRAMS
The report also looked at potential waste reduction and diversion opportunities for the town.
Pay-as-you-throw is a program where users pay per bag or per tag that goes on the bag. Users only pay for the waste they dispose. Revenue is generated to offset disposal costs and potentially offset operational and capital costs.
Questions before initiating such a program include how would the town address commercial companies and small businesses. The program can encourage waste reduction and divert waste from the waste stream, and it can encourage cost savings for the town.
If the town charged $2 for a 15-gallon bag and $3 for a 30-gallon bag of MSW and $2 for a 15-gallon SSR bag, it could potentially bring in $1.2 million in revenue, which more than offsets that $800k disposal cost. Just pay-as-you-throw for MSW ($2 for a 15-gallon bag and $3 for a 30-gallon bag) would bring in an estimated $1 million in revenue.
Pay-as-you-throw can also be combined with a $250 tipping fee program for haulers. From the graph provided, just the potential tipping fee would bring in approximately $600k.
“Traditional recycling programs are costly,” Henaghen said.
Glass, food waste, and cardboard are Bar Harbor’s most promising sustainable options, he said. Glass is hard to compact and causes a lot of wear and tear. A lot is generated during the seasonal months. The town could host a bottle return system or send the glass out to process and create a usable product.
“Food waste makes up the largest portion of the MSW stream. It’s dense and it’s heavy,” he said. “That’s a compelling reason to take that out.”
Waste can be composted at home. There are also commercial composting companies in the area and waste could be dropped off at a town site. Food waste digestion equipment could also be purchased and operated by the town.
Cardboard is the most valuable component of the SSR stream.
“That’s the one you’d probably get money for,” Henaghen said.
“We’re paying to get rid of a commodity that we could be selling,” Town Manager James Smith said.
Potentials for working with COA and Jackson Laboratory could be possibilities, Council Chair Valerie Peacock suggested.
Councilor Randy Sprague said he felt a user-based fee system was important.
Finding a balance to encourage reductions in waste production without incurring more recycling costs is important, Councilor Earl Brechlin said.
The council agreed to evaluate further and look for policy objectives in a workshop.
TRASH AUDIT
In just under three hours, a June 2022 waste audit in Bar Harbor collected waste from each of five categories: residential, restaurant, municipal, commercial, and weekly rentals. The audit just represents the trash that came in on that one day from people who consented to having their trash sorted, but it showed that of the 753.95 pounds of waste sorted, 28.87% was food waste (217.7 lbs).
FOOD WASTE STREAM
Every year, it’s estimated that Americans throw away approximately 452 pounds of organic garbage. That’s garbage that could be composted. It’s also garbage that creates methane, a greenhouse gas, when it’s in a landfill.
Approximately 40 percent of Maine’s solid waste is organics, according to a May 2024 Maine Department of Environmental protection study.
“Overall, this study estimates food loss and waste in Maine to be approximately 361,506 tons per year across all sectors (271,036 tons per year, excluding farms),” the study states. “This approach is based on identifying applicable generation factors and applying them to data specific to Maine.”
The same study estimates that Hancock County produces 22,260 tons of food loss and waste annually.
The Bar Harbor Garden Club has recently found a site at the Stone Barn to run a pilot program that allows subscribers to send food waste to Chickadee Composting in Surry.
“By composting wasted food and other organics, we can decrease our community’s carbon footprint and reduce solid waste brought to landfills,” the garden club site says. In a press release, it adds, “By taking part in this project, you will reduce the solid waste brought to landfills, the tipping fees associated with disposal and the community’s carbon footprint.”
Currently, the College of the Atlantic has a Discarded Resource and Material Management Policy that students developed in the college’s Zero Waste Club. The approved plan is working for a “90% diversion of discarded materials campus-wide by 2025.”
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Presentation by Sevee & Maher Engineers on Transfer Station Operations Evaluation and Sustainable Opportunities
To learn more about the garden club’s program
FOOD LOSS AND WASTE GENERATION STUDY Maine Department of Environmental Protection
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