By David Harry
Staff Writer

Some Cape Elizabeth residents think town councilors should dump the idea of a pay-as-you-throw disposal program.
About a dozen people spoke out against the idea Monday during a public hearing on the proposal to charge residents for garbage bags to be used at the Cape Elizabeth Recycling Center.
 Cape Elizabeth does not have municipal curbside pickup for trash or recyclable materials. The town recycling committee broached the subject with councilors as an effort to boost the town’s recycling rate.
“I urge you to leave it alone,” Spurwink Road resident Herbert Dennison told councilors.
No specifics on a pay-as-you-throw plan have been developed, and the council voted to table the idea until a Nov. 1 workshop.
The committee in a May 1 memo to councilors recommended exploring the idea but suggested implementing it should be a referendum question. The memo noted monitoring use of bags at the recycling center could be a potential problem.
Town Manager Mike McGovern in a July memo to councilors said the move could save the town $140 per ton in hauling recyclable materials to the ecomaine trash-to-energy facility. He noted each increase of 1 percent in the town’s recycling rate could save almost $3,700.
McGovern said Monday that revenues from sales of garbage bags would go into the municipal general fund and recycling savings could be used to avert future increases in property taxes.
The sale of garbage bags also met skepticism. Dennison said buying them was a fee he could not deduct from his federal taxes as he does with local property taxes.
Elizabeth Scifres, a Longfellow Road resident, said a pay-as-you-throw program unfairly targets younger families who cannot recycle items such as diapers and lower-income families would use a greater proportion of their income to buy bags.
Resident Phil St. Germain, who opposes a fee program, reminded councilors where they first campaigned for office: “Your careers began at the dump.”
The recycling center on Spurwink Avenue drew praise from speakers at the council meeting. Mary Page, a center attendant, said the seven recycling bins at the center get plenty of use.
Ecomaine statistics show that recycling has been a growing trend in Cape Elizabeth since 2006. Solid waste hauled by ecomaine from Cape Elizabeth has decreased by about 1,000 tons annually and annual tonnage in the “silver bullet” recycling bins has increased by 399 tons.
Page said five of the bins are emptied weekly, and center attendants also remove metal parts from appliances for recycling at the 4-acre site.
“We take everything. If not, I can tell you where to take it,” Page said.
Recycling increases have ebbed in the last two years as the town rate approached 35 percent, McGovern noted. The recycling committee considered the pay-per-bag proposal as a way to reach a recycling goal of 50 percent.

Jenny Allen, a Cape Elizabeth resident who made the circuit through the recycling center last Friday before stopping at the center’s swap shop, said she is trying to recycle more but still opposes being charged for garbage bags.
“The times right now are too hard,” Allen said. “It could be a real crunch.”
Recyclable materials are resold by ecomaine and have generated as much as $3 million in revenues for the company, which is owned by 21 member towns in Cumberland and York counties.
The market for recyclable materials dropped in 2009, and ecomaine revenues decreased to about $2 million, according to the company’s annual report for fiscal year 2011. Fiscal year 2010 revenues for recyclable material sales were projected to be $2.4 million.
George MacDonald, team director for the Maine Waste Management and Recycling Program operated by the State Planning Office, said pay-as-you-throw disposal programs have been in place for more than 20 years in Maine communities.
He estimated about 145 municipalities of the approximately 490 in Maine have enacted a pay-per-bag program, which usually require residents to buy specifically marked garbage bags priced from 50 cents to $2.

In southern Maine, the programs are not always popular. Voters in Hollis and Waterboro repeatedly have rejected pay-as-you-throw plans in the past five years.
Sanford is the most recent town to establish a pay-per-bag program, but a referendum to repeal it is on the Nov. 2 ballot.
Sanford Town Manager Mark Green credited the program for increasing the town’s recycling rate from 12 percent to more than 40 percent in three months.
In Sanford, 15-gallon bags are sold for $1.25 and 33-gallon bags are sold for $2. Bags are sold at about a dozen stores in town. Solid waste and recyclables are picked up curbside and recyclables are taken to ecomaine, Green said.
Fears of illegal dumping have not been realized, he said. However MacDonald said his office has noted illegal dumping in private trash bins does occur when towns enact pay-as-you-throw programs.
McGovern agreed, and said his discussions with Portland and ecomaine officials confirmed price increases of trash bags has led to more illegal dumping on the road and in trash bins.

As they unloaded their trash Friday, Cape Elizabeth residents Dan Bruzgo and Martha Kerney said they are separating more and tossing out fewer recyclable items. But they reached different conclusions about the inevitability of a pay-as-you-throw program.
“It is a perfect example of what is going on in the country on a larger scale,” Bruzgo said. “It is about money, not recycling.”
Kerney said a program could boost the recycling rate.
“It is a necessary evil – I am not looking forward to it,” she said.

Staff Writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219