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May 27, 2009: Our
recycling program is doing well, but we’d like it to be even better. If you are not yet recycling your
cardboard, paper and metal, plastic and glass containers, please consider
doing so. Also please consider
composting your vegetable waste, rather than disposing of it in the
regular trash. Every ton of
material which goes somewhere other than the regular trash currently saves
the town at least $140.
Please remember to place your recyclables IN the dumpsters (not next to
or on top of the dumpsters) and DO NOT dispose of regular trash in or
near the recycling dumpsters.
March 7, 2009: It’s time to promote composting! Plant materials, including fruit and
vegetable waste, can make up a significant fraction of a household’s
waste. Composting those materials
rather than disposing of them in the regular trash saves the town at
least $130/ton in disposal fees, reducing the tax burden on all of
us. Plus it provides you with free
fertile material for your gardens!
January 22, 2009: Between January 8 and January 22, parts
of the website erroneously instructed you to place compressed cardboard,
such as cereal boxes, into the paper dumpster. That is incorrect. Compressed cardboard goes with
corrugated cardboard in the “cardboard” dumpster.
January 8, 2009: A
fourth dumpster is being added to our “recycling center” and will
hopefully be delivered today. It
will be a 6 cubic yard dumpster (the same size as the paper and cardboard
dumpsters) and is for plastic containers and tin cans. The smaller dumpster (2 cubic yards) is
now to be used only for glass. Please observe the following guidelines
for these dumpsters:
1) Plastic and metal containers
should be placed into their dumpster in plastic bags, rather than
loose. This is because the current
recycling setup at EMR requires that recycled containers be transferred
from the truck by hand.
2) Glass jars should also be placed into their dumpster in
plastic bags. Please place
them into the dumpster gently, so they do not break.
3) As mentioned in the December note, please crush plastic containers
to save space, please rinse all containers before
recycling, and please close the dumpster lid when
you are done. Thanks!
December 2008: At
the beginning of the month, a small (2 cubic yard) dumpster was added to
the Town Office parking lot for recycling “containers” (plastic, glass
and metal). Trial and error has
led us to post the following guidelines for its use:
1) Please crush plastic containers
(such as gallon milk jugs) whenever possible to reduce the amount of
space they take.
2) Please rinse all containers
before recycling in the dumpster, to remove contaminants (especially
food).
3) Please place all containers into the dumpster in
plastic bags rather than loose. This is in contrast to the Paper and
Cardboard dumpsters – please do not place plastic bags into those. Please also place the bags of
containers into the dumpster gently to avoid breaking glass. To avoid breaking glass Gott’s Disposal
empties this dumpster by hand
rather than normal machine dumping.
This is also the reason why they gave us a small dumpster (which
fills very quickly!).
4) If the dumpster is full, please do not
leave your bags of containers on the ground next to the dumpster. Please take them home and bring them
back when the dumpster is not full.
We recognize there have been some delays in emptying dumpsters,
and we are working with Gott’s to expedite the emptying of dumpsters each
time they are identified as full.
5) Please make sure you close
the lid to the recycling dumpster before you leave!
We are investigating the possibility of adding a fourth dumpster to our
“Recycling Center” and hope to make a decision at our next Solid Waste
Committee meeting (January 7, 2009).
The purpose would be to separate the glass, which has to be
handled gently, from the plastic and tin cans which can be machine
dumped, and can therefore go into a larger dumpster. We hope to post updated guidelines shortly
after the January 7 meeting.
November 2008: Please do not place plastic bags into the paper or
cardboard recycling dumpsters! Our recycling program is off to a great
start. Currently, the cardboard
dumpster is being dumped about twice per month and the paper dumpster
once per month. Note that ONLY
cardboard should be placed in the cardboard dumpster and ONLY paper in
the paper dumpster. If you use
plastic bags to transport your materials, please remove the plastic
before placing your paper or cardboard in the dumpsters. The plastic bags are considered a
‘contaminant’, and their presence could jeopardize our getting recycling
credit for the materials. (If the
materials are rejected as recyclable, and dumped as regular trash, it
costs us ~$126/per ton!).
October 2008:
Dumpster for recycling of ‘containers’ (plastic, glass and metal)
is ‘in the works’. Due to the
popularity and success of the dumpsters for recycling cardboard and paper
(located at the town office), and by popular request, the Solid Waste
Committee decided unanimously at its October 1, 2008 meeting to recommend
to the Selectmen addition of a third dumpster for recycling
‘containers’. The Selectmen
accepted that recommendation at their October 7, 2008 meeting, but plan
to delay positioning of the dumpster until after they discuss logistics
with the person who snowplows the Town Office parking lot each
winter. The dumpsters may need to
be moved to allow for adequate plowing while still striving to keep
recycling convenient. But go ahead
and start saving plastic, glass and metal containers for the time when we
can start recycling them!
October 11, 2008: A Hazardous Waste and Universal Waste
disposal event at MDI High School.
After two years of rainy and cold weather for this annual event,
this year’s weather was beautiful clear and warm – which perhaps
explained the unusual and unexpectedly high turnout. At least 150 vehicles dropped off waste
materials, including 545 ‘units’ of hazardous chemicals (one ‘unit’ is
either 20 lbs. or 5 gallons) and many old computers, televisions and
fluorescent bulbs. This was almost
2 ½ times the volume collected last year.
The down-side to all this great participation was long wait times. Cars were lined up from well before our
9AM start time until after our 1PM cutoff, with typical wait times of ½
hour to over an hour throughout the morning.
To all of you who dropped off
materials that morning, thank you for your patience! Efforts will be made to prevent long
waits next time! This event was
open to all MDI towns, Swan’s, Frenchboro and the Cranberry Islands, and
the towns of Trenton and Lamoine.
As a rough estimate, Trenton residents represented about 10% of
the total participation – both in vehicles and materials delivered.
September 24, 2008:
The cardboard dumpster has been filled and emptied twice since its arrival less than
three weeks ago! This is a
promising sign that we will be successful at reducing our solid waste
disposal costs.
September 5, 2008: Arrival of two large dumpsters at Trenton Town Office
for collection of recyclable paper and cardboard! Please separate newspapers, junk mail,
magazines and corrugated cardboard from your regular trash and recycle by
placing in the appropriate dumpster any time you happen to be driving by
the town office. Currently,
compressed cardboard (such as cereal boxes) is not accepted for
recycling, but that will hopefully change soon… A description of ‘corrugated’ cardboard
can be found here.
September 2008: A contract renewal with EMR is in the
works. When approved, it may alter
our list of what may be recycled.
Updated information concerning recycling will be posted on our
website as soon as possible after contract approval.
August 22, 2008: Tentative
date by which we hope to have (2) six cubic yard dumpsters positioned
in the Town Office parking lot for recycling – one for paper and one for
cardboard.
August 9, 2008: The Solid Waste portions of the Trenton website are
‘up and running’.
June 17, 2008: The Solid Waste Committee has held
two meetings so far this year, and tonight made our first recommendations
to the Selectmen: (1) Rental of two 4-6 cubic yard dumpsters for
collection of paper and corrugated cardboard as recyclables, and (2) the
start of a coordinated information/education campaign – which includes
this website!
May 2008: The Trenton Solid Waste Committee is new!
After at least one year without an active Committee, Trenton Selectmen
rustled up nine volunteers to deal with solid waste issues (mostly the
increasing costs!).
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