One of Maine’s largest recyclers is planning a multi-million dollar upgrade of its Portland plant in anticipation of handling more cardboard and other household waste.
Ecomaine, a community-owned corporation, plans to spend up to $25.2 million on state-of-the-art sorting equipment at a new recycling plant near its Portland headquarters.
CEO Kevin Roche said the new automated sorting machines use imaging technology to separate mixed recycling such as paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and aluminum.
The equipment will replace the company's current machines, installed around 2006.
Back then, newsprint made up most of the recycling ecomaine handled, according to Roche. With a boom in online shopping and home delivery, however, cardboard has become the top material it handles.
"Paper packing has really taken over the recycling bin, so we need a new design and plus the new system is nearly 20 years old," Roche said.
The market for recyclables has rebounded from a slump after China stopped accepting most U.S. solid waste about seven years ago.
American companies retrofitted mills to process used cardboard into more packaging material, boosting domestic demand, Roche said.
But local policy is also likely to increase the amount of material ecomaine handles, he added.
Maine regulators are finalizing requirements that producers pay for the cost of disposing packaging waste. The extended producer responsibility program would reimburse towns and cities for their recycling programs.
With that policy in place, Roche said that more communities will likely expand programs or revive abandoned recycling rather than "leave money on the table."
"So that in concert with public outcry for more recycling and more recovery, those two things are going to go hand in hand and I think, expand recycling programs," Roche said.
The company hopes its expansion will allow it to add more member communities that own and send waste to the Portland facility.
Ecomaine plans to borrow $35.5 million through a bond issue for the recycling upgrade and a landfill expansion. Adding more landfill space will give the company seven more years to store ash from its waste-to-energy plant, according to the company.
The public corporation is owned by a collection of towns and cities in southern Maine. It serves about 73 communities statewide.
