by Becca Shaw Glaser January 11, 2022 The Free Press

“I have here some newspaper 13 months old
I wrapped fish inside it; it’s smelly and cold
But I wouldn’t trade it for a big pot o’ gold!
I love it because it’s trash.”
— Oscar The Grouch, “I Love Trash”

One of my earliest memories is holding my mom’s hand at the St. George dump. We’re facing an enormous mountain of stuff, surrounded by gusts of dusty wind, flashing green and black flies, and the excited shrieks of seagulls — and we’re picking treasure. I still love dumps, trash picking, dumpster diving, rescuing, repairing, and giving otherwise-bound-for-landfills-or-incinerators stuff away. Among the local dumps, a few years ago, Rockland seemed to really pull ahead with its single-stream recycling system. Throw everything in the recycling bin and call it good. For ease and time commitment, it’s awesome. But it is also, in some ways, much too convenient. Convenience is killing the planet, right? The less convenient option of being forced to sort our own recycling items theoretically might make us think twice about all the junk we’re accumulating, and, at the dump itself, allows us to pick out others’ items before they head to their next energy-intensive, wasteful destinations. Re-use is infinitely better for the environment than recycling or buying new; anything that slows the cradle-to-grave process is helpful. This past spring at the Midcoast Solid Waste Corporation, or, as I call it, the Camden-Rockport Dump, which does not have single-stream recycling, I was able to pluck plastic jugs from the recycling bins to use as mini-greenhouses for vegetable seedlings, cardboard for suppressing poison ivy, and metal for garden stakes.

For this trash-talking series, I review the dumps (aka “transfer stations”) in Rockland, Rockport, Thomaston and St. George from my trash- and planet-loving point of view. As a dump connoisseur, among the top things I look for is whether picking is easy (despite it being discouraged or even flat-out forbidden) and if there is a dump “store.” It would appear that my primary hope for a dump is that it makes re-use its biggest goal. Although I’m comparing the local dumps, and despite my editor’s suggestion to call this “Rate My Dump,” I’m one of those insufferably idealistic people who don’t believe in grades or hierarchy, so I won’t be rating them. I wrote to those with management or knowledge of these dumps with ridiculously long lists of questions and have printed a selection of their responses.

A few things became clear in my local trash investigation: the pandemic has led to lots more stuff — particularly cardboard and other packaging — needing to be processed by our local dumps. And many of the dumps feel they must, due to insurance liability, discourage the type of heart-singing and earth-saving picking I did with my mom when I was a little kid in St. George. With so much garbage material, we are ripping it up into several must-have issues of The Free Press.
This week, the transfer stations in Rockland and Thomaston.

Pros and Cons of the Rockland Transfer Station (a.k.a. the Rockland Dump)

Pros:

1. It is fantastic to be able to throw a big load of single-stream recycling into the huge cauldron and have it be sorted elsewhere.
2. Cool mural showing how fun recycling is.
3. Compost program.
4. Something feels so very historic about the Rockland dump with all that stuff still being tossed into an old quarry, and imagining the people who toiled there, the unionizing among granite cutters and lime workers. I only learned recently that Rockland and Rockport are running the very last remaining quarry landfills in the state of Maine. Rockland estimates it will be closing the landfill in 2023, though it will require perpetual monitoring. The city will likely ask its voters this November to approve a bond of $1.5-$2 million toward the closing costs.
5. I have always loved the smell of the Rockland dump. Some think it’s disgusting, a gigantic sulfur fart descending over the whole area, but I happen to enjoy it, in small doses.

Cons:

1. I cannot emphasize enough what an intergalactic tragedy it is that Wink’s Place, the Rockland dump’s free store, has been closed by the city for almost two years now. Though Chris Donlin, the assistant director of Rockland’s Department of Public Services, gave me compelling explanations for why Wink’s Place has remained shuttered, I still believe that for all the problems: sometimes messy, sometimes seriously gross, conflicts, and staff shortages, there’s always a solution. Clearly, the value of re-use has been vastly de-prioritized by the city. Having a place for free exchange of goods is great for the environment, great for people, and so much better than having it go to stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army (who throw out many donations and charge for the stuff they get for free). I’m grateful that Chris seems genuinely interested in getting Wink’s Place up and running again. He’s aiming for a volunteer model, which will take community commitment.
2. Single-stream recycling is so easy it means you may be less likely to slow down and reckon with all the stuff you’ve acquired.
3. Because the recycling is tossed into a huge pit in the ground, picking out useful items for reuse is impossible.
4. A few years ago we were given some of the dump-made compost to use in our volunteer community gardens in Rockland. The “compost” I got was dry, sandy, and included bonus items like plastic tampon applicators.

“The Commodification of Doomsday”
Q&A with the Rockland Transfer Station, answered by Chris Donlin, assistant director, Department of Public Services

Becca: What percentage of what the transfer station processes is trash versus the recycling, reusing and composting amounts?
Chris: The amount of Municipal Solid Waste, or “trash,” brought in 2020 was 2,650.54 tons. The total amount recycled was 561.81 (21.2%).
Becca: How does the recycling rate and financial burden compare before and after Rockland switched to using ecomaine for single-stream recycling in early 2018? A couple years earlier, ecomaine, then lobbying for recycling contracts with midcoast transfer stations including Rockland, claimed it would be able to increase recycling rates by 13% to 15% with its single-sort process and recycling education programs.
Chris: The rate of residential recycling has stayed consistent here in Rockland. Before ecomaine [we were] dealing with commercial recycling, which was sometimes advantageous but always expensive and labor intensive, even when market conditions favored such activity, which currently they do not. Even though the markets may be improving for some commodities, the city of Rockland is better served with our single-stream arrangement. We are not a for-profit commercial entity. We provide responsible recycling to the residents of Rockland at a consistent level of success and managed cost.
Becca: How do you think about recycling in terms of cost-effectiveness, environmentalism?
Chris: Private for-profit transfer stations are the only model that attain the scale and quantity to be profitable, and in turn cost-effective and pro-environment in the ever-changing world of recycling. We as a municipality need to strive for resident involvement, remain vigilant and always try for thrift and efficiency.
Becca: How has the pandemic affected things related to the transfer station?
Chris: In a word, drastically. People buy stuff. A lot of Stuff. I read that 70% of the U.S. GDP is consumer spending. That is a lot of packaging. A lot of old stuff that people get rid of just to buy the new stuff. The pandemic has increased the public’s consumerism and the corporations are here to meet the demand.
Becca: Critics claim that recycling is a distraction that makes people feel good, but may not be worth doing because it can make people feel they can continue to consume endlessly, rather than putting their energy into pushing for the international political and economic changes that are needed to truly help the planet and ourselves. What are your thoughts on that?
Chris: My thoughts on this are many. First of all, recycling needs to be taken seriously and we should feel good about doing what we can when we have the choice. Is it sufficient, or a long-term solution? No. I read this term the other day and it stuck with me, “The Commodification of Doomsday.” In other words, profiting as much as you can as fast as you can while you sell the instruments of their own destruction to a willing public. This might be getting out in the weeds a little bit so I will sum it up this way: Manufacturers and corporations need to be held accountable for all this stuff they make, market and sell. Consumers need to pay more when they buy it. Maybe a fee on producing/consuming these items. Then, that money will be available to those responsible who are left having to deal with it. The production and consumption isn’t going to stop on its own. We are going to keep doing the best we can, but it is like trying to drain the sink with the faucet still on.
Becca: When will Rockland re-open Wink’s Place? What do you need from the community to make Wink’s Place reopen and be a success?
Chris: Wink’s Place, the building, has been inspected [recently] and found to be safe and sound. I do not know when Wink’s will reopen but it is my hope to have it operated differently than in the past. [Chris said Wink’s Place was plagued by problems before it closed and would need oversight that the transfer station can’t provide, in part due to the fact that, from six transfer station employees six years ago, they are now at three staff members. However, he believes it might work if Public Services could support a group of volunteers overseeing and managing it. He encouraged interested people to contact him at cdonlin@rocklandmaine.gov.]
Becca: Are there things you’re trying to initiate to further improve the Rockland Transfer Station?
Chris: We recently partnered with Net Your Problem (netyourproblem.com) to recycle used lobster rope and are awaiting totals for this effort. The trash and the recycling is about a third of the energy and time we spend in comparison to the operation of the landfill and staying in compliance with the DEP, so we are always trying to streamline that effort. And finally, we are partnering with ScrapDogs to institute a food waste recovery program with a drop-off site at the transfer station.

Pros and Cons of the Owls Head, South Thomaston and Thomaston Cooperative Waste Transfer Station (a.ka. the Thomaston Dump or OHSTT)

(With the caveat that the OHSTT facility is the dump I’m least familiar with in my local vicinity.)

Pros:

1. Single-stream recycling.
2. In January 2019, OHSTT was recognized by ecomaine as having some of the “cleanest material we receive down at ecomaine,” with a recycling “contamination rate” of between zero and 1% (with 5% considered a good load by ecomaine). For their June 2021 contamination rates, OHSTT was more in the 2% range, with — make a note — contamination from items such as shrink wrap, padded mailers, and plastic bags. This is probably “wish-cycling”: we wish we could recycle them. Instead, we would do better to find folks who will use our padded mailers and plastic bags, or bring the filmy plastic stuff to grocery store collection bins. (Chris Donlin told me that Rockland’s contamination rate is “never above 5% contamination, usually as low as 1%-3%.”)
3. ScrapDogs composting is available and popular there.
4. Bottles are collected for the Pope Memorial Humane Society.
   

Cons:

1. The place feels austere, tight-lipped; I’m into raucously messy dumps.
2. Their single-stream recycling is not pickable.
3. No dump store. NO DUMP STORE!!!
4. It’s small and your movements are easily seen by staff, who don’t seem happy to have you picking among the goodies. However, I was told that if staff see something promising, they may pull it out. On the day I sniffed around, three exercise machines were primly lined up in front of a bunch of tires. A staffer joked it was “like Planet Fitness here.”

“We have been seeing way more cardboard because of online shopping during the pandemic.”
Q & A: Owls Head, South Thomaston and Thomaston Cooperative Waste Transfer Station, answered by Thomaston Select Board member Zel Bowman-Laberge and
Gordon Connell, vice chair of OHSTT Solid Waste Board

Becca: What are OHSTT’s recent trash-versus-recycling rates and amounts?
Zel: January-December 2021 is 189.28 tons of recycling and 3,173.14 tons of municipal solid waste. [Becca’s math lands OHSTT’s recycling rate at about 6%, which is significantly lower than Rockland’s, but a variety of differing factors about how these totals are calculated make side-by-side comparisons difficult. For example, yard waste is handled separately by the OHSTT towns, OHSTT adds tires to their solid waste rather than recycling them, OHSTT calculates light iron recycling separately, and Rockland calculates their landfill demo waste separately too.]
Becca: Do you know what your recycling is turned into?
Zel: Cardboard (which we separate from the recycling) gets turned into cardboard. Glass is ground up and reused as an aggregate in concrete or asphalt. Mixed paper is recycled into paper items such as fiber board and egg cartons. Number 1 plastic gets recycled and woven into various textiles. Number 2 plastic gets turned into plastic lumber and planks. Number 3-7 plastic are turned into plastic structural items such as the plastic bases of plastic basketball hoops. Metals are recycled and reused indefinitely.
Becca: How has the pandemic affected the transfer station?
Zel: We have been seeing way more cardboard because of online shopping during the pandemic.
Becca: Critics claim that recycling is a distraction that makes people feel good but fails to address the primary environmental issues.
Zel: The majority of people who come to the facility recycle. Perhaps it makes people feel good, but we also try to make it easy with single-sort recycling to encourage people to recycle.
Becca: Some of the other local transfer stations are struggling with whether to have a “free store” and how best to do it. Is OHSTT thinking about having one?
Zel: No — we have discussed this, but we do not have the space for a store like this because we have a small facility with limited space.
Becca: Any other things you’d like to mention?
Zel: We are currently working on a facility improvement project which includes replacing our compactors and enclosing them from the elements. We also will be installing an in-ground scale so we can do our weighing on-site.

Becca was given the nickname The Dumpster Queen in her twenties — her sole qualification for writing these reviews.