A dormant waste-processing facility in Hampden is set to reopen, providing a boost to recycling efforts in Maine. The Municipal Waste Solutions facility shut down in 2020, resulting in more than 100 communities sending their trash to landfills.
Since then, the Municipal Review Committee has worked to restore operations. Now, through a partnership with Innovative Resource Recovery, the reopening is taking shape. According to the MRC, the facility will begin accepting waste in April. At the start of its reopening, it will act as a transfer station before sorting recyclables.
鈥淲e are really excited and happy to see it get up and going,鈥� Mike Carroll, the executive director of MRC, said. For nearly five years, the lack of a functioning sorting facility meant recyclables combined with trash went to landfills. 鈥淣ow the waste will go through a process where optical sorters pull out commodities鈥攖hat鈥檚 your plastics, your metals, your paper, and things like that,鈥� Carroll explained.