Windham converts to new system collection system Sept. 9

By Ed Pierce

A big change is coming to how trash is collected in Windham, and it won’t be very long before new tote carts will be wheeling up and down driveways across town.

Each residence in Windham will be
issued a 64-gallon trash cart and a
64-gallon recycling cart as the town
converts to a new trash collection 
system on Sept. 9.
PHOTO BY ED PIERCE

Near the start of 2023, members of the Windham Town Council reached an agreement with Casella Waste Systems, also known as Pine Tree Waste, to convert the town to an automated trash removal system. Casella was the only refuse contractor to bid for Windham’s services and told town officials that ongoing labor issues and expenses required a conversion to a system with trash collected curbside by a driver using an automated retrieval system.

Under the current system, trash and recyclable waste is manually collected at the roadside which requires a trash truck driver and a trash laborer for more than 5,400 stops in Windham and also uses the Pay As You Throw (PAYT) system, requiring the purchase of blue bags for residents.

Windham Town Manager Barry Tibbetts said this new collection system will be a big change, but he believes residents will find it efficient and convenient.

“This process began in 2023, when the town was informed by Casella that they were moving away from traditional manual trash pickup to the new automated truck system,” Tibbetts said. “Since then, town officials have been meeting with Casella regularly to coordinate the rollout of the new program, and to ensure that we can make the transition as smooth as possible for Windham residents.”

He said that the blue “Pay As You Throw” trash bags will no longer be needed as of Sept. 9 and thereafter.

“The use of the Windham trash bags has been required as a way of controlling the total volume of trash deposited at the curb,” Tibbetts said. “Once implemented, the cart system will accomplish the same volume control that the trash bags now create and is what Casella has contracted with the town to do.”

The new system was supposed to be in place last fall but was delayed as Casella Waste Systems purchased and waited to obtain new automated trucks with mechanical retrieval arms from an out-of-state manufacturer.

According to Tibbetts, the “Pay As You Throw” trash bag program continued into the Town’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget as Casella experienced a delay in new truck delivery but the revenue from the trash bags went to the town’s fund balance which will assist in reducing expenses and the overall Fiscal Year 2025 budget. Windham blue trash bags are sold at 15 different locations in town and priced at $13.50 for either ten 13-gallon bags or five 30-gallon bags. Tibbetts said residents possessing blue bags after the new system is implemented will be able to sell unused bags back to the town.

Casella officials say that all trash routes in Windham have been evaluated before the new system becomes effective and that includes trash removal for some roads in Windham that Pine Tree Waste does not travel on right now because of truck size limitations or roadway obstacles. It does not expect to make any changes to the current trash collection day schedule.

Chris McHale of Casella Waste Systems said that the company may purchase and deploy a smaller trash collection truck to service roads and streets in Windham that are not accessible by the new automated trash vehicles. He said that the company intends to work with residents to provide the best service possible, but because of rising operational costs and advances in technology, the trash removal industry is converting to automated systems and unfortunately can no longer continue to provide a similar system to the one used in Windham and nearby communities for years.

Tibbetts said that the new trash collection program is available to all single-family residences and all multi-family residences with four or less dwelling units.

“That amounts to about 7,600 dwelling units being able to utilize this program. As for other effects, most people will not see any changes to their collection day or locale,” he said. “However, some roads will see changes to their service. Some narrow, less improved roads, which cannot be serviced with the full-size truck, will receive service with a smaller “Pup” truck, which utilizes the same automated collection system, just on a smaller chassis. Some residences in town may need to place all their carts on one side of the street or gang pile the containers at or near the intersection of their road. As a way of easing the transition, for the first two weeks of the program, Casella crews will be out ahead of the collection trucks, insuring carts are properly placed and leaving educational notes if they are not.”

Each residence in the town will be issued two new durable carts on wheels, one for trash and the other for recycling. The new contract calls for residential pick-up service which is scheduled once a week Monday through Thursday using designated routes and should a pick-up fall on a legal holiday or on severe winter storm days, the schedule would be pushed back one day. Funding was included in the town’s annual budget to purchase the new trash carts and recycling carts for residents.

Around Labor Day, before the new automated trash system begins, residents will receive one 64-gallon trash cart and one 64-gallon recycling cart. Elderly residents using less trash may request smaller 48-gallon carts.

“If you have more trash than the cart will hold it will need to be held into the next week,” Tibbetts said. “If that is not an option, network with your neighbors and see if they have space in their cart. Otherwise, you will need to take the trash to a transfer station or to Ecomaine at a cost. If this is a consistent repetitive problem, contact the Windham Department of Public Works for assistance.”

Discussions have been held with the towns of Falmouth and North Yarmouth to share cart maintenance service costs for the trash carts as those towns are also converting to automated trash pick-up with Casella.

The automated trash system contract between Casella and the town runs through June 30, 2028 with Windham then having an option to renew the contract for an additional five-year period by providing at least six months of advance notice to Casella before the contract expires. <

Notes from the “Trash Girls”: Interns share results from Windham’s recycling pilot program

Fans, plastic fencing, plastic bags, water hoses,
lawn chairs are NOT recyclable items 

By Meddy Smith and Abby Constantine

For the past 10 weeks, we have been part of a pilot internship program to reduce recycling contamination. For the first two weeks of the internship, the two of us, as well as eight other interns from Scarborough, South Portland and Falmouth, had an extensive training at Ecomaine, the facility in Portland that processes most of Southern Maine’s recycling and trash.  

Every week, we attended meetings and workshops with our fellow interns and discussed ideas to reduce contamination in our communities and improve the recycling stream. Monday afternoons we went to the Silver Bullets in Windham and physically removed contamination from them. We were disappointed to find so much trash and inappropriate materials in these containers that are only for recycling. We often found items like kites, toys and books that could have been donated for someone else to use. 

During our eight weeks of curbside data collection and education, we reached over 900 households throughout the town. At each house, we evaluated the bin, indicated the contamination on the paper tag, attached the tag on the bin, and marked the tag color and type of contaminates on a spreadsheet.

This way, we could observe improvement and see the most frequent contaminates. The items we saw most often in bins were plastic bags (shopping bags, pet food bags etc), thin plastic film (like food wrap packaging) and Styrofoam.

During these long mornings driving “The Leaf” – Windham’s leased electric car- we received a lot of positive feedback and had great conversations with Windham residents. Many people had questions for us and were very interested in what we were doing.

A lot of people wondered why contamination in recycling is such a big deal. So, here’s what we learned.

The Problem: 

Many items that people put in their bins cannot be efficiently processed at Ecomaine. These materials, such as Styrofoam, thin plastic film and trash (clothes or toys etc.), are what make up the contamination that the facility sorts out and what is causing such turmoil in the global recycling market.

 The more contamination in the recycling, the less desirable it is to buyers and the less they will pay for it. As the contamination rate rose exponentially around the globe, the countries that used to accept our recycling closed their borders because it was so inefficient to process. This means that ecomaine struggles to find buyers and they must pay to get rid of some materials. As a nonprofit who pays dividends to the member-owner communities, towns are now having to pay high prices to continue to recycle. This has been a burden on Maine towns and some smaller towns discontinued recycling altogether. This is a tragic blow to the progress of environmental policy and action in Maine and as towns and residents we should do what we can to change this unfortunate pattern.

The Solution:

Ecomaine’s goal is to get the contamination under control and to be able to sell the recycling and pay

Interns Abby Constantine and Meddy Smith (aka The Trash Girls)
share their findings about Windham recycling
 with the Windham Town Council 

dividends back to the member communities, including Windham. The good news is that we have all the power to eliminate the contamination and make this goal happen. Windham residents can reduce their contamination and lower the financial burden on the town, keep recycling out of the landfill, and contribute to a greener system.

Recycling is a very important process for us as residents to take part in because it encourages manufacturers to use materials more than once, saves materials from the landfills and protects our finite resources.

In just the first month of the pilot project we lowered Windham’s curbside contamination rate 4%. We consistently gave out more and more green tags and less yellow tags over time, meaning that we observed less curbside contamination. We hope that our education efforts reduced the total contamination even further and that residents will continue to stay informed on local recycling and keep trying to reduce their contamination.

To learn more about what you can recycle, go to ecomaine.org or download the ‘recyclopedia’ app where you can search to see if something can be recycled at our facility.

The importance of proper recycling and the cost of “wishcycling”

Manchester School students discover what is recyclable (in 2016)

By Lorraine Glowczak

We are all aware that recycling is the process of collecting materials that would be otherwise thrown away and make them into new products. To recycle reduces waste in landfills, conserves natural resources and prevents pollution, to name just a few of the benefits. It’s for these reasons most Americans will properly recycle items such as water bottles, newspapers and glass jars.

But what about that plastic fork? Is that a recyclable item? If you are not sure but throw it in the recycling bin and hope that all is well? Then you are a “wishcycler.” And this one act can cost you and the town money.

The term, wishcycling, is when an individual throws questionable items into the recycling bin hoping that the object will be properly recycled once it reaches the facility. The Windham Town Council learned about this and more at their last Tuesday, January 22 meeting. “We receive a report each month on how much contamination is in our recycling,” Interim Town Manager, Don Gerrish, told the council. “We’ve been on notice and we are going start to pay if the recycling hits a certain percentage of contamination.”

As a result, Gerrish invited Environmental Educator from ecomaine, Katrina Vehnhuizen to speak to and inform the council on the improperly recycled items that occurs at both curbside and the silver bullet site within the Town of Windham.

Vehnhuizen provided a PowerPoint presentation and shared with the Council some of the major contamination materials that people try to recycle which include (but are not limited to) the following: CDs or DVDs, appliances, such as microwaves or refrigerators as well as vehicle parts, propane tanks, hair dryer, coffee grounds and diapers. For the record - plastic cup lids, straws, knives, forks, and spoons are not recyclable materials either and, if put in the recycling bin, are considered contamination material.

“We also get a lot of plastic bags including big black trash bags to grocery store shopping bags,” Vehnhuizen stated. “These items are considered contamination and should not be placed in the recycling bins or in the silver bullets.”

Informing the public is Vehnhuizen’s job and she mentioned her success in educating students at Maine schools regarding the importance of proper recycling. She told the Council about her work at Windham’s Manchester School.

Katrina Vehnhuizen from ecomaine speaks to the Town Council about about improper recycling, otherwise known as 'wishcycling'

In the December 23, 2016 edition of The Windham Eagle’s article, “Fifth graders are ‘talking trash’ at Manchester School’, it was explained that as a result of the efforts of fifth grade teacher Jennifer Ocean, the school was awarded a $3,000 School Recycling Grant from ecomaine to teach the students about environmental responsibility.

Vehnhuizen visited the school and provided a hands-on and educational opportunities, teaching the students the difference between what is trash and what is not, by quite literally going through the garbage produced by the first school lunch hour.

Vehnhuizen began the trash audit session, first weighing, then discarding a full bag of rubbish on a huge blue tarp. With tongs and rubber gloves, the students were asked to separate the trash into four piles, 1. Actual trash. 2. Re-useable items such as Ziploc bags, 3. Recyclables such as milk cartons and 4. Compost. The students discovered that what initially began as 25 pounds of waste, when separated into appropriate piles, ended up being only 1 pound of real trash. The students quickly discovered how many unnecessary items are placed into landfills and thus the need to reduce the amount of solid waste disposal.

Below is a helpful list to not only help reduce the amount of trash going into landfills, but to also help you and the Town of Windham save money.

Items that can be recycled:

Paper, including but not limited to:

All clean cardboard, paperboard and pizza boxes

Newspapers, advertising inserts and mail

Magazines, catalogs, phone books, hard cover books

Clean paper plates (not soaked or caked with food or oils)

Wrapping paper that can rip

Milk & juice cartons (it helps to remove caps, but isn’t necessary)

Drink boxes and other aseptic containers (such as nut milk boxes)

Shredded paper (contained in a clear plastic bag)

Plastic rigid containers marked with a #1 – #7 (NO Styrofoam, bags & films), including but not limited to:

Water bottles and salad containers

Milk jugs

Detergent bottles

Yogurt containers

Takeout food containers (not styrofoam)

Metal containers, including but not limited to:

Tin cans

Aerosol cans, such as shaving cream and hair spray (completely emptied)

Aluminum cans, tins and foil (not caked with food residue)

Pots and pans

Glass, including:

All glass bottles and jars

Items that cannot be recycled:

Propane, fuel, or gas (O²) tanks 

Plastic bags and film, such as SaranWrap®, shrink wrap or boat wraps 

Rope, cables, cords or wires

Yard waste or food (compost them instead!)

Video and audio tapes

e-waste, such as computers, laptops, TVs, etc. 

CDs or DVDs 

Appliances, such as microwaves or refrigerators 

Clothing, shoes or bedding 

Car, truck or boat parts, including batteries and brake rotors

Plastic cup lids, straws, knifes, forks, and spoons

Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) and regular fluorescent bulbs.

For more information, contact ecomaine at 207-773-1738 or peruse their website at www.ecomaine.org.