CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Carrabassett Valley has joined with the Sandy River Recycling Association in a three-month pilot program recycling plastics not usually accepted by the 21- member town organization.
Starting this month, residents here began to deposit plastic containers with the plastic identification codes 3, 4, 5 and 7 on them in a single container at the transfer station and recycling centers throughout the community. It was something they had not been able to do before.
Kimberly Truskowski, environmental steward at Sugarloaf and SRRA board member, said she is pleased to be part of the pilot project that is looking to expand the materials that are accepted for recycling at SRRA. She asks residents to take a moment to check the bottom of the plastic containers for their code and stresses that no plastic bags or Styrofoam containers marked with number 6 will be accepted.
While the 20 year-old nonprofit association, of which Carrabassett Valley is a member, has been collecting and processing No. 2 plastics since its founding, it has yet to do so for the plastics coded 3, 4, 5 and 7 because, among other things, the cost of doing so outweighs the revenue received for them, SRRA’s manager Ron Slater said.
The plastics now under consideration include shampoo bottles (No. 3), squeezable mustard containers (No. 4), wide-mouth yogurt containers (No. 5) and a variety of hard plastic containers (No. 7).
The three-month pilot project, which is also being conducted by the town of Farmington, is the result of a recent survey of SRRA’s member towns. If it is manageable in terms of cost and storage space at SRRA’s facility in Farmington, the association will consider continuing and expanding the collection to other member towns, Slater said.
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