NORWAY – Starting Wednesday, transfer stations across the state will celebrate Maine’s recycling week, and people in the industry will use the time to boost what they say is waning interest in recycling.

Recycling “is an environmental thing we’re doing, an ethical thing we’re doing,” said Bruce White of the Maine State Planning Office on Monday. He is coordinating the awareness week at the state level.

In the past few years, the number of recyclers in Maine has leveled out, hovering around 40 percent, short of the 50 percent goal the state set more than 10 years ago, White said.

The number is higher in urban areas that can afford roadside pickups of recycled material. But most of Maine cannot afford to offer that convenience to residents.

“All the people who are going to recycle recycle because they know it is the right thing to do,” said Alison McCrady, director of Norway/Paris Solid Waste, on Monday. Now local transfer station managers and state officials say they need to reach those who aren’t separating their plastics, paper, glass and cans.

It’s not just an environmental or ethical obligation, McCrady said, let alone a local ordinance. Recycling also saves money, because whatever is kept out of the waste stream translates into fewer fees for the towns, which pay to dispose of waste. Recycled material can be sold back into the market.

“We want to remind people to recycle and it’s a good thing,” McCrady said. “Basically, if you look at it in a simplistic way If you threw everything down the hopper, it costs the taxpayer a lot more.”

To spur more awareness in recycling, McCrady will be offering a free recycling bin filled with recycled paper products, like office paper and napkins, to the winner of a raffle. All the materials were bought locally to show how easy they were to find, she said.

Transfer station users can fill out a slip of paper for the raffle at the station on Brown Street. The winner will be announced Nov. 15, America Recycles Day.

McCrady said that in the past few years she has seen more people in the area buy Dumpsters and pay for curbside pickup, which means fewer people are dumping their trash at the transfer station. About 45 percent of locals use the transfer station, which means the majority using curbside service might not be recycling.

“It skirts our recycling ordinances that Norway and Paris have, as they don’t have to use clear bags. It is quote unquote easier,” McCrady said. But, “It costs more than taking it to the dump yourself.”

Norway and Paris passed mandatory recycling laws in 1992, and people throwing trash away at the transfer station use clear bags that make it easier to see what they contain. McCrady says that when she or an employee see an item that could be recycled in a bag, they point it out to the person.