LEWISTON – A two-year deal letting Casella subsidiary Pine Tree Waste continue to collect the city’s trash and recycling will give leaders time to find a better alternative, councilors agreed Tuesday.

Councilor Robert Reed said any new trash collecting solutions need to include the city’s neighbors.

“We can’t act in a vacuum,” Reed said. “The communities around us are looking to see what Lewiston is going to do. We should include them, bring them to the table and do something as a region.”

Reed said he had resigned as chairman of the city’s Solid Waste Task Force. He urged fellow councilors to change that group’s mission, giving representatives from Auburn, Greene and other neighboring towns membership.

Councilors asked the remaining members of the committee to discuss that idea and recommend a course of action.

The group is looking for ways to increase the city’s recycling rate, which is about 7 percent. They’ve talked about moving to no-sort curbside recycling and possibly enforcing a city ordinance that levies a $210 fine for people who don’t recycle.

Reed said those solutions wouldn’t work if the city acted by itself. Requiring Lewiston residents to pay for special trash bags would encourage some to leave trash in Auburn, for example.

“Most of our solid waste collections are regional,” Reed said. Lewiston’s trash is taken to Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp.’s Auburn incinerator, and MMWAC’s ash is deposited in Lewiston’s landfill.

“Our trash is collected regionally; it’s incinerated regionally; it’s disposed of regionally,” Reed said. “What’s not regional is our thinking, and that’s not very efficient.”

According to the two-year contract with Pine Tree Waste, Lewiston will pay $735,000 a year. That amount will be adjusted for inflation. Reed said the contract is a good deal for the city.

“The original terms were negotiated years ago, when the cost of oil was not so high,” Reed said. “We are essentially paying the same amount. We couldn’t get a better deal now.”