AUBURN – Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp. invites people to an open house at its Goldthwaite Road waste-to-energy facility from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6.

Visitors will learn about the industrial process that converts their trash into electrical energy and inert ash. Plant tours take about half an hour and visitors may observe the high-tech operation.

Children in seventh grade or higher accompanied by an adult can attend. The plant processes about 200 tons of trash per day. The 24-hour operation is highly automated.

The waste-to-energy industry provides a portion of the nation’s renewable, domestic energy supply, and decreases the need for landfilling.

MMWAC is a quasimunicipal corporation created in 1986 by Auburn, Bowdoin, Buckfield, Lovell, Minot, Monmouth, New Gloucester, Poland, Raymond, Sumner, Sweden and Wales to create comprehensive solutions to solid waste management problems.

In addition to these member municipalities, MMWAC manages waste from most municipalities in the region, and has a special “ash-for-trash” partnership with neighboring Lewiston.

The waste-to-energy facility processes about 70,000 tons per year of residential and commercial trash, reducing its volume by 90 percent, and producing enough electricity to run the plant’s machinery and supply the annual needs of 2,000 households.

The plant also recycles metal retrieved from the incinerator ash, and transfers about 25,000 tons per year of bulky, construction, demolition, and other waste to approved landfills. Advanced air pollution equipment removes pollutants from the flue gas.

To visit MMWAC, take Hotel Road, Rodman Road or Minot Avenue to Poland Road. Take Poland Road to Goldthwaite Road one block from the intersection of Poland Road and Hotel Road. Follow Goldthwaite Road to the end. Enter the office on the right, front corner of the facility’s main building.