AUBURN — Residents won’t see their trash or recycling collections interrupted later this week, even though the city is still about 30 days away from settling its solid waste contracts.

City Manager Glenn Aho said the city plans to extend its current contract with Pine Tree Waste for 30 days. That contract is due to expire Friday.

And twice-monthly recycling collections will continue while the city looks for a new way to handle the recycled solid waste it collects.

“I think we just need a little more time to get everything settled,” Aho said. “There’s nothing to worry about. There won’t be any interruption; we just need to decide where it’s going to go.”

Pine Tree Waste currently collects trash curbside throughout the city, taking the trash to Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp. incinerator on Goldthwaite Road.

The city began negotiating a new deal for trash collections with Almighty Waste in March. That company bid $354,220 each year for five years for the contract,  the lowest price of four companies.

Aho said the two need more time to come to terms.

Recycling will change as well, although residents shouldn’t notice.

The city made recycling collections less frequent last year, going from weekly curbside pickups  at each address to twice a month. That program is not set to change, although the city continues to look at alternatives.

Dom Casavant, chairman of the Mayor’s Commission on Solid Waste and Recycling, said the committee favors a dual-sort program. Residents would put all of their recycling into one of two bins. Paper, cardboard and cardstock would go into one. Plastic, glass and cans would go in the other.

“The reason is spoilage,” Casavant said. “The more you mix the various kinds of recycling, the more material gets ruined and becomes unrecyclable.”

Casavant said the worst kind of recycling spoilage comes from mixing glass with paper or cardboard.

“The glass breaks and gets embedded in the fiber,” he said. “We figure if we go dual stream, we’ll have a better product to sell.”

For years, Auburn sent its recycling to Lewiston to have it baled, stored and sold. But Lewiston switches to single-sort collections on Friday, closing down the city’s sorting facility at the Lewiston Solid Waste facility.

Aho said Auburn plans to continue sending its recycling to Lewiston for a little while longer while it looks for a new, more permanent place.

[email protected]