JAY — Ecomaine is no longer accepting plastic shopping bags in its Portland recycling facility, Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere said Thursday.
The towns of Jay and Livermore Falls have contracts with the organization to bring town recyclables to the facility.
In addition, if recyclables in Livermore Falls are in a clear plastic trash bag, the bags need to be opened and the contents dumped into the recycling compactor. The plastic bag then needs to go in the trash compactor, said Livermore Falls Town Manager Kristal Flagg.
The plastic shopping bags must either be thrown in the trash or recycled through one of the stores that has plastic bag recovery boxes, LaFreniere said.
Stores with boxes to recycle shopping bags include Hannaford in Jay and Farmington, and Wal-Mart in Farmington.
LaFreniere recently received an email from ecomaine about the discontinuance. Ecomaine’s board-appointed Recycling Committee unanimously approved the decision in September based on a weak market for the bags and problems the bags and films cause in ecomaine’s mechanical sorting equipment.
Several ecomaine Owner Communities, including Portland, South Portland and Falmouth, previously instituted plastic bag fees of 5 cents per plastic grocery bag. Freeport banned plastic shopping bags altogether, according to an email sent to LaFreniere by ecomaine.
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