Otisfield recycling equipment purchases OK'd

OTISFIELD — Residents have voted 42-0 to spend $58,521 for a recycling compactor and two recycling containers for the Transfer Station.

Board of Selectmen Chairman Hal Ferguson said $24,015 will come from reimbursement of the recently dissolved Oxford County Regional Recycling Corp. and the rest from selling the rights to a lease for a lot in Heniger Park in 2016.

He said the cost of the compactor and the containers is $40,812, excavation is $7,900, $5,625 for concrete walls and pads and $4,184 for electrical work.

Selectman Rick Micklon said there will be containers for trash and recycling.

The town has a waste compactor, he said.

The purchases approved at Thursday night’s special town meeting were prompted last fall after the town contracted ecomaine to handle recyclables and Almighty Waste of Auburn to transport them from the transfer station at 37 Station Road to ecomaine.

The town was paying about $1,000 a month to have the recycling container emptied, Administrative Assistant Anne Pastore said then. A compactor would save money, she said, because it holds 11 times more material than the container.

Ferguson said he and the board hope that “within two months, we’ll have the compactor running.”

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