A syringe drop-off box shown Monday at Augusta Police Department in Augusta. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

AUGUSTA — City officials are considering seeking a partner to create a system to pay people for turning in used hypodermic needles littering city streets.

Kevin Judkins, Ward 2 city councilor, suggested the city work with others, potentially a local organization already running a needle-exchange program, to create a program that would pay people 5 cents each for any used needles they bring. He said it would be a way to try to rid the city of improperly disposed of syringes, left by drug users in public places.

“I used to own a redemption center and the bottle law really has worked, it’s taken a lot of litter off our streets,” Judkins said at Thursday night’s council meeting. “And I know that used needles in every nook and cranny in Augusta is a problem. So I started thinking if it worked well for that, how could we maybe model it for this? If we cleared 100,000 needles off our streets, that’d only cost us $7,000. If we cleared 200,000 needles off our streets, it’d only be $14,000.

“It’d be for public safety and getting those things taken care of in a good way. And at the same time, when they bring them in, they get clean needles. They get harm reduction.”

He said the program could be funded by some of the city’s share of opioid settlement funds.

Augusta is far from the only community trying to find a solution to discarded needles.

A discarded needle in an alleyway in Portland in September. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

The city of Portland recently approved a similar pilot needle buyback program, also to be paid for using opioid settlement funds. The program will pay people 5 cents per used syringe they return to the city, with a cap of $10 per person per day.

Councilors in the York County city of Sanford voted this month to limit its used needle exchange program to a one-to-one rate. Previously, people could get up to 100 syringes in return for a used needle.

In Augusta, city councilors, following a lively, wide-ranging discussion prompted by the proposal, agreed City Manager Jared Mills should research the issue and come back to councilors with information on the city putting up more boxes for the disposal of waste syringes, or sharps, where drug users could put their used needles.

Mills will also look into existing organizations the city could partner with to collect used needles, and creating an incentive program such as that proposed by Judkins to pay people for turning in used needles that might otherwise be disposed of improperly.

Officials noted there are already needle exchange programs operating in Augusta, including one on Green Street affiliated with MaineGeneral Health, so the city could partner with such a program.

Ward 3 Councilor Mike Michaud asked whether the city, or others, was still working to try to prevent the illegal drugs used in the needles littering the city from being available, in addition to efforts to help people recover from drug addiction.

Mills, the city’s former police chief, responded that drug enforcement continues to take place in parallel to the more recent efforts to help addicts get treatment, but warned that alone hasn’t worked in the past.

A syringe drop-off box shown Monday at Augusta Police Department in Augusta. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

“It was, ‘Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement, let’s arrest our way out of it,’ and that didn’t work for the 25 years I was in my other career,” Mills said. “So then it became about opening our eyes to treatment, and recovery and harm reduction and things like that. So this is just one component of the other things that are going on. Whether we solve that problem, I don’t know.”

Multiple councilors worried that providing a financial incentive to collect and turn in used needles could potentially draw people other than drug users, including children, to collect needles for the money they could make, and expose them to risk of infection.

“I don’t think I’d be in favor of you just bring a needle in and you’re going to get 5 cents,” said Ward 4 Councilor Eric Lind. “Because at that point people who maybe need some money may be searching for needles, or kids may be doing it, and not handling them properly, and they are dangerous.”

At-Large Councilor Courtney Gary-Allen, organizing director of the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project and a member of the Maine Recovery Council, said all needle exchange programs in Maine are restricted to serving only people 18 or older. So if the city partnered with one of those programs to pay people for turning in needles, that would prevent children from taking part. She added that participation in the program getting money for turning in needles could be limited to people taking part in needle exchange programs.

At-Large Councilor Stephanie Sienkiewicz said the city could inadvertently cause other problems while trying to address the problem. But, she said, doing nothing allows the existing risk to continue.

“We’ve all heard about discarded needles around town, we know there have been some pretty significant funds spent cleaning up biohazards, so I think conversations around this are really necessary,” she said. “There are potential downsides to something like this, I don’t want to brush those aside. At the same time I’m willing to see how this plays out and deal with those problems as they arise.

“The needles are a risk to the community as they are, people may interact with them as they are on the ground now. That’s a risk that exists. I’m not sure incentivizing people to pick them up increases the risk. The community wants this taken care of. I’d be happy to move ahead with something.”