AUBURN — The industrial scale at the entrance to Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp.’s incinerator should be closed for at least another week, but Executive Director Joe Kazar said the facility should operate as usual.

The scale collapsed last week while weighing a loaded truck. It’s used to weigh the loads trucks bring to the facility for disposal to determine the fees they owe.

“There are a lot of cast-iron parts on it, and cast iron is sort of a brittle material,” Kazar said. “There was some hidden corrosion on parts and that caused parts to collapse and we had a couple of pieces that broke.”

No one was injured and the truck suffered minor damage.

“He came up and I guess when he hit the brakes, that caused the moment of energy that caused the collapse,” Kazar said.

Kazar said the Twin Cities’ waste incinerator is taking bids for repairs. He estimated the scale would be out of service for at least another week and that it would cost about $40,000 to replace the scale.

For now, Kazar said commercial trucks can weigh their loads at their own facilities. MMWAC is working with companies near the Golder Road facility that have their own scales.

MMWAC staff will estimate the weight for residents bringing in smaller loads, Kazar said.

“We have extra personnel and they have more than 30 years of scale experience,” he said. “They make an estimate, then they lower that estimate and tell folks that will be the charge. There have been no complaints so far.”

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