The first step has been taken toward dissolving Oxford County Regional Recycling Corp. as escalating transportation costs and a move toward single-stream recycling have made the county recycling program obsolete, according to local officials.

On Wednesday, July 13, 12 of the remaining 15 municipalities involved with the group voted to dissolve the corporation, according to Paris representative and corporation board Chairman Janet Jamison. 

The 15 municipalities include Norway, Paris, Otisfield, Bethel, Hanover, Denmark, Greenwood, Woodstock, Milton Township, Hebron, Newry, Livermore, Gilead, Lincoln Plantation and Upton. 

“We finally got the 12 votes we needed to recommend dissolution of OCRR,” she said late last week. “We are just getting rid of another layer of bureaucracy.”

Corporation Manager Warren Sessions said a four-fifths vote was required for the board to recommend dissolution, which equated to the 12 towns that voted.

“It’s not over yet,” he said. “Each town has to hold a referendum vote, the way the local agreement is written out, to make sure each town wants to do this, to make sure that’s what the people want. No matter what happens in Norway and Paris, Norway-Paris Solid Waste will continue.”

Norway-Paris Solid Waste operates the Transfer Station on Brown Street in Norway that serves both towns and is the drop-off site for recyclables for the corporation.

Jamison added that a letter will go out to all participating communities, directing them to place the issue on their next annual town meeting or November presidential ballot.

“We will probably have it on the November ballot in Norway and Paris,” she said. “I think we need to make sure it gets out in front of as many people as possible.”

Discussions about dissolution began in fall 2014 after OCRRC lost two towns to single-stream recycling and others began considering making a similar move, according to Sun Media archives.

OCRRC owns the trucks that travel across the county to pick up recyclables and drop them off at the recycling building at the Norway-Paris Transfer Station, Jamison said.

Slowly over time, now that recycling is more attractive, these little communities have been approached by people in the private sector to pay for it or go to single-sort recycling,” she said. “(OCRRC) has pretty much reached the end of its useful life.”

Sessions agreed single-stream recycling — where all papers, plastics, metals, containers and other recyclables are mixed together and no longer need to be sorted out — has put a damper on OCRRC.

“Single-stream recycling has lured some of our towns away,” Sessions said. “After they did that, it became unfeasible to continue to go because we’re not getting the revenue stream from that material. That material is going elsewhere now.”

Between Norway and Paris, there are roughly 10,000 residents, which is one of the reasons the two towns haven’t moved toward single-stream recycling.

We are bigger. … It is not done as cheaply,” Sessions said. “For Norway and Paris to get into it, it would be a financial investment.”

Jamison said the remaining OCRRC towns “can throw themselves on the open market” to address their recycling needs or possibly bring their recyclables to the Norway-Paris Transfer Station.

“We would be willing to entertain it if they were to bring it to us,” Sessions said about the latter option. “Transportation is the hardest part. The minute you try to transport something, you start going downhill.”

OCRRC was started nearly two decades ago by Albert Soule — the recycling building at the Norway-Paris Transfer Station is named after him — and there were roughly 20 communities participating, according to Jamison. Sessions said the effort was funded by grants and local investments.

Al Soule started it out. He was pushing real hard to get the community to recycle: He really believed in it. I don’t know how he did, but he found a bunch of like-minded towns that agreed they wanted to recycle,” Sessions said.

But now, these times are changing.

So I believe our like-minded people have been replaced by not-alike thinking people,” he added.

Jamison said the plan is finish the dissolution process in the next 12 to 18 months, with a hopeful end date of July 1, 2017.

It’s going to take a while. We’ve got to figure out everybody’s assets,” she said. “We’ve done a little bit of the preliminary stuff (including beginning to review) both cash and physical equity so everybody gets a fair share of the pie.”

Times aren’t only changing for OCRRC, but for Sessions as well. Currently, his time is split between OCRRC and Norway-Paris Solid Waste. Jamison noted some people have left Norway-Paris Solid Waste and have not been replaced, which will allow for Sessions to work there full time after the dissolution.

“I am very glad Norway-Paris Solid Waste agreed to take me on full-time when this happens,” he said. “I am hoping we can prove once these outlying towns are gone and the trucks are gone we will be able to turn it around in Norway and Paris and actually make some money there.”

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