Each TV has four or more pounds of lead, mercury, aluminum, copper, iron and plastic housing. Trucks took away 1,361 pounds of TVs and computers last year from the Sandy River Waste Recycling Association to repair or resell or pick for parts.

In Lewiston, Slater’s counterpart, Rob Stalford, has done the math: Recycling a year’s worth of TVs and computers – about 33 tons – would cost $15,000. Pitching them in a landfill costs $3,000. He’s very mindful of his budget.

So into the landfill they go.

In Maine, where wildlife graces the license plates, where tourists visit every summer to marvel at the pristine state of things, either is legally OK.

State law contains a bit of an anything-goes household trash philosophy.

Broken TVs, with their lead? The landfill is no problem. Mercury-filled light bulbs? Sure, bury those too. Oil-based paint? It’s got solvents that can crack a person’s skin and nasty fumes that can cause brain damage.

It’s not illegal to throw it in the trash. But, there aren’t many handy ways to dispose of it either. That’s expected to change over the next 20 months.

By law, mercury-filled fluorescent light bulbs can’t be tossed in the garbage starting in January 2005. One year later, televisions and computers can no longer go in the trash. (Businesses already have to recycle both.)

And starting this fall, cities and towns that offer residents a year-round drop-off center for paint thinner, fertilizer and other hazardous waste will get preference for state grant money.

All an effort to clean up Maine’s trash.
Bury and burn
The state burns about 75 percent of its garbage, according to Hank Tyler, a senior planner at the State Planning Office.

Residents’ waste goes to four Maine incinerators and 12 landfills, eight in-state and two each in New Hampshire and New Brunswick.

In this region it mostly goes to the Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp., an incinerator located in Auburn, or a commercial landfill in Norridgewock.

Joe Kazar, executive director at MMWAC, said bulky items – TVs, computers, mattresses – aren’t burned. The plant wasn’t designed to handle that type of waste and often it wouldn’t fit down the 3-by-3-foot feeder chute, anyway.

His waste-to-energy plant processed 63,000 tons of municipal solid waste last year and diverted another 40,000-plus tons to landfill.

Clearly, some waste is more worrisome.

The most frequent question Kazar gets about what to toss and what to avoid centers on alkaline batteries. (They can be disposed of with household trash, he says, which surprises some people.)

There are a lot of other things, however, that environmentalists wish Mainers would stop throwing out. Take older TVs and computer monitors. They have cathode ray tubes with lead that originally protected viewers from radiation.

Newer flat-screen models don’t have lead, but they’re lit by mercury light bulbs, said Jon Hinck, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

The NRCM pushed legislation last year for mandatory recycling of cathode ray tubes. By its estimate, Maine is getting stuck with about 100,000 old computers and televisions a year or, in landfill terms, 1.3 million pounds of plastic, 310,000 pounds of lead and 121.3 pounds of mercury.

Lead exposure can cause brain damage and behavioral issues in young children. Mercury attacks the nervous system. It builds up in the environment when released and is to blame for current fish consumption advisories.
Patience and recycling
Other examples: It’s legal – but not encouraged – to toss oil-based paint, paint thinner, rechargeable batteries and other household hazards into the trash in Maine. As a result, cadmium, turpentine and phosphorus are potentially finding their way into lakes, rivers and groundwater.

The chemicals can cause kidney damage, breathing problems or algae blooms in lakes.

“If it goes into a landfill it will filter its way into groundwater,” said Hinck. “It’s a slow environmental catastrophe as opposed to instant.”

Complicating environment-friendly intentions: Right now there aren’t a whole lot of options for proper disposal, even when people recognize the hazards in their trash and want to do something about them.

Not every town in Maine holds an annual household hazardous waste collection day. It isn’t required; there’s no regular statewide funding for it.

Communities “run the gamut from doing nothing to doing everything right,” said Hinck. And that, he says, puts Maine behind the rest of the country.

Carol Fuller organizes household hazardous waste collection days at the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments. They’re typically the last Saturday of September with towns paying the cost of the waste contractor.

She sees a lot of dust on those days. Dusty paint cans. Dusty jars. Items long-stored in basements brought by people who, on the whole, want to do the right thing.

Three years ago 400 people brought items in. Last fall, 300 did.

“There has been a trend in recent years for more towns, or groups of towns, throughout the state to have collections, thus the opportunities to bring stuff in have improved,” she said. “However, I suspect that many people do throw some things away with the trash.”

Gov. John Baldacci signed a bill last month that gives preference to towns and regions competing for state development and construction grants that offer year-round household hazardous waste drop-off sites. That law takes effect this fall.

“We recognize the need for convenience,” said John James, an environmental specialist at the Department of Environmental Protection. “A lot of people don’t want to wait eight months. They’re cleaning out their basements now.”

He recommends checking with your local transfer station to see which items they take. Or, better, avoid the purchase of hazardous material in the first place.

Though the law on fluorescent bulbs is eight months away, Stalford, superintendent of solid waste at the Solid Waste and Recovery Facility in Lewiston, has been recycling them for a while. Slater, the recycling manager in Farmington, also collects the bulbs.

Of course, as Slater already knows, good deeds for the environment and residents’ health come at a cost.

Hinck is lobbying for a bill now in front of the Legislature that would require TV and computer manufacturers to get involved with recycling their own used products so that towns and cities – and residents – don’t have to worry about disposal fees when they start recycling.

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