Because of changes in global markets, the cost of recycling in Harpswell has more than tripled in the last decade. It is now more expensive by volume to dispose of recyclables than trash — and it isn’t clear how much of those recyclables are recycled or how much ends up in landfills. But town officials intend to stay the course because residents value recycling. And those residents recycle more and with less contamination than national averages.

Recycling has been a constant in Harpswell since 1979, when municipal recycling was just starting to appear in the U.S. The town’s program continued largely unchanged until 2013, when it introduced a “single-stream” or no-sort program.

Rather than have residents sort paper, glass, plastic and other materials into separate bins, all recyclable materials now go into the same dumpster at the A. Dennis Moore Recycling Center and Transfer Station. Those recyclables are trucked away and sorted by a contractor, the Vermont-based waste management company Casella, which handles the town’s trash as well.

The larger recycling picture has changed more dramatically over the last five decades. Plastic use has soared, with global production of recyclable and nonrecyclable plastics growing by at least six times since Harpswell started recycling, according to a 2015 study. Cardboard manufacturing also has ramped up with the explosion of online shopping, according to the Fibre Box Association, a trade group.

Harpswell’s recycling center handled about 480 tons of recyclables in 2015, then nearly 600 tons in 2020, according to annual town reports. The volume has fallen since that peak, settling close to 500 tons in 2023 and 2024.

The market for plastic waste — that is, who buys plastic that could be made into new products — has been in turmoil in the last decade. China had been the largest buyer of U.S. recyclables, according to the website Brittanica, but it banned imports of plastic waste in 2017, largely because of how much trash was mixed in with recyclables. This contamination makes processing recyclables difficult or unfeasible. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that other countries have since emerged as markets for American waste.

Those changes have put new strains on Harpswell’s recycling center. Harpswell paid Casella nothing to process its recycling in 2015 — only a fee to truck it away. The arrangement reflected the strong market for recyclable waste, which Casella could sell to manufacturers that turned it into new materials.

A decade later, the town’s 2025 budget estimated Harpswell would pay $175 per ton to dispose of recyclables. The separate cost of trucking has more than doubled in the same span, from $148 in 2015 to $310 in 2025.

The town’s budget estimates are based on a formula Casella uses to set the cost of removal each month. The formula accounts for market prices, contamination rates and trucking costs.

Harpswell will spend just under $125,000 to dispose of recyclable materials in 2025, which is about one-fifth of the recycling center’s total budget. The recycling center and transfer station together generate income from fees, accounting for about half of their annual budget.

At this point, it would be cheaper for Harpswell to send all of its waste — trash and recycling — to the landfill. The town’s 2025 budget estimates Casella will charge $40 less per ton of trash, which is formally called municipal solid waste. Casella uses a similar formula to set its rate for removing trash.

But the manager of the recycling center and transfer station, Chuck Perow, doesn’t think the town should do that. For one thing, he said, the community is used to recycling and values it. For another, if the town later decided to go back to recycling, people would have to be retrained about what goes in which bin.

For the record, Harpswellians do a pretty good job at that. Perow said the town’s recycling typically contains about 5%–7% trash, compared to the 17% nationwide average reported by an industry group, The Recycling Partnership. And about 36% of Harpswell’s waste in 2024 was sold for recycling, which is above the national average of about 30% reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

What happens to Harpswell’s recyclable waste after it is trucked away remains somewhat mysterious, depending on whom is asked.

“I can’t tell you that our recycling isn’t being landfilled,” Perow said.

But Casella spokesperson Jeff Weld said Harpswell’s recyclables are sent to Bath and then to Lewiston, where the company processes them. About 12%–15% of all the recyclables the Lewiston facility receives have some contamination, and some of those may end up in a landfill.

Perow said he has seen internal Casella videos showing that its materials recovery facility, where recyclables are sorted and cleaned, is operating.

Harpswell Recycling Committee Chairperson Philip Conner said he, through Perow, requested a tour of the facility for committee members about a year ago, but it hasn’t been arranged.

Perow said a tour would be arranged by Casella’s account manager for the town, but the company hasn’t been able to fill that position.

However, Weld said Casella would be “more than happy” to host a tour and encouraged the town to contact him directly. He said Casella has an account manager covering Harpswell.

Conner expressed frustration that even though Casella charges more to haul recyclables than trash, the town doesn’t really know what it’s getting for its money. But he said Harpswell has few options, because the other waste management company in the area, ecomaine, would likely cost more based on what it charges Brunswick. An exact comparison is difficult to make because Brunswick has curbside recycling collection.

Perow and Conner agreed that what Casella does with Harpswell’s recycling comes down to market forces out of the company’s control. Many plastics cannot be recycled economically, either because the processes that break down the materials are too expensive or energy-intensive, or because the resulting material has little value. For example, most plastics become weaker each time they are broken down and made into raw material for new products.

John Fay, a product manager at the New England Waste Management Officials Association, which is made up of state environmental agencies, said it’s true that companies like Casella can only sell recyclables when they can find a buyer. But he said New England has fairly strong markets for its recyclable waste, selling about 85%–90% regionally.

One additional expense in Maine and other states is shipping. Buyers are in the mid-Atlantic and Canada, so recyclers have to pay to truck materials away.

The single-stream recycling method Harpswell uses adds its own problems. Glass, for instance, is one of the few products that can be cleaned, crushed, melted and remade into new containers.

But glass is more difficult to reuse when, as in Harpswell, it isn’t sorted by color. Casella’s Weld said the company’s Lewiston facility processes mixed glass and sends it to Connecticut, because there are no buyers in Maine.

“Ideally, there would be a more local option to take the glass to help lower the overall cost of recycling for everyone,” Weld said.

Harpswell could divert more of its waste for true recycling if residents did more of the cleaning and sorting — the jobs the town now pays Casella for — themselves. But that would require funds to renovate the facility and hire more staff to educate people and oversee the process.

Conner would like to see more people using the recycling center’s compost bins. These divert waste from the trash dumpster and save money: the town budgeted $4,800 for compost removal in 2025, compared to $157,900 for trash removal.

Maine recently started tackling the problem of mixed recycling in a different way, by trying to simplify product packaging before it reaches households.

Maine is one of seven states that have passed “extended producer responsibility” laws intended to shift the cost of recycling packaging onto the producers of the packaging.

The Stewardship Program for Packaging, which will take full effect in 2027, will charge producers fees based on the materials they use. Packaging that costs less to recycle will incur lower fees.

Towns that collect recycling and make reports to the state will be eligible for reimbursements from the fees collected.

“There is going to be some help coming,” said Brian Beneski, who runs the new program for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

In the meantime, Perow and Conner said they’ll continue to encourage and facilitate recycling, even as the program’s costs and the fate of recyclable waste remain beyond the town’s control.

Sam Lemonick is a freelance reporter. He lives in Cundy’s Harbor.