Fiberight Waste Facility Opens Doors after Delays, Serving Central Maine Region

by Meg Robbins (Morning Sentinel) After more than a year of delays, the Hampden-based trash-to-fuel plant is processing trash from 115 Maine communities, and hopes to see that number climb. -- The long anticipated trash-to-fuel facility in Hampden met its contract with more than 100 municipalities at the beginning of November and will now begin to offer disposal services to other communities and commercial waste haulers, officials said.

While the plant, owned by Fiberight LLC, has started to make biogas, the product is not yet at a marketable quality, according to spokesperson Shelby Wright. Getting to that point will be a “lengthy and long” process, said Wright, noting that multiple agencies are involved with testing and permitting biofuel to make sure it is safe to transfer via pipeline.

“But we are making more than we anticipated, at a faster rate, which is a positive,” Wright said.

The plant, called Coastal Resources of Maine, cleared tests that ensured it could process 400 tons of municipal solid waste a day and divert more than 50% of trash from the waste stream on Nov. 1.

While Wright said Fiberight is pleased with those results, it is looking to improve. The Municipal Review Committee, a coalition of 83 municipalities that sponsored the development of the Fiberight plant and which owns the land on which it rests and partnered with the company to send all of its trash there, stated on its website that its goal is for the facility to divert up to 80% of waste.

Now, all 115 of the towns and cities that make up the Municipal Review Committee are sending their residents’ trash to Hampden, where plastics, cardboard, aluminum and glass are picked out of loads and resold and other material is made into paper pulp, plastic fuel briquettes or biogas. READ MORE