Wiscasset residents and businesses can now recycle used vegetable oil for no charge, according to Ron Lear, superintendent of the Wiscasset Regional Transfer Station.
Olive, corn, sunflower, peanut, soy, and canola oils can all be accepted in a liquid state, according to an informational flier Lear provided.
For collection purposes, Pine Tree waste has provided a 200 gallon tank at the transfer station since the week of Oct. 29, Lear said.
Lear said there hasn’t been a lot of used vegetable oil dropped off to date. “I’m sure after Thanksgiving, after people deep-fry their turkeys and stuff, we’ll probably get a run on it,” he said.
Before the new collection system was in place, used vegetable oil was simply put into the compactor with all the other household waste, Lear said. Wiscasset has to pay per ton for that waste, he said.
“Instead of paying to get rid of it, we’ll make some revenue here,” Lear said.
Because payments for the oil are based on a commodities market, the price paid “can vary, but at least it’s a revenue, not a cost,” Lear said.
Waste oils such as motor oil or transmission fluid have been accepted at the transfer station for a long time, Lear said. Those are collected in a different container than the used vegetable oil, and are burned in a waste oil furnace to provide heat for the transfer station, he said.
Karen McNaughton, who works in municipal sales for Pine Tree Waste, said payments to towns for the used vegetable oil are based on heating oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). For each gallon the towns collect, they are paid 45 percent of the per-gallon price of heating oil futures published at the end of each month, she said.
Pine Tree Waste, which is part of Casella Resource Solutions, collects the used vegetable oil and transports it Pittsfield, NH, where the American Energy Independence Company (Amenico) refines it into bio-fuel, McNaughton said.
“Our bio-fuels that we’ve collected have replaced 34,000 barrels of imported diesel” since 2009, McNaughton said.
Pine Tree Waste has been offering these collection services to transfer stations and commercial businesses across the state, McNaughton said. “We supply the container, the service, the fliers, the support that they need, and they’re pretty much off and running,” she said.
“It’s a great program. We committed to it given the price of fuel, diesel in particular,” McNaughton said. Casella uses Amenico’s bio-fuels in their Massachusetts vehicles, but they are not Amenico’s only customers, she said.
“It really became a really nice fit with what we believe in, which is recycle whatever you can out the trash,” McNaughton said.
