MAINE PUBLIC • December 11, 2020
On Dec. 2, dock workers at the Mack Point cargo facility in Searsport spilled about 5,000 pounds of plastic waste into Penobscot Bay. It had arrived in a large shipment from Northern Ireland, bound for a waste-to-energy incinerator in Orrington. The spill was kept under wraps until six days later, when plastic started washing up on the beaches of nearby Sears Island. For the companies involved, it’s about cost. It’s far more expensive for Re-Gen to landfill waste in the United Kingdom than to ship it to Maine and pay PERC a fee of roughly $77 a ton to take it.