PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 16, 2024
Casella Waste Services is currently pushing Maine officials to extend its contract to manage the state-owned polluting Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town. The problem is that this contract still has a decade to go, and the company is attempting to push this process ahead prematurely to expand the landfill and commit Maine to many more decades of toxic landfill pollution. It’s time for Maine to adopt zero waste goals at the front-end of the waste stream to reduce, reuse and recycle, and to safely compost organics – in line with the state’s solid waste management hierarchy. Infrastructure and programs must be developed regionally, and control and accountability for operations should be kept local. Casella must be held to the due process of the law now, not granted a VIP pass to its proposed landfill expansion. ~ Jackie Elliott, Don’t Waste ME; Nora Bosworth, Conservation Law Foundation