The solid waste industry has been challenged in recent months in Maine and elsewhere by fluctuating markets, the COVID-19 pandemic, and evolving packaging materials. ecomaine CEO Kevin Roche presented, as part of a panel discussion, on the efforts by Maine’s leader in single-sort recycling and waste-to-energy to promote more sustainable policies and strategies to divert waste from Maine’s landfills.
“If we do nothing, the bottom line is that we’ll be pouring more and more money into our landfills,” said ecomaine CEO Kevin Roche. “So the idea that we advocate for is, in order to keep our landfills a reasonable size, we need to take those revenues that are entering our landfills and pour that revenue into the higher rungs of the waste hierarchy.”
Added Executive Director of E2Tech, Marty Grohmann, “We are excited to put together this forum and help address this challenge. The need for this discussion is so great. We have experts from both the waste management and recycling industries, coming together on the need to improve policy to address the environmental impact of waste disposal and make recycling work better during the pandemic.”
E2Tech invited the following panelists for their perspectives on landfill diversion, recycling, trash, organics management, collection, and more – in Maine and beyond:
- Kevin Roche, CEO/GM of ecomaine
- Toni King, Regional Engineer, Casella Waste Systems
- George Aronson, Technical Advisor, Maine Municipal Review Committee
- David Biderman, Executive Director & CEO, Solid Waste Association of North America
See WABI TV’s two-minute report on the session here.
Click below to see a video of the full presentation.
