BANGOR DAILY NEWS • March 1, 2023
Juniper Ridge opened in 1993 solely to collect waste from the nearby mill in Old Town. But over the years, the landfill’s mission has changed. After seven months, the machines inside a state-of-the-art trash processing facility in Hampden came to a halt in 2020. They have yet to restart. Instead, much of the trash from more than 100 Maine communities has been going to the landfill in Alton. What’s more, the multimillion dollar trash plant only met its recycling goals twice in the short time it was operating. “I was counting on the [Maine Department of Environmental Protection] under the LePage administration at that time, to reject [Fiberight’s] permits based on data, sound reasoning and regulations that were already in place,” said Sarah Nichols, a waste policy expert at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. “Ultimately, they ignored all of warning signs for this completely preventable, foreseeable disaster.”