Brad Marion, a member of the town’s Conservation Commission, urged the Select Board to expand recycling and reduce the amount of plastic and paper that now goes into the municipal waste stream. “TJ Eldridge has done a great job managing the transfer station,” Marion said, and offered a spreadsheet analysis suggesting the town could recover revenue by better sorting and baling certain plastics and by modestly raising scale fees for construction waste.

The recommendation drew a detailed response from transfer-station staff. Unidentified Speaker 5, who described day-to-day operations at the facility, said aluminum is the only material that reliably generates revenue. “The aluminum is where the money is,” he said, and cautioned that mixed paper and plastics quickly become contaminated and require substantial dry, covered storage before they can be sold.

The board’s discussion covered several practical hurdles: finding regional buyers for specific plastic types, the labor and capital cost of additional bailers and containers, and the site constraints that complicate building a covered structure. Speakers noted a state program requires haulers to report where recyclables end up, but town officials said chain-of-custody documentation is limited compared with past practices.

Board members asked staff to compile cost estimates and options, including revisiting a seasonal discounted transfer-station pass, a one-sided covered shed design to keep containers dry and reduce contamination, and whether raising construction-debris scale fees would shift costs to users. The board did not adopt any new fees or capital projects at the meeting but directed staff to return with more detailed cost and storage options.

The board also discussed hazardous-waste collection. Residents and staff reviewed prior events that cost the town roughly $5,000–$5,700 to host and said regional cost-sharing or a rotating schedule among neighboring towns would be required to restore a local hazardous-waste day. The Lakes Region Planning Commission and county programs were identified as coordination points; no immediate decision was made.

Next steps: the board asked town staff to prepare a short, itemized estimate of capital and operating costs for expanded recycling sorting and for covered storage options so the board could evaluate whether the transfer station can increase diversion without increasing contamination or net cost to taxpayers.