A waste incinerator in Orrington began accepting trash again Monday after a July 21 fire damaged wires, forcing it to divert trash to an Old Town landfill over the past two-plus weeks.
The fire that caused the damage at Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. was likely caused by a lithium battery that should have been recycled rather than thrown away with other household trash, Plant Manager Henry Lang said.
The fire was just one of many hazards the waste plant encounters on a daily basis from people throwing away things that should be recycled, which can damage the plant and endanger its roughly 60 employees.
“In the business of turning waste into fuel, it’s not uncommon to have fires from time to time,” Lang said. “We don’t have much control over the materials people throw away, and people tend to throw away everything.”
PERC takes in about three-quarters of the waste from towns across central, eastern and northern Maine that would have otherwise gone to the shuttered Coastal Resources of Maine waste plant across the river in Hampden. The plant also takes in waste from 35 to 40 other communities that contract directly with PERC. Combined, the plant accepts 500 to 600 tons of solid waste every day, according to Lang.
The most common offenses range from lithium batteries, which spark when they’re crushed in the plant’s grinders and start fires, to containers of gas, motor oil and other liquids that are flammable or produce toxic fumes, Lang said.
“In the last 10 years, battery-related fires and flares have happened on a daily basis,” he said. “Most of the time, it’s small – it spurts up then is done – but other times, it lands in the wrong area, and it’s more damaging. The gasses from the batteries when they flare are both flammable and toxic, so we don’t like that to be around our employees.”
The July 21 fire damaged wires responsible for operating the plant’s ash and fuel conveyor systems as well as the plant’s cameras, which are used to watch for fires and clogs. The plant could, however, continue processing the waste that had already been brought to the plant.
On July 30, before it had started accepting new waste, the plant saw another fire that ignited when the processing equipment crushed another lithium battery, but Lang said that was extinguished without issue and didn’t cause significant damage.
While fires are a frequent occurrence at the plant, the mishaps that cause significant damage are few and far between, Lang said. During his nearly 35-year tenure at the plant, Lang could remember fewer than 10 incidents that caused the plant to close while repairs were made.
A fire in a trash pile caused the plant to close for about a week last November. The fire started after waste ignited when it was exposed to oxygen as workers dug into the pile.
When the plant does close temporarily, Lang said the waste it takes in and extracts energy from is instead sent to a landfill – the less environmentally and economically friendly option.
Pressurized containers like propane tanks, fire extinguishers and oxygen tanks are also dangerous, Lang said, because they can explode when sent through the plant’s processing equipment.
In January 2020, during the brief time it was up and running, the waste processing plant in Hampden temporarily closed after a propane tank exploded and injured a worker.
The PERC plant also occasionally receives fireworks and flares that, when crushed the right way, can self-ignite, Lang said.
In addition, people throw away hypodermic needles, which pose a risk to employees when they have to sort through the waste or remedy a clog. When an employee gets stuck with a needle from the waste pile, Lang said, the worker needs to be checked by a doctor and monitored because there’s no way to know where the needle came from or what it contained.
Many of these materials are thrown away with regular municipal garbage because people don’t know they can and should be recycled or disposed of separately, Lang said.
In the Bangor area, single-use and rechargeable batteries can be brought to Staples, Lowes and The Home Depot, according to Call2Recycle, a nationwide battery recycling and stewardship program.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection also has guidelines for where and how to dispose of items like propane tanks, oil and gasoline and medical sharps.
