Brentwood subcommittee reviews regional transfer-station site visits and seeks help from New Hampshire Recycles

A Brentwood recycling subcommittee on June 14 reviewed recent site visits to Newton, Lee, Epping and Exeter and agreed to pursue a follow-up on-site assessment with New Hampshire Recycles to help shape options for curbside services, transfer-station operations and organics handling.

Committee members summarized the visits, noting differences in facility scale and services: Newton’s decentralized facility handles many separated materials with a roughly six-person staff; Lee operates from a roughly 15,000-square-foot building that bales and compacts material; Epping relies on outside compactors and a commercial processing partner (Epping Resource Recovery Company) for construction and demolition material; and Exeter runs a hybrid curbside-plus-transfer operation that the committee reported has an annual solid-waste budget of about $1,770,000, with roughly $1.3–$1.4 million associated with curbside/disposal contracts.

The committee asked New Hampshire Recycles to outline what technical assistance and market services it provides. Brian, member services director at New Hampshire Recycles, described the nonprofit as a membership-based cooperative that offers technical assistance, operator education, material brokering and monthly and annual tonnage and revenue reporting. “We do a lot of technical assistance. We do a lot of education, and we also help move material for our members,” Brian said.

Brian cautioned that commodity markets vary by material: cardboard and aluminum are returning better prices, while some plastics are currently low-value. He described how the group can help broker sales, identify hauling options, and, in some cases, secure priority pricing for members. “For example, our members are getting about $8 more a ton for scrap metal through our arrangements,” he said.

Committee members raised permitting and operational questions for on-site organics programs, including whether food-waste pilots need additional state approvals, what monitoring is required, and how to manage vector-control plans. A committee member said the group would follow up with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) to clarify thresholds and operating-plan amendments required for on-site composting and food-waste handling.

The committee also discussed equipment and staffing trade-offs: enclosed buildings with balers and compactors can reduce transport costs but require capital, maintenance and electrical capacity; volunteer-run swap sheds can provide community benefit but increase oversight needs; and grant funding has enabled some towns to acquire specialized equipment (one member cited a grant used for Styrofoam densification in Exeter).

As next steps, committee members agreed to compile budgets, trash invoices and vendor lists from the visited towns and to circulate potential dates to host a New Hampshire Recycles site assessment in August or September. Brian said the nonprofit typically pairs multiple town visits on the same day to make in-person assistance efficient. The subcommittee set a tentative follow-up meeting for the week of July 20 to review the compiled data and any DES feedback.

The subcommittee’s findings and the NH Recycles assessment will inform a recommendations memo the committee plans to send to the budget committee and select board. No formal policy decision or vote on town services was recorded at the meeting.