The Augusta Dump (Hatch Hill) is Almost Completely Full!

Now don't get your Glad ForceFlex all in a tizzy, there are plenty of solutions to a problem that everyone saw coming. It's not like people are super-surprised that a landfill is in fact, almost full. And, when we say 'almost completely full', we're not saying that it'll be boiling over by the weekend. Due to the pandemic, trash is piling up faster than the original projections had planned for.

In fact, the longtime Augusta landfill 'Hatch Hill', has approximately another five years projected at it's current capacity limit. But after that, what will happen? The city of Augusta is currently looking into what options they have available. According to the Kennebec Journal, one of the options would be to expand the landfill vertically. Yup, make it taller. Maybe they would have to change the name from Hatch Hill to Hatch Mountain?

Another option is to close down the landfill and open a transfer station. Many towns in Maine are familiar with how transfer stations work because that's what most of us have. If you're not privy to the info, a transfer station is where you take your garbage, they load it onto a big container truck, then ship it off towns away to make it someone else's problem.

Ward 4 City Councilor was quoted at last week's council meeting saying,

“I think our landfill is filling up quickly. I know the pandemic has increased the amount of waste. I’m concerned we’re going to end up, before we know it, without a landfill. You talk about a transfer station, that’s additional cost. It’s an enterprise. Any change is going to impact us in a big way.”