Bucksport weighing shift to curbside trash pick up
‘This would be a considerable change for the community,’ says town manager.
March 17, 2026
By Emily Baer
Bucksport’s transfer station. Photo courtesy of the Town of Bucksport.
BUCKSPORT—Bucksport officials are weighing a potential shift to curbside trash pickup after receiving two bids from local businesses for the service.
During a town council meeting on March 12, town manager Jacob Gran said that residents raised the possibility of introducing curbside pick-up during last year’s tax season.
The first bid, from Vermont-based Casella, totals roughly $212,000 and includes the purchase of large “trash carts.” The second bid, submitted by Penobscot’s Bowden & Son Disposal, LLC, came in at approximately $249,000. Both totals are for the first year only.
Officials will review the proposals in an upcoming services committee meeting.
“This would be a considerable change for the community,” Gran said. “While there is a strong segment that would like curbside pick-up…there is also a strong segment that very much appreciates having the transfer station.”
In addition to reviewing the financial implications of a transition to curbside trash pick-up, the committee will tackle important logistical questions like how to manage bulky waste, serve multi-family and commercial properties, and manage the differences between neighborhoods.
“There are a lot of pieces that go into curbside trash pickup,” said Gran. “It's not as simple as shutting the lights off on the transfer station and just converting over.”
Gran also shared that the town has received a progress update on the Municipal Waste Hub’s Hampden recycling facility. The facility’s full recycling operations were slated to begin in 2025 but progress has been slow.
“It’s not as simple as shutting the lights off on the transfer station and just converting over.”
The facility uses a zero sort method–meaning that trash and recyclables arrive unsorted–to maximize efficiency and minimize consumer effort. MWH says sorting on-site increases the level of solid waste diverted from landfills from “10-30 percent to over 50 percent.”
Still, it leaves officials grappling with the question of what to do with the current transfer station.
One option would be to contract out the town’s municipal waste services, Gran said. Another would be to adopt a hybrid model where the bulk of the services are handled by an outside company and the transfer station would open only on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Either way, discussions about the future of waste management in Bucksport will include a “significant amount of citizen input,” Gran said.
“There's no blanket solution to this,” he said, adding that each community is faced with their own unique set of circumstances. “There are a lot of questions to work through.”
