EMR Transfer Station

Trash disposal at EMR is fee-based. Fees are assessed by load at the gate. Because everything Southwest Harbor sends to EMR now moves as one stream to the Municipal Waste Solutions hub in Hampden, recycling is not billed separately — the town pays a per-ton rate on the combined load.

How the per-ton cost is built (August 2023 reference)

Component	Rate
EMR base rate to SWH	$102.98 / ton
Fixed monthly facility fee	$4,167.11 / month
Hampden destination fee	$72.46 / ton
Bypass destination fee	$5.44 / ton
Fuel surcharge	Variable by market
Municipal Waste Solutions tipping fee (paid by SWH)	$82.69 / ton
SWH effective all-in rate	~ $185.67 / ton

Figures above are from verified SWH and Acadia National Park invoices reviewed by the Solid Waste Reduction Task Force in April 2024. Individual line items and the total have escalated with CPI each January since then.

What residents pay at the gate

• Household trash and recyclables (one-bin-all-in): fee-based by load at the gate. Contact EMR for the current gate rate.
• Bulky items (furniture, carpet, mattresses, appliances): additional fees per item. Ask before you unload.
• Construction and demolition debris, yard waste, brush, stumps: charged separately by weight or volume. Some neighboring ADD towns extend a 2,000 lb / year construction-debris allowance to residents; SWH residents should confirm current terms with the Town Office.
• Tires and freon-containing appliances: separate per-item fees.
• Universal Waste and HHW: no charge to residents on posted collection days (see calendar below). The towns pay for this service.
• Contaminated recycling loads: because material now moves as one stream, contamination fees are assessed at the hub, not the gate. Keep lithium batteries, propane cylinders, and hazardous liquids out of your household bag — they cause fires and shut-downs.

For current per-item and per-ton fee amounts, call EMR at (207) 244-4347. Fees change annually.

What actually happens to your bag

1. You put household trash and recyclables in the same bag or barrel.
2. EMR in Southwest Harbor receives it as municipal solid waste. Everything in that stream leaves town together.
3. MWS in Hampden — the regional processing hub, fully operational as of 2026 — runs the material through:
   • Front-end mechanical sorting and optical scanners that pull out paper, cardboard, metals, and plastics #1 and #2
   • Anaerobic digestion that turns food waste and other organics into renewable natural gas
   • Residual disposal for what cannot be recovered
4. Recyclable commodities are sold into recycling markets. Renewable natural gas feeds the energy grid. The remainder is landfilled. MWS is designed to divert roughly 50% of incoming waste from landfill, with a longer-term goal of 70–80%.

What still needs to be kept separate

Even under “one bin all in,” a short list of items must not go in your regular trash-and-recycling bag. Bring these to EMR separately:

• Universal Waste (fluorescent bulbs, mercury devices) — 2nd Saturday of each month, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
• Household Hazardous Waste — annual HHW/UW collection day
• Lithium-ion batteries — including vape pens, power tools, e-bike batteries (fire risk)
• Regular batteries — AA, AAA, C, D, 9V (handled as Universal Waste)
• Scrap metal — separate metals bin at EMR
• Construction and demolition debris — separate area; fees may apply above the resident allowance
• Yard waste, brush, and stumps — separate area at EMR
• Tires and freon-containing appliances — separate handling at EMR
• Dead animals — not accepted in the MSW stream

What changed and why

For years, EMR posted single-sort recycling rules at the gate, and residents were told to separate paper, plastics, and cans. In practice, only plastics #1 and #2 — and, in some periods, cardboard when a town-wide program was in place — were reliably sent to recyclers. Other materials placed in the recycling bins were “accepted but diverted” into the trash stream. This was documented by the Southwest Harbor Solid Waste Reduction Task Force in 2024.

With MWS in Hampden now fully operational, the region has, for the first time since 2020, a real single-stream processing facility large enough to serve MDI towns. Sorting is done there — accurately, at scale, and with equipment residents can’t replicate at a transfer-station bin. Continuing to ask residents to pre-sort at EMR would give a false impression that pre-sorting drives what gets recycled. It doesn’t. The hub does.

What this means for you

• Combine trash and recyclables in one bag or barrel. Rinsing and flattening are still appreciated but no longer required.
• Pull out the items on the “keep separate” list above — those genuinely do not belong in the MSW stream.
• Reduce and reuse first. Even a well-designed hub recovers only a portion of the incoming stream. The most effective step is not generating the waste in the first place.
• Questions? Call EMR at (207) 244-4347 or the Town Office, and watch for updates from the Sustainability Committee.

Sources

• Innovative Resource Recovery, Hampden facility operational roadmap
• Municipal WasteHub, press release, April 2, 2025
• Town of Trenton, ME, solid waste management page
• Acadia Disposal District, 2024 report to towns
• Southwest Harbor Solid Waste Reduction Task Force, April 1, 2024 meeting packet and April 29, 2024 fee-breakdown packet
• Bar Harbor Story, SWH Transfer Station DEP inspection findings, May 27, 2026
• Bangor Daily News, Hampden waste center opens, April 22, 2026