Fiberight recycling plant set to go online in April

Construction on the new recycling facility from earlier this year. (photo from fiberight.com)

by Eric W. Austin

For those towns waiting for the new Fiberight recycling facility in Hampden to come online, the end is nearly in sight. At an October 24 meeting with the Municipal Review Committee (MRC) Board of Directors, Fiberight CEO Craig Stuart-Paul presented a new construction schedule for the Material Recovery Facility that sees it opening in early April, nearly a year later than the original estimates.

“We’ve now issued a revised construction schedule that shows completion of construction by March 31,” said Stuart-Paul to the MRC Board in Brewer. “We’ve provided an on-boarding plan to the MRC which shows some amount of waste on a start-stop basis coming in by the end of January, probably single stream,” he explained. “Because our ramp-up plan is parallel to the construction, we’ll start our commissioning plan as certain parts of the site are handed over to us. Our hope, then, is in April to be able to accept waste on a continuous, ongoing basis.”

The $69 million project, first conceived of in July 2016, has faced numerous delays, most notably after last year’s windstorm which set construction back for months.

Irene Belanger, China selectman and member of the MRC Board of Directors, when asked about the likelihood that the new April date would be met, said, “I am very confident in the Fiberight/Coastal plant. The company has its financing all set and approved. There is a new construction company working 24 hours a day to catchup after several delays.”

Although the plant should be operating at full capacity by April 2019, Belanger added, “As with any big project like this, the startup could have some glitches that would need fine-tuning, so the first towns to send their items will be towns nearest the facility.”