Ecomaine would like to take a moment, in light of the recent article “Portland investigates truck workers caught on video mixing trash and recyclables” (May 19), to re-emphasize Portland’s solid recycling track record and urge residents in all of our member communities, including Portland, to continue doing the right thing in separating your recyclables into your recycling bin from your trash.

Portland is one of 20 owner communities of the nonprofit ecomaine. That means we process the recyclables that the city collects and drops off at our single-sort recycling facility on Blueberry Road in Portland, situated in its own building with its own sorting and baling technology, separate from our waste-to-energy facility, which handles non-recyclable trash.

Here at ecomaine, we can assure that your recyclables are getting to markets that will convert them into new products.

We also follow strict reporting processes for our 55 member communities, collecting lots of data every day on recycling rates as a percentage of overall waste tonnage for each municipal member. We publish these rates every six weeks online, with the latest at tinyurl.com/z5bcbkm on Page 9.

In the case of last Thursday’s story, Portland’s recycling numbers speak for themselves. Our scale house has logged an above-average recycling rate of 38 percent from Portland. This level of performance can only be achieved only through the proper segregation of recyclables from trash.

As our fiscal year 2017 budget presentation illustrates (tinyurl.com/jq32mde, pages 11-13), recycling tonnage and revenues have grown steadily in line with the market for recyclable commodities at ecomaine because of our members’ commitment to recycling right.

We invite you to come in for a tour to learn more about where your recyclables go. Just email info@ecomaine.org or call 773-1738.

Kevin Roche

CEO and general manager, ecomaine

Portland