Coastal Resources of Maine seeks to borrow $10M after reporting low revenues

A group representing 115 Maine communities that send waste to Hampden-based Coastal Resources of Maine has made a loan of $1.5 million to the new facility to help it make improvements after its first six months of regular operations brought in lower-than-expected revenues, reports the Bangor Daily News.

Since starting commercial operations near the end of last year, the Coastal Resources of Maine plant has struggled to bring in revenue in part because it still doesn’t have the state permits that are necessary to resell two different products — plastic fuel briquettes and cellulose pulp — that it makes from the waste it receives.

The facility hopes to receive those permits soon, according to the article, but the delay has forced it to pay fees to landfill those products rather than receive income from selling them, according to Director of Community Services Shelby Wright. In addition, the company has struggled to sell some baled recycled goods following China’s waste import ban in 2018.

The company is now seeking to borrow more than $10 million to help pay for a series of upgrades it has identified as necessary, Wright tells the paper. In addition to making improvements to its machinery to better handle the waste it receives, the plant needs to stock more belts, motors and other supplies needed for maintenance and hire more workers. It now employs 52 people and a few temporary workers.

“We’ve been operational since November and gotten a taste of how everything is,” Wright says in the article. “We’ve discovered things that need tweaking and that we need to redesign. We’re starting to get our heads around a solid maintenance schedule. It’s just to fine-tune the intricacies of what is a very complicated line to produce.”

Coastal Resources of Maine will also use those borrowed funds to pay back the $1.5 million loan it has received from the Municipal Review Committee, the organization that represents the waste disposal interests of the 115 Maine communities stretching from the midcoast to Aroostook County.

In February, the committee’s board agreed to grant the “short-term loan” out of an existing account meant to address contingencies in the Hampden plant’s operations, according to Executive Director Michael Carroll. The funds are expected to be repaid by mid-June., the Bangor Daily News reports.