York Town News
Redemption center gets new owner, new lease on life in York Village
By Jennifer L. Saunders
YORK VILLAGE - A little more than three months after the York Redemption Center closed the doors at its Woodbridge Road location, there's a new spot in town to take your returnables of all shapes and sizes.No longer is the redemption center in the green building at the rear of the Fazio property on Woodbridge Road. Now the center is located right up adjacent to the road, in the former flower shop building on the site.
York resident Peter Flint has opened the redemption center, returning to a tradition he began almost 20 years ago when he started the first redemption center in the York area back in 1989.
Flint's first day of business at the new center was yesterday, Tuesday, Oct. 24, and the center is now open weekly, Tuesday through Saturday, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., to match the hours of the nearby redemption center in Kittery. Those hours also allow distributors to collect the returned bottles and cans from the center each Monday.
"I originally opened it years ago back in 1989 at the Kittery-York line," Flint said of the local redemption center, explaining he then ran a pick-up company for several years, collecting the redeemable cans and bottles from approximately 350 redemption centers statewide. Distributors questioned owning both a collection business and redemption center at that time, however, so Flint closed his redemption business.
Flint lived in town for about 20 years before moving to the Portland area, where he spent several years before moving back to York this past February. After the York Redemption Center closed this summer, local residents began asking him to open it back up.
"Everybody knew me from the redemption before," he explained.
The timing was right, he said, to begin where he left off back in York all those years ago.
"I've been semi-retired for several years. … So many people asked me why didn't I just reopen it," he said of the closing of the York Redemption Center on July 14.
Thinking it over, Flint contacted the Fazio family to lease the space that once housed Foster's Flower Shop on Woodbridge Road as the new home of the center.
Since the closure of the York Redemption Center on Woodbridge Road, the local options have been Hannaford in York and The Thirsty Dawg, which is located on State Road in Kittery.
Clarence "Skip" Brunet, who ran the York Redemption Center for nine years, said in July that he was closing the center because he had been evicted. That claim was countered the Fazio family, who contended they never asked Brunet to move out but that Brunet grew angry when they requested payment for approximately $1,500 in redemptions from the restaurant that had accumulated over a nine-month span.
After Flint closed the first redemption center in York years ago, the business was reopened in the York Village location by Rick Hart and then taken over by the Brunets, Flint explained. Annette Fazio owns the three-building complex, which she purchased from Rick Hart in 2002.
Prior to closing in July, Brunet stated he was processing an average of 30,000 containers a day.
"It will keep me busy, and I know how to do it," Flint said of his decision to give a local redemption center a new lease on life, explaining that the redemption business in Maine is more work than meets the eye.
The center includes three sections to manage all the different containers. For example, he said, bottles and cans must be sorted by type and size at the center for collection by distributor or company.
"There's five different sorts for Gatorade alone," he offered as an example. "There's over a billion bottles sold in Maine each year, and everything in Maine is returnable except milk bottles."
Milk bottles are off the list due to the potential for bacteria growth in such containers, he said.
During his time collecting bottles and cans from redemption centers, Flint said his company picked up over 100 million bottles each year.
Flint said the hours at the new center, for the time being, will be Tuesday through Saturday all year long, though he will consider other hours based on the needs of the residents who utilize the center.
"Everything should be clean and separated by material, glass, aluminum or plastic," he said, adding residents may choose to pre-count the items.
Want to know more? Call the center Tuesday through Saturday at 36-EMPTY (363-6789).
