The owner of Giles Rubbish in Boothbay is questioning a fine he said the business has gotten from Wiscasset over a recycling issue. He plans to ask Wiscasset selectmen on Oct. 7 if it’s possible to get the fine removed and, if not, should he be expecting more fines in connection with the same issue.

Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting at the municipal building starts with a closed-door session on litigation involving Ferry Road Development; the rest of the meeting, including Dan Giles’ discussion with the board, is set for 7 p.m.

Giles said the business has hauled mostly commercial trash in Wiscasset since the 1990s. He said he does all he can to keep recyclables out of his customers’ trash, but that there’s a limit to what he can do. He can’t see through the black trash bags to what’s inside, he said.

“I’m not Superman. I don’t have X-ray vision,” Giles said in a telephone interview Oct. 3. The Wiscasset Newspaper called the longtime family-owned business after the selectmen’s agenda came out Friday afternoon.

The $100 fine stems from a load of trash and recyclables one of his drivers brought to the Wiscasset station on Sept. 23, Giles said.

When the bags tear open under pressure, their contents are exposed; apparently, recyclables the station’s staff found in the trash led to the fine, he said.

Giles said he got a warning letter from the town at the end of July. The business has continued to bring recyclables with the trash, and to try to get its customers to recycle, he said. Once a week,the business brings a load with only recyclables to the station he said.

The station’s superintendent, Ron Lear, said  Giles Rubbish got the fine because the Sept. 23 load had an abundance of  trash from which recyclables had not been removed. It had many fewer recyclables separated out than a typical load from Giles, the only commercial hauler that takes trash to the station, Lear said.

“The town ordinance says everybody has to recycle. All I’m trying to enforce is what the ordinance says,” Lear continued. Recycling helps keep the station’s costs down for taxpayers, he said.

Giles Rubbish also hauls trash for customers in the station’s other user towns of Alna and Westport Island; and hauls for customers in Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Edgecomb and Southport. Between a hauler’s license and fees for certain types of waste, Giles estimated his business pays Wiscasset a few thousand dollars a year.

Giles said he isn’t trying to cause trouble, and he supports the town’s recycling efforts, as he always has. But if he’s going to be racking up fines, he would have to charge customers more, and then he could lose customers, he said.

Also Tuesday, Wiscasset selectmen are scheduled to take up Redskin’s Drive residents’ offer for the board to change the private road’s name to Micmac Drive; and the board will discuss a possible policy on bottle redemption. The look into a policy began after Selectman Bill Barnes raised questions about nonprofits’ bottle collection bins at the transfer station.