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When Nick Tedford walked his dog around downtown Bangor last summer, he had to keep his eyes glued to the ground to avoid the dozen used syringes he’d see littered around the city each day.
But this summer, the head chef at Nocturnem Draft Haus only sees three or four needles during his walks, typically in out-of-the-way locations, like behind the Pickering Square Parking Garage.
Tedford’s observation comes months after the Bangor Health Equity Alliance appointed someone to pick up and dispose of used syringes around the city, using nearly $29,000 in municipal funding to support the position.
Since October, this person has been responding to calls and text messages from residents who describe locations of used syringes, and also checking “hot spots” around the city where syringes are frequently found, said Josh D’Alessio, executive director of the Bangor Health Equity Alliance.
The job was created in response to repeated complaints about contaminated needles in public spaces throughout Bangor. And at least anecdotally, it appears to be working. The Bangor Daily News spoke to several city residents and downtown employees who reported seeing fewer needles on the ground, despite many not knowing the position even exists.
Siblings Kenny and Jaden Wilson of Bangor noticed a drop in the number of needles they saw in their walks to The Lazy Hound, where they both work. The pair usually spotted them along Court Street and behind the Pickering Square restaurant, but hardly notice them now, they said.
Lily Finch said she has also seen fewer syringes in areas where she previously did, such as around a bus stop near the United Technologies Center.
However, there’s no data available to verify the number of needles that are being picked up off the ground throughout the city.
The Health Equity Alliance collects used syringes from other places, like sharps boxes in the Bangor Public Library, and those needles shouldn’t be counted under the organization’s pick-up program, said Jen Gunderman, director of Bangor’s public health department.
Other times, the organization places a sharps drop-box in an area with a lot of syringe litter, D’Alessio said. This means needles left in the box transition from being counted as syringes left on the ground to those left in a safe disposal box.
In the coming weeks, Gunderman said she will work with the Health Equity Alliance to improve its data so syringes are separated in appropriate categories based on where they’re collected.
“We don’t have any concerns. We just want to be able to articulate the data clearly and consistently,” Gunderman said. “We see no barriers to that happening.”
The amount of reported syringe waste in Bangor has baffled officials. Gordon Smith, Maine’s governor-appointed director of opioid response, even told city officials last year that the data the state collects don’t match local observations.
In 2022, the Bangor Health Equity Alliance distributed 836,324 sterile syringes to more than 1,400 people but collected 916,010, according to the state’s drug data hub. Knowing this, Smith said it’s unclear why the city is seeing so much needle waste.
The Bangor Health Equity Alliance is one of a few sterile syringe providers in the region that distribute clean syringes to people who inject drugs and collect used needles. Providing clean equipment protects those who use drugs from contracting bloodborne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C, through used or shared contaminated syringes.
When the Health Equity Alliance launched the position in October 2023, an existing member of the nonprofit’s harm reduction team, June Evergreen, filled the role on a part-time basis. The position got off to a slow start, as few people knew the resource existed. Once winter came and snow covered the ground, reports of needles ground to a halt, D’Alessio said.
About two or three months ago, however, the organization noticed an uptick in the needle waste being reported around the city. A new staff member was hired in the spring to take over the syringe pick-up program, but they quit during the training process, D’Alessio said.
Roughly one-third of the calls about syringes come from Bangor police or the department’s Bangor Community Action Team that responds to calls for assistance that don’t require a police presence, Evergreen said. The rest come from residents or business owners who either found a syringe that needs to be disposed of or need their sharps container emptied.
Some syringe calls “jump the line” to get picked up before others, D’Alessio said. A needle found in a public park or playground area, for example, would take priority over one found in a more remote area.
Sometimes, people call because they found an orange cap to a syringe, which isn’t inherently dangerous, Evergreen said.
If residents see a syringe that needs to be picked up and disposed of safely, they can call or text 207-888-1998 or email [email protected] with details about where exactly the needle is.
