WARREN — Town Planner Michelle Maher has given notice that she will leave her position next month to take a job with the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation.

Maher, who has been Town Planner since 2002, will become the statewide commercial recycling coordinator, a newly created position at the quasi-public agency that operates the Central Landfill in Johnston. In her new job, she will work with businesses across Rhode Island to increase their rate of recycling.

Maher said in an interview that she’s long been interested in recycling. Her father ran a garbage hauling business on Aquidneck Island for years.

“It’s so sad. I’m fascinated by trash,” she quipped yesterday.

Maher told Town Administrator Michael J. Abbruzzi on Friday that she was stepping down. Her last day in Warren will be Aug. 29 and she will start her new position Sept. 8.

She is the second Warren department head to take a new job in the past month. Kathleen Raposa left her position as finance director in June to take a similar position with the Town of East Greenwich.

Maher was chosen from 11 candidates in 2002 to become Warren’s first town planner. She was running her own planning consulting business at the time after a stint as the town planner in Middletown and work in the Planning Department in Newport.

In Warren, she has helped oversee the continued revitalization of downtown and the waterfront. She also instituted an innovative program in which the town picks up recyclables from businesses. According to Maher, no other community in the state offers a similar service.

Maher joins Rhode Island Resource Recovery at a time of difficulty for the agency. The state is working on a forensic audit of the corporation, looking into suspected mismanagement and corruption.

Her hiring also comes while the state is working hard to boost the rate of commercial recycling across Rhode Island, which stands at only about 4 percent. In January, the state Department of Environmental Management sent letters to 1,200 businesses advising them to start complying with a state law that requires them to recycle.

akuffner@projo.com