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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSWAC Final Minutes 3.27.2014JEFFERSON COUNTY SOLID WASTE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES – Thursday, March 27, 2014 Jefferson County Public Works Building, Conference Room 1. OPENING BUSINESS: Meeting called to order by John Merchant at 3:00 PM Members Present: John Merchant – City of Port Townsend Kent Kovalenko – DM Disposal; Murrey’s Disposal Jenifer Taylor – Citizen-At-Large Val Johnstone – District #1 Lisa Crosby – District #1 Matt Hall – Skookum Al Cairns – Port of Port Townsend Julie Robertson – Department of Ecology Paul Roglund – District #2 Members Absent: John Austin – County Commissioner Staff: Pinky Feria-Mingo – Public Health Richard Talbot – Public Works Solid Waste Manager Jerry Mingo – Public Works MRW/Solid Waste Coordinator Tina Anderson – Public Works Support Staff Guests: Helen Freilich, Waste Reduction Specialist, City of Port Angeles Tom McCabe, Solid Waste Superintendent, City of Port Angeles Donna Logan, Citizen There is a quorum. Approval of Minutes: Kent Kovalenko moved and Jenifer Taylor seconded to accept as presented. Motion carried. Correspondence: None Guest Speakers: Helen Freilich with Tom McCabe: City of Port Angeles manages 90% of the waste of the county. She works for the City but does programs throughout the county. In 2013 added rigid plastics to their recycle program. The City of Port Angeles has co-mingled recycling excluding glass, which is taken by the consumer to a recycle drop. In 2010 a group worked together with DOE to produce “Beyond The Curb” which is a research document covering the Southwest part of the state. Jefferson and Clallam Counties are part of the Southwest. The research goes thru each recyclable. When she became involved in 2012 the group was developing strategies or guidelines for recycling. Best Management Practices were developed for collecting recyclables. They also developed outreach tools to help tell the public what is collected and why. Working with Waste Connections a market for rigid plastic was found to be available and in 2013 the City of Port Angeles began collecting at curbside and drop boxes. Rigid plastic will not be collected in the county until the Comprehensive Plan is approved. All of the educational materials being produced are showing “YES” items that can be recycled. There is limited use of “NO” in the educational materials. A magnet was produced with the “Yes” items for recycling. The program was rolled out in January of 2013 so a flyer was inserted in the utility bills with a collection calendar on the back. They buy advertising in the phone book. There is a Home Show in Port Angeles in February where they have a booth to hand out information. There are pictures on the drop boxes instead of words. Tonnages from 2012 to 2013 have pretty much stayed the same. No projections were made for recycling. Discussion: items being manufactured lighter than previous years. So tonnage may go down, but not volume. With the rigid plastics they are sorted more by shape than number on the bottom. Sorting is done at SP Recycling in Tacoma. What are the producers of the containers doing? There are industry groups working with them on designing for recycling. Size and shape of the items are important as small items i.e.: lids, tops and pill bottles, fall thru the sorting equipment and end up in garbage. 2. OPERATIONAL REPORTS: Education: Pinky: New Solid Waste Educator, Laura Tucker has been hired. She is on the way to Washington DC with the Students for Sustainability Club. Pinky presented recommendations and accomplishments from the Education Subcommittee: Put pick up schedules on the web site More advertising on what is and isn’t recycled Put recycle reminders at the Rose Theater, the Farmer’s Markets, use more public service announcements on KPTZ, enlist the high school to do a short video, use bigger pictures and posters on the rollout boxes, more graphic oriented handouts and develop a welcome wagon type program. Research on using graphics and putting a person out there for contact. Having people take an action not just being passive. Also reduce the barriers for people to make change: like when PSE gave out compact fluorescents. Reaching out to specific audiences, advertising to the different audiences. Have done a couple of radio PSA’s on KPTZ and will continue to do those. In combination with going to the Farmer’s Market they have done the One Less Bag Challenge where people pledged to reduce their garbage by one less bag a month. They had a booth at the Co-op, the Farmers Markets and the Jefferson County Home show (with the Students for Sustainability) giving out 2 reusable produce bags (for the One Less Bag Challenge). This drew people into the booth to talk about recycling. There have been several recycle reminders at the Rose. Pinky had a lot of feedback from that particularly about clam shells. Also a reminder in the City of Port Townsend Newsletter. There has been a lot of ceramics going into the glass. Pierce County Public Works decided that regional advertising works best. They have offered to do the formatting for flyers, magnets etc., to keep information in a consistent format. There were 37 presentations in the schools. Laura will be doing more before school is out for summer. There has been a lot of good feedback about our education in the schools. The Who’s Who in Jefferson County for March 19th has a ¾ page Recycling Reminder to cut out. Currently doing more Moderate Risk Waste facility promotions. New this year was the promotion on the buses – especially on the back where people can read the whole thing. The Sims Way Banner has been up and the one for Hazardous Waste will be going up. There was funding to create a durable banner for this form of advertising rather than ads. This information is from the Ed Committee that met over a year ago. With Laura on full time there will be a dedicated person to do more education and outreach. They are putting in for an Offset Coordination Prevention Grant to do broader education. There is a 30% contamination rate in the plastics stream and they would like to get that down thru education. The Health Department web site has not been revised – there is a lot of information to go through. Note from Jerry: The Public Works Solid Waste Web site is currently being revised behind the scenes. Changes won’t be seen for a few weeks. Recycling: Matt: They have found a buyer for plastics. Moved about 200 tons this month, still shipping glass to Oregon. Hopefully another glass recycle plant opening in Seattle will be able to handle our material. Still working on signs for the bins, making that a priority of changing to pictures instead of words. The current buyer of plastics suggests we could accept rigid tubs. They currently accept 1 thru 7, but when the market drops there may not be a market for them. Compost: John: Sold out compost on Monday. Samples have been pulled and should have the results in two weeks. May have to purchase more yard debris this year. This led to a brief discussion on the quantity needed and where it comes from. Solid Waste: Sent out the Staff Report. The New Fee roll-out was uneventful. There was more traffic in January than in February. But the tonnages are matching last year. The tonnages have started to go up about ½ percent per year. 3. OLD BUSINESS: CPG Offset Cycle Grant update: Pinky: Health is applying for an offset grant primarily for education about the contamination in the plastic waste stream and waste reduction education. Jerry: Public Works has put in for a Competitive Offset Grant to conduct 2 HHW collection events: one in Quilcene and one in Port Ludlow. The dates will be September 27th in Quilcene and in the spring for Port Ludlow. 2008 Solid Waste Management Plan Revision - Process Outline: Brief Power Point presentation by Jerry Mingo explaining the process/steps for Amending and/or updating the Solid Waste Management Plan. The plan is to go through the Amendment process for minor changes rather than the long Revision process for major changes. The process will begin with staff recommendation to the Public Works Director based on the amendment process. We will solicit from the City of Port Townsend their continued interest and intent to sign on with the county plan (or they could write their own plan). Then SWAC would have a subcommittee of interested members. This committee would meet monthly with staff to review several sections at a time or whatever is decided to cover. Updated information and projections from this committee will be sent to a Planning Consultant. The list of Draft changes will be sent to the consultant to prepare the format, check with regulatory updates we may have missed then send forward that draft to the stakeholders. Stakeholders consist of the County Commissioners, the City of Port Townsend and DOE. This opens the comment period from stakeholders. A second review will be done by DOE and by the full SWAC. Adoption by the City and the Board of Commissioners could happen at this time, and then it would be sent to DOE for a 3rd time for final review and approval. It would then be our official plan. Interested members are Kent, Paul and Lisa. Timeline is for work in 2014 and early 2015. 4. NEW BUSINESS: Review list of designated recyclables: Overview by Richard. Recyclable Material Policy Statement created in 2010. This basically addresses a responsible approach to the handling of recycled products. See the Policy Statement sent out with the March 27th Agenda. It can be changed or modified. The next information is the section from the Comprehensive Plan about the review process for Designated Recyclables. Staff or SWAC could bring a list of proposed changes or additions. The criteria are also in the plan for making changes. Richard presented the current criteria for plastics and the factors for revisiting the current list. Brief discussion about how grocery stores handle the plastic bags they collect for recycle. Discussion about how a buyer is determined to be responsible and what is done with the commodities in the recycle stream. This was followed by a brief discussion on the dependability of the plastics market and downcycled products. Solid Waste Budget Update: Richard gave an overview and the opportunity for questions. Ecology 22nd Annual SW Report/State Plan/Legislative Update: Richard Be sure to look at the Ecology Website: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/ There were 105 million pounds of electronics recycled in the first 5 years of the program. 5. FROM THE FLOOR: Val: after 10 years on the board, she will be resigning after the next meeting in May. Jerry: Eight weeks from now legislative update: The House bill to enact the Mercury Bearing Lamp law of 2010 is on the Governor’s desk for signature. We will continue to accept these items but the manufacturers have now taken responsibility for end life recycling and will contribute funding. It will be illegal to dump these lamps into the trash. More about the E-cycle program will be on the next agenda. ADJOURNMENT: 4:53 P.M.