HomeMy WebLinkAboutSWAB minutes 080609 Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Attendance : Jan Sassaman, Bonnie Norwood, Linda Bowerman, Al Vickers, Remus
Smith, Doug Guild, and Steve Yuhasz
Staff: Blair Pollock, Paul Spire, Terry Thomas, Hary Howard and Wanda McCain
1 . Opening and Welcome Sassaman states that hopefully you all have had a good
summer . It looks like we will have a fairly busy Fall ahead of us trying to get back on
board with solid waste planning .
2 . Adoption of Minutes from June 3 SWAB meeting Norwood moves to accept.
Vickers 2nd . Passes unanimously .
3 . Solid Waste Convenience Center Service Reductions / Changes Thomas states that
effective July 27 mattresses and [landfill] permits were eliminated . Mattresses are
accepted at the landfill, but no longer at the convenience centers . Permits being
eliminated should not affect the general public if they are doing normal cleanup .
The hours of operation will be reduced effective Monday, September 21St. The new
hours will be Monday, Tuesday, and Friday from lam to 6pm and Saturday lam to
5pm . Closed on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday .
Bradshaw Quarry Center is slated to close on September 20th at 5pm . The property
owner has received notification of termination and arrangements have been made to
move [County goods, building, dumpsters, etc] off the property . There is a timeline
that' s been submitted to the BOCC .
Vickers asks for a definition of the landfill permit program .
Thomas states that the landfill permits program was initiated when the county
changed from non-staffed centers to staffed centers . In an effort to control the waste
they [the County] offered permits for citizens to take larger loads to the landfill . The
permits were supposed to be faded (sic) out as the convenience centers were
upgraded but it never happened . There hasn' t been much comment from the permit
elimination because within the last six months each load has been checked and
instead of three loads per permit it was cut to one . There had been a lot of abuse of
the permit program [with permits] given to contractors or a lot of appliances hauled
in.
Sassaman asks if permits were for landfill
Thomas replies that checks on loads showed many were from contractors .
1
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Yuhasz asks if flyers were provided at the Bradshaw Quarry site to show the locations
of the other sites .
Thomas states that they were provided and there is a poster on the informational
board which shows the map of the alternative locations . The banners for the [revised]
hours go up on Monday .
Pollock asks is there an estimate of how many mattresses are handled at the
convenience centers for this fiscal year .
Thomas replies no because it all goes into the roll-offs and only measured by tons and
then goes into C &D .
Pollock states that Rob Taylor, Recycling Programs Manager, stated that [we are]
starting to get some illegal dumping of mattress at the drop -off sites which is
something relatively new .
Vickers - inaudible (he says something about other options of getting rid of
mattresses)
Thomas states that all the Towns offer collection. Hillsborough is the only one that
does not charge for the service . Most mattress companies that deliver will take away
your old mattress .
4 . Solid Waste Management Planning Work Group Sassaman states that for the past
year we have had this on the back burner . It is time to get back to the planning
process . A number of things that were discussed early on have come to fruition.
Particularly in Chapel Hill where now cardboard is collected at the curb . [True for all
curbside recycling locations, not just Chapel Hill . ] The memo you received
summarizes where we are and where we need to go .
Pollock states that after four years of this we are hoping to wrap things up . A couple
of things to highlight [include] what has been done to date, what decisions have been
made and how we want to proceed . We have discussed and had some analysis of the
drop -off sites and the convenience centers with particular respect to recycling but
there has also been some work done on alternative ways of financing the convenience
centers including pay by the bag or piece and how to upgrade the centers .
If you look back at the report highlighted in the memo there is enough information
there for the work group to pull together some decision making about those . One
thing that is important is that we need to affirm the need to keep the dropoff system .
While you have discussed this internally, you have not addressed it formally to the
BOCC . We continue to see a third or more of our recyclables coming from the drop-
2
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
off sites and convenience centers . We thought after putting mixed paper and
cardboard at the curb people would stop going there . It is still a linchpin of the
system . The curbside programs did 6,300 tons and dropoffs did 4, 800 . The important
thing to consider is do we still want to continue to recommend it, making some
recommendation based on the reports that you ' ve seen on mechanisms to continue to
fund the convenience center and drop-off system . It is a hybrid because dropoff sites
are funded exclusively by 3-R fee and SWCCs by a combination of general fund and
3 -R fee . The SWCCs are vulnerable due to current mode of funding .
Solid waste collection hasn' t been an area that this board and the work group has
dwelled on, especially flow control and franchising . As things change for us these
will be more important things to address . Three -quarters of rural residents use the
convenience centers and 1/4 have private pickup service . As Bradshaw closes those
people in the southwest are having a hard time getting private garbage service to
respond . We want to make sure everyone has access to these services .
The only decision that has been made is the notion that there won ' t be a publicly -
funded and publicly operated waste collection service in the unincorporated areas .
All the other decision making with respect to should we franchise --- should we have
other ways of flow control, and should we try to include some of the commercial as
Hillsborough has in their franchise -- remain open questions and on the table . That is
a relatively near term decision as we go forward . We have enough information for
you and the work group to make a recommendation. You have received several
reports on the efficacy of franchising. We just have to come to a conclusion.
Expansion of rural curbside is something we ' ve been doing gradually since 1992 and
now we have about 65 % coverage in the unincorporated area . This year we made the
decision not to expand the program further . With the $38 recycling fee on an annual
basis it is pretty much self -financed . There are other reasons of not moving forward
at this point -- not the least of which is how would having a universal franchise
garbage service interact with rural curbside recycling, will it increase use of the
curbside recycling service ? Working on the rural curbside expansion has been a staff
effort but it would be effective for the work group and advisory board to weigh in on
that as we go forward with shaping the plan . There is the ' if' and the timing . We' ve
added 1 , 000 homes a year and we could put all homes on to achieve urban/ rural
parity .
The commercial program is a key element that has seen a lot of analysis and has been
talked about quite a bit but there has been no firm decision made on it. Commercial
recycling has grown in tiny increments through the staff work and the switch to
commingled . We increased 50 % from 600 to 900 tons a year . The real opportunities
and what remains of the low-hanging fruit of recycling is in the commercial area . It is
a whole new realm for us in terms of competition with the private sector and the
3
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
notion of is it the right time and the right move to offer universal commercial
recycling and should it be financed with the 3 -R fee, like everything else . Quite a bit
of analytical data has been presented on this system .
Another area that has been discussed but not decided on is PAYT and the other kind
of regulatory approaches . We took a step in that direction this year by adding
cardboard at the curb to recycling and not accept it as residential garbage . Cardboard
is effectively banned from landfilling in Orange County . This one regulatory element
of the ban has achieved success . Is that the way we want to go with more materials ?
Is it appropriate to disincentivize or mcentivize with PAYT ?
Do we need to adopt a flow control ordinance to bring garbage back in . The transfer
station will function better economically if we have more than the 50, 000 tons we have
now . There is another 10, 000 to 20, 000 tons leaving the county every year . Do we
want to win that back [and] do we want to win that back competitively or from
regulating it. Those are some key decisions that interact strongly with the economics
with the transfer station. We need the garbage so how do we go about getting it.
The one area that we can say definitively that the work group has made a strong
contribution to is the switch to two-stream commingled recycling in the last year .
There has been some considerable success . We have been able to add about 100
businesses to the commercial effort. We are also in a position to be a good customer
for some of the area material recovery facilities .
The Board is in the position to engage with the work group to do work on these
particular elements and then what you are going to see from RRS early this Fall is the
financial model that offers as a starting point maybe three scenarios - One is to
continue as we are doing now for ten years except build the transfer . The second
would be what happens if we aggressively pursue the ideas laid out such as add
commercial recycling or modernize the convenience centers . A third scenario is what
happens when you add incentives such as PAYT or Recycle Bank . What happens to
the economics of the system, like how will we pay for landfill closure .
The first order of business that we are asking of the advisory board and work group is
to go back through the reports over the next month or so and look at these things and
be ready to make some decisions and figure out how to pursue it in conjunction with
the work group . The second thing is once the decisions are made they will inform the
financial . How will we pay for things, how many tons will shift from waste to
recycling? The third piece is once that is all done, we finally move towards a financial
model to develop our plan . We are asking the Advisory Board to re- engage in all of
this .
4
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Sassaman states that to make things easier for us to look through all the reports can
you email all the reports together for each bullet.
Pollock agrees .
Sassaman states that in talking earlier we decided to have a summary of the list of
decisions made by the group . In addition to that a list of decision that needs to be
made would also be useful .
Guild states that the list also needs to be prioritized for what needs to happen first.
Sassaman states that that is a good idea but it might be done at the work group
meeting when the county and municipal representatives are there . We need buy in
from the municipalities .
Norwood asks Blair, you mentioned tonnage for commercial recycling, do you have a
figure of what that might be .
Pollock states that of the 50, 000 to 60, 000 tons probably about 40 % of that is
commercial waste . From the waste sorts we know that 30 % of that is readily
recyclable materials .
Yuhasz states that when you talk about commercial recycling is that recycling from
commercial facilities or is that recycling of different type of material .
Pollock states that in this community because the commercial sector is so service -
oriented it would be similar to the waste stream to residential . You might see a
preponderance of office paper rather than news and magazines . The other things
you might think about like scrap metal, wood, ' widgets' from production, we don' t
see that much of because we banned wood and scrap metal and we have little
production .
Yuhasz states that the 35 % unserved in the unincorporated part of the county by
d the decision has been made not to expand .curbside recycling, you Sal
Pollock replies for this fiscal year .
Yuhasz asks if those people pay the same 3-R fee as everyone else .
Pollock states that every improved property pays the basic fee of $37 and those that
have rural curbside service pay an additional $38 for the service .
5
Minutes Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Yuhasz asks the 10, 000 to 20, 000 tons that escapes our waste stream, where is it
making its escape .
Pollock states that each year we get a series of reports from the State that every
landfill and transfer station is obliged to report of how much garbage comes from
Orange County . If you drew a hundred mile radius around Orange County you
would capture some that now goes to the Durham transfer station for example .
Smith asks living in the city limits of Hillsborough, how much do I pay for the 3 -R
fund .
Pollock replies this year it is $89 because the base fee of $37 stayed the same but the
curbside fee went to $52 for the year .
Smith asks if I lived outside the city limits, what would I pay .
Pollock states if you had rural curbside collection service you would pay $ 75 which is
the $37 base plus the $38 curbside fee . If you did not have curbside collection it
would just be $37 .
Sassaman asks Blair to enumerate what the next steps are .
Pollock states that part of that is a decision that you all and the work group need to
make --- set a timetable for a meeting and an agenda with the work group to request
that the items enumerated here be ready for decision-making . Given the kind of
magnitude and scope, what Doug recommends trying to either use the meeting or
some kind of preliminary planning session to set some priorities would be useful .
Setting a timetable for the balance of the work that would enable us to get done in the
next six to eight months . Some decisions might include work on the financial
elements, for example should we let the tip fee go as high as it needs to finance the
transfer station. How to pull the plan recommendation together that incorporates all
these elements .
Sassaman asks if a summary of the list of decisions that have been made and the list of
decisions that need to be made available by the September 3rd meeting .
Pollock replies we can get there from here .
Sassaman states lets have an agenda item that we set a timetable for development of a
straw man for the work group .
5 . Programs/Services Update
6
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Rigid Plastics Recycling Implementation Pollock states that for about a year we have
been looking at adding things such as yogurt cups, five gallon buckets, big wheels or
kiddie pools . The markets have finally shifted and we also received a State grant to
help us out, so beginning sometime in September containers will go out at the drop -
off sites and convenience centers where you can take most injected molded plastics
that are not a bottle to recycle . We are not sure if and when we will be able to add
those to curbside . We are debating from a public education standpoint how to
express what we really want. It would help to get feed back from you all of what you
think people will comprehend . Should we do a big list with pictures ?
Smith states that your advertising campaign has been appreciated but I don' t know
the difference between #2 plastic and # 5 plastic . To me it' s plastic . To me styrofoam
is plastic . It would be easier to just let me know what you are going to accept.
Guild states that one way to tell is that some items have the triangle with the number
in it.
Pollock states that this is an educational dilemma . The same conversation you all are
having now is the one we ' ve had for the last month as we try to put together the
message . It is a much different message than " all bottles " .
Norwood states that the picture is better .
Yuhasz asks how much of a problem will it be when the new plastics are commingled
with the good plastics .
Pollock states that the intent is to send those off as a separate load so that the pricing
is a little better . We will experiment with bailing and densifying to see if we get a
better payload . The two processors that we are talking to are in a position to take
them in a mixed situation, but we will do better in the marketplace if they are
segregated . We are not in the chemical side of the process yet, we are still on the dry
side . It is not going to be that big of a problem .
Spire states that the containers are very distinctive for this one type of product. The
color of the container will speak to you that this is a new product.
Plastic Film Recycling Pilot Program Pollock states that for the last spring semester of
class at the University we worked with a class to look at the possibility to recycle
more plastic bags and film without our direct involvement. Bags are incompatible
with commingled recycling, they do not process well and film from those efforts is
worthless .
7
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
We are not in the position with the type of facility we have to manage large amounts
of thin plastic film . Let' s see if we can work with the grocery stores that already
recycle bags and film and get all the other stores in the shopping center to use the
program . We have our first pilot at Chapel Hill North . It has been going on for about
ten weeks . I can report that the public containers are properly used with very little
contamination and about 1 / 3 of the stores in the shopping center are participating. A
lot of the shipping has shifted from cardboard boxes to shrink wrap so for example
the Wild Bird store now gets their seed shrink wrapped on pallets, not in boxes . They
are recycling that shrink wrap .
If this works the idea would be to roll that out to all shopping centers in Orange
County if the grocery stores accept the film and bags . Who will move the material
from the back of stores to the grocery store is the dilemma .
Guild states that if you can figure out a way to have this as a part of community
service hours for high schools, you can get a lot of plastics to the grocery stores .
Pollock states that I just need someone to carry it to Harris Teeter once a week . The
public is cooperating, the stores are cooperating . There is market value; it has reached
$ 0 . 15 per pound, so that' s enough to justify handling it.
Sassaman asks if the major difference between what they have been doing and what
we are doing now just including stuff other than the plastics bags . For years they' ve
taken a wide variety of the film .
Pollock states that that post consumer waste is about 20 % of what they get. Eighty
percent by weight of what they get is frozen food packaging and the thick heavy stuff.
The only difference is the source . The Dry Clean Warehouse just got on the program
There is a lot of potential for this to help us out and provide more recycling . The key
is to figure out the partners to get it to the recycling point.
Sassaman asks what about styrofoam .
Pollock states that there is no effective post-consumer styrofoam recycling programs .
Transfer Station Site Search Process Spire states that the Corps of Engineer has finished
their assessment of the [Hwy] 54 site . The results have been given to Orange County
Planning Department, which they have forwarded to the State agencies to look at. We
are hoping the results will come back later this month to the Planning Director to
present to the Commissioners in September . The findings will be either " no
significant impact" or the " need for additional study" .
8
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
There has been no activity on the Chapel Hill site . The Town will not meet on that
until sometime in September .
Guild asks if the results will be available .
Spire states that the results will go to the Planning Director and he will then present it
to the Commissioners . It is not clear if there will be time to get that to you [in advance
of their meeting] .
Solid Waste Convenience Center Security Spire states that due to some problems we
were having with the reaction of the public towards the centers and the attendants we
thought it was best to put in a security system at all the remaining four sites . The
process began in July and was completed within two weeks . There is a minimum of
three cameras at each site . One is a license plate camera which allows us to capture
the license plate of anyone entering the centers . The other cameras are for viewing all
over the site .
Guild asks with the license plate camera do you plan to send notice out for some
reason .
Spire states that the reason for the license plate camera relates to an incident of a
threat to an attendant and the County felt they could no longer disregard it. During
the incident no one got the license plate number and there was no way of following
up on it. We still have to contact the Sheriff' s office to get the data, they do an incident
report on the plate and then we can get the owner of that vehicle . We are not using it
to count vehicles but we can use it to verify if someone ' s been parked too long. We
will store the data for a period of time .
Yuhasz asks if the cameras are fixed or if they swivel .
Spire replies they are fixed .
Other Spire states that while at the SWANA Quad (State) conference it was
mentioned that they are looking at carbon credits for food waste diversion. They are
only doing it now through a [methane] digester to be qualified for the carbon credits .
There was also information given on the St. Lucie, FL plasma arc [waste incinerator]
program and where it is in the system, the cost and what they are plan on doing . It is
still questionable that they can do it for the money they are putting into it.
Guild asks if that is the Waste Management site . They have gone into a partnership
with a commercial facility in Texas on this ..
9
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Spire replies that St. Lucie County put up $145 million, the company put up the other
$250 million . This is a 600 ton-a- day plant.
Norwood mentions there is a composter that sits in the kitchen .
Pollock replies they' re available at $300 . They use electricity to operate .
6 . Board Member Comments Yuhasz asks regarding accepting different items at the
convenience center, fluorescent tubes are not accepted there . With all the compact
fluorescent lights that are being sold and used, what are the plans for accepting those
[as they burn out] .
Spire states we have had internal meetings on that, there is a plan to start converting
the convenience centers into places where we can start capturing some of the long
fluorescent bulbs as well as the screw in bulbs . We have to take great care to ensure
the collection will allow for an amount that will not get broken easily [some mercury
escapes] .
Vickers states that there has been some dumping on Pickett Hill Rd . [actually Pickett
Road, near the border of Orange and Durham County] I have seen couches, love seats
and furniture .
Pollock states that we will look into that.
Norwood states that with the hard plastics like those holding the needles for diabetics,
did you find out if they are recyclable ?
Pollock replies I didn ' t make any progress in finding out if those were recyclable or
not. I would need to get a hold of one to see what type of resin it is . When I described
it no one could tell me . The resin type may be OK but it will be hard to handle the tiny
pieces in a bale .
Norwood states that regarding cutting the hours at the convenience center I want to
eliminate people' s ability to hang out because it is going to be more congested .
Thomas states that some changes have been made . During the week it will continue
to be twice a day and once a day on Saturday . There will be a meeting with the
attendants to go over this and make every effort to hurry these people along . We will
also rely on the camera system to identify those that may be a problem .
Smith asks what happens to the recycling once it' s collected .
10
Minutes - Regular Meeting
Solid Waste Advisory Board
August 6, 2009
Approved September 3, 2009
Pollock states that it goes to one of three different places . The paper more than likely
went to Sonoco in Durham and from there it may have gone to China, a newsprint
mill in Georgia which can take mixed paper or to their Hartsville cardboard mill . The
cans and bottles either went to Waste Management' s sorting facility in Raleigh or to
FCR sorting facility in Greensboro . From there plastic bottles became carpet, or
plastic strapping or pretty soon bottles . Glass was recovered to and sent to a glass mill
in Raleigh where it was color sorted and sold to a bottle maker in Henderson,
Winston or Wilson. Steel scrap went to a smelter and so did aluminum .
7 . Other Business - None
Smith moves to adjourn . Norwood 2nd .
Adjourn : 8 : 30pm
Next meeting September 3, 2009
11