November 11, 2009 SAB Meeting Minutes

Call Meeting to Order (Daniel Poull, Chairperson)
Take Roll Call to Determine Quorum of Members

ANY PRESSING ITEMS

The SAB members recognized and thanked Chris Cobb, Dickie Heckler and Laura Routh for volunteering their time and sharing their talents with the Board over multiple years. All three members have terms that expire on December 31st, 2009.

Tammy Bennett announced that former Commissioner Boog Highberger was appointed to the Public Review Incentive Committee per SAB's recommendations of candidates.

APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES

Motion and second to approve the October 14, 2009 minutes (Heckler/Lehrman).
The motion carried 7-0. Laura Routh abstained from voting because she did not attend the October meeting.

Discussion of Pilot Program for City Recycling

The conversation continued from the October meeting regarding licensure versus mandatory registration as a recommendation for the public/private curbside recycling pilot option developed by SAB. Board members discussed the City licensure information they received from staff via email and also commented on the advantages and disadvantages of licensure. Staff pointed out that the "hook" of licensure for a certain activity is that an individual or business could not operate or perform that activity in the City without that license. Several curbside recycling haulers were present at this meeting and raised concerns regarding fees and possible restrictions associated with licensure.

Scott Miller, the City's Staff Attorney, provided Public Works the following definition for licensure via email, "We do not have an explicit definition for license that applies to our entire City Code. The basic legal definition of license, when you are not talking about premises liability, is permission to do some sort of activity that is regulated by law. The City obviously uses its regulatory ability to address certain professions and behaviors such as merchant security, trades licensing, door to door sales, etc."

Motion and second (Sethi/Hill-Nelson) to replace the word licensure with mandatory registration in both documents: the SAB recycling recommendations memo to the City Commission and the SAB curbside pilot program recommendation which is part of the staff curbside recycling matrix.
The motion carried 8-0.

Action: Tammy Bennett will send the amended documents to the City Manager this week.

Review SAB's Recycling Memo

This memo was addressed in the previous item.

State 5-Year Solid Waste Plan

Laura Routh encouraged the board members to complete the State's 5-Year Solid Waste Plan Survey which is due on the 20th this month. She emailed the link to the survey. Two items that board members may wish to comment on are:
  1. The Director of the Bureau of Waste Management on behalf of KDHE sent a letter to the EPA requesting that they not pursue further regulation of coal ash landfills.
  2. There is currently no quantitative waste reduction goal in the State of Kansas.

Laura Routh attended a landfill training last week and shared some information with SAB. She mentioned that the price of trash may be going up due to a new greenhouse gas requirement enacted by the EPA which may lead, in time, to a requirement that all such releases be captured.

Laura Routh also mentioned that there are Ripple Glass recycling containers in Olathe and wondered if Lawrence was getting any. Kathy Richardson informed SAB that Ripple Glass is only able to place one glass recycling container in Lawrence for now. It has already been placed at the 12th and Haskell Bargain Center. The reasons they chose this location are:
   1. It is across town from the other glass recycling option, the Wal-Mart Community Recycling Center.
   2. It is a place already frequented by citizens wishing to recycle plastics, metals, and paper. Now they will be able to drop off glass too.

Discuss SAB Brochure/Bookmark

Sarah Hill-Nelson handed out the draft bookmark. SAB reviewed and edited the bookmark.

Action: Sarah Hill-Nelson will make text changes to the bookmark. Staff will print the bookmarks on heavy cardstock.

Nomination of SAB Officers for 2010

SAB members made the following nominations for 2010 SAB officers:
Chair: Matt Lehrman, Vice Chair: Sarah Hill-Nelson, and Secretary: Brian Sifton.
If any other board member is interested in being nominated please contact Daniel Poull.

Waste Reduction & Recycling Report

Kathy Richardson emailed the WRR October report to SAB (see attached). She announced that the City's Solid Waste Division has scheduled the Christmas tree collection dates on the three Mondays following Christmas: Dec. 28th, Jan. 4th and Jan. 11th. Another item that was highlighted was the success of the recent electronic recycling event on Saturday, Oct. 31st. A total of 747 vehicles participated and 35.48 tons of electronics were collected for recycling. Extreme Recycling, the e-waste recycling vendor, has offered staff and SAB a tour of their facility in Topeka. If SAB is interested, staff can schedule the tour. SAB asked that this be placed on a future agenda.

Miscellaneous Announcements and/or Public Comments

Laura Routh asked about the status of the Solid Waste Division audit. Tammy Bennett informed SAB that the City Auditor, Michael Eglinski, will be wrapping up this audit in December/January. Laura suggested that SAB invite Michael Eglinski to a board meeting next year.

Daniel Poull and Matt Lehrman attended a presentation by the Midwest Regional Director of the Solar Electric Power Association on Oct. 15th in Ottawa. They received information about innovative ideas this group developed to place solar panels on roofs.

Chris Scafe from Sunflower Curbside Recycling commented that he is interested in opening a combination of a recycling center and materials recovery facility in Lawrence. He talked about the concept of collecting the raw material from Lawrence residents and making something new out of it here in town. This would eliminate the step of baling the material and transporting it to another facility in the U.S. SAB suggested he contact the Kansas Small Business Development Center. Laura Routh also mentioned the Iowa Department of Economic Development's (IDED) Recycling program.
Action: Laura Routh will send the link to the (IDED) Iowa program to Kathy Richardson who will in turn email it out to SAB and Chris Scafe.

Meeting adjourned 7:50 p.m.

Next meeting: December 9th, 2009 at 5:30 pm.

Attachments:

• Revised Staff Memo and Matrix on Pilot Curbside Recycling Program (PDF, 156K)
• Revised SAB Waste Reduction and Recycling Recommendations Memo (PDF, 34K)
• Waste Reduction and Recycling Division Report (including the October 2009 Lawrence Electronic Recycling Event Summary and Participant Survey Results) (PDF, 430K)