[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. OK. So everyone present, have you had a chance to look over the minutes? Do we have any addendums that weren't sent out?
[Barry Ingber]: I would move to accept them. And I just want to commend Brenda on her minute taking. She does a really good job of very concisely writing up what are sometimes pretty complicated discussions and doing it accurately. And it's not an easy task. So thank you, Brenda.
[Brenda Pike]: Thank you. Hear, hear.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Hear. I see Pavitha has just joined. Make sure I add that to my list. Perfect. All right, let's go down the line voting to accept the minutes. Go right down, Lois.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I don't know if I can. Just one quick question. I only see the November minutes. I don't have December minutes.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I hope I sent the right one. That'd be very embarrassing if you were about to.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: No, it's probably if it's from you, then maybe I didn't get it.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Luke, it's December 21st, I think, is the date from Will.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: OK.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Look at that. I think that's the date.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: No, I don't have it. I have one from Brenda on the 29th with the agenda.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I sent this out on the 21st with the draft. Yeah, but if you're not getting it, that's a huge deal. That's good.
[Brenda Pike]: Sorry Will, did you send that directly?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I sent it to the MAUC
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, that is an issue sometimes with what we've had before, right? I know Loretta has it sometimes when she sends out emails.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, usually I get a bounce back, so that would explain why we didn't get many edits on our agenda. This is very good to know.
[Barry Ingber]: But I got it. I got it.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And I know I did not. I got it.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah. It's an issue with the settings on the person who's sending it out and the acceptance of the email with those settings from the person who's receiving it. So it's the combination of the two. That's the issue. So some people will receive it. Some people wouldn't. That's one of the reasons why I think it's really useful to send things to me and ask me to forward them out to the rest of the group, because we never have that issue if city staff are sending it.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: I didn't get it too. Sorry.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: OK. No, this is really good to know, because I was trying to offload that off of Brenda, but I'm sorry to say you're stuck with it, Brenda.
[Lois Grossman]: I can't remember if I did. I think I did, but.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: This is important intel.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I go for a change.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: In that case, we will continue with our vote, but we might have more abstains than I think we would have liked. But such is the way of voting.
[Brenda Pike]: Or we could put off the vote until the next meeting.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Oh, that's even better. Let's do that. I'm not sure what we're allowed to do. So this is great. Yeah, I'm going to table that one. And we're going to do some city updates. And then I just admitted, oh, Alicia's here. So we can talk a little bit about our trash policy updates and how we can be helpful and where we're most needed. Um, Alicia, do you know how long we'll have you for?
[Alicia Hunt]: Um, I can hang around for about a half hour, 40 minutes. I wasn't sure how long you were. I mean, I'm looking at your agenda to see how long you're planning on this for. So.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. In that case, maybe we start there and give Brenda, uh, give Brenda a break on the city updates until afterwards. Um, so. I want to kind of open up conversation to start, but I'll probably have Alicia speak first. We've been talking and deliberating a little bit about the pros and cons of this new trash policy. But more importantly, we want to make sure that we are in alignment with the city of Medford and making sure that we can produce something that is helpful for both residents and for city officials, whether that's educational materials, different recommendations and guidance that we can give to folks, or amendments that we may feel empowered to recommend. But if it's all right, Alicia, I'd love to, if you are okay with being put on the spot a little bit, maybe you can help us kick off this discussion with things that the city is looking for that maybe we can be helpful with.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, and that'll actually probably make your discussion more useful. And before we start, I just want to confirm something with Brenda. Brenda, you're using an AI or something to take notes, right? So that what I don't want to have to do is try and listen and write down things at the same time.
[Brenda Pike]: I'm taking notes while we're talking, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, great. I just wanted to confirm that because I don't want to, or somebody can go back and watch the video. We do that for some of our meetings. Great. So I was sort of talking about this a little with Brenda this afternoon and trying to figure out what is actually most helpful. So you all are aware we have a group that has been working on this for a long time that is the DPW Commissioner and myself and the waste consultants that we've brought in. Zero Waste have been with us now for several years. You might see them on things, Jeremy Drake and Gary Lease. And they also have a colleague who's on the ground who's been helping with business waste. So we have somebody who's actually been going to businesses and helping them one-on-one figure stuff out. We also have had Steve Smerdy, our Outreach Director, Communications Director, meeting with us at least monthly for more than a year now on all of this. And so that has been like the long term core team, but for the past, at least 9 months or a year, we've also had the mayor meeting with us. We have the garbage to garden staff have been meeting with us on composting only until November. And then they said, well, you know, we actually want to be involved in all of your waste outreach. And what's kind of nice about that is that they have marketing and communications professionals on staff. And so actually our latest are the waste brochure that came out this year, which was a little different from previous years that was actually laid out and put together by garbage to garden, um, for the city. because it's in their best interest that it all succeeds together. And so they have been doing a lot of the more professional layouts and stuff that you've seen. But then we were doing the trash communications ourselves. And then in November, they said, hold on. We want to be involved in this too. We want to be involved in all your trash communications. So the new version of the trash website, the waste website that you may see, was actually designed by Garbage to Garden staff. Um, with the city sort of helping and providing input and porting to our, our site. We also have a marketing professor from Northeastern. who has been working with us for a couple of years on the composting. He had come to us and said, your composting rollout is a great way for one of my graduate students to do some PhD work on marketing language. So what you would not have seen is that some of the composting materials that have gone out over the last year and a half had actually A, B, and A, B, C testing. And depending which QR code they scanned and responded to, They could actually tell which marketing messages, which composting messages were being best received. And then we would shift to use only that language in the rest of our outreach. And so they've also been helping. And you may have noticed that the feedback form survey that we put out in December, didn't sound like the city. That was, in fact, because that was he's an expert in marketing in surveys and stuff and feedback forms. And so that was something that he helped us craft some of the language. And you may have noticed some people saying things like, I felt like I was being persuaded. We actually 50% of the people got that language and 50% didn't. And then the first two questions were different. The rest of the questions were the same for everybody, and it was just statistically different people's responses, whether they saw the first two languages that were like, did you know it cost the city this much? And I forget what the other one was. But it was testing to see whether having that at the beginning of this survey would actually shift people's perceptions of the program in order for us to know whether we should be using that language or not, because some people were uncomfortable using it. And we're like, yeah, but look, it's actually helping people with what their understanding is right off the bat that way. So I share all that to tell you that some of the stuff was done without marketing professionals, for example, that press release in November, other pieces of it. And since then, they are all meeting together with us regularly. So right now, we are in a period. So this program is scheduled to change, to roll out basically in 18 months, which is a long time to educate people and work through the different individual issues. So we're in a period right now of listening. And so the meeting in December was about listening. The survey stuff that we've gotten in that we did is about hearing from people. We're planning another meeting in late January, which is, again, about listening and taking it all in. And actually, the first time that we're going to sit with our consultants and digest what we're hearing is next week, just to give people a chance to take a breath to give us a chance to not be knee-jerk reacting to what we're hearing out on the street, but to actually let things sort of settle and look at it in a big-picture way. Because we've been hearing a lot of really good ideas, and we've been hearing some ideas that may or may not be possible. And we have somebody from MassDEP who is now meeting with us at least monthly since, I would say, last August. to work on the program and to make sure as we do things, how are they in alignment with state programs and grant programs? And how can we maximize additional state resources and leverage state resources as much as absolutely possible? So he's also meeting with us monthly. All that said, is that there are a few things that we know we are going to do and a very few things that we know we're not going to do as of right now. We know we do want to do some education and outreach. We've been talking about doing some sessions at the library, maybe at the senior center. Sam from the library actually said that if we had other locations to do educational sessions, she'd be happy to help facilitate those. So like library, but outside of the library. And she actually suggested, what if we could do a community field trip to the recycling center, where it's sorted, and could the library basically run that field trip? And I was like, that's kind of brilliant, and I didn't know the library would do something like that for us. So that all said is that we know we want to do educational programming. What we don't know is exactly who's going to do it and what is that going to be and what exactly is that going to look like. I have some ideas. I certainly don't have the bandwidth to run it all. And I absolutely do have some band buy-in from the library for them to help with it. What we know we're not going to do is have a knee-jerk reaction and say, we're not doing it. Sorry, we made a mistake. We're not doing this. Partially because it's still 18 months out. And also because I think a good analogy is that we're not knocking down a building, we're instituting a program. And if we run the program and it's a mess and it doesn't work, then we say, well, we need the money to backpedal and go back to every week trash. But it seems like it would be very reactionary to just after two months say people yelled a lot. So we decided not to do this cutting edge program we were talking about without ever trying it. So that's where we stand with this sort of right now. And we have actually found that from that I heard results from that survey before I left for break, right before Christmas, and we had 2,000 respondents. And one of the questions was a gradient of, are you willing to change your trash habits for this, and are you not willing? And the results came back 50-50. And there was a nice, strong bar of absolutely not. And then some who are like, not kind of not. And then there were people in all the different gradients of willing, somewhat willing, very willing. But it was overall a 50 50 split, which kind of made us say like, It's not that we misread the community, it's that we didn't do well at communicating here. And we kind of get that, and now we're trying to figure out how do we pivot that, how do we work that. I want your conversations to be as useful as possible. So we want to hear more ideas, particularly ideas we haven't heard before. We want to have ideas about what does education and training look like. We want volunteers for stuff, like it would be helpful to have some people work on some of those sessions. Like, is there other sessions on recycling? I was just saying to Brenda, I could imagine we could do some regular sessions on cloth diapering. There are a lot of people in Medford who actually have done it, and I found Hold on, how old is that kid? I found 15 years ago that there were a lot of parents who wanted to learn about it, and they were looking for people to talk to them about it. But other sessions like that, there are people who are like, I don't know how to make composting work, and people who need to have that talk through. One of the ideas that we floated is you all know about Electrify Medford. Could we do something like that with trash, where we train and potentially, but I don't know how we pay for it, but potentially pay coaches, where people are like, I'm willing, but I don't see how this could possibly work, to have somebody who would one-on-one sit with them and talk it through and look at their space and help them figure it out? Is that something to do? There will be outreach efforts. Don't imagine we would ever flyer every door we actually have garbage to garden though, who does do door hanging and they actually go door to door with their staff and hand out compost bins to people. They call them the street teams and they've been doing that for the last 9 months. Those are the ideas of things I can think of, but I suspect you guys might have other ideas of how people could help on those things. We're also still figuring out what a different options cost. One of the ideas that we've heard is put a trash dumpster at DPW so people can dump off trash. How does that work? How much does that cost? And does that violate our pay as you throw stuff? I was just in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. And they have a thing where you pay $10, and then you can drop off. But they could drop off trash, recycling, all kinds of recycling, used things, tires, construction waste, books. So it was kind of worth it. We would also have to staff something like that, right? They had somebody staffing it, and it was gated off. So logistically, we could never have a yard that big. We don't physically have the space. But so those are some of the things we've been thinking through and trying to figure out how to make work. Brenda, I feel like there was one other thing that I had said to you that I am, because I didn't actually make notes earlier, if you think of it. as either a thing that would help or a way people could be the most helpful. Oh, I know, I was actually just gonna say, I don't think it's a good use of your time to wordsmith emotion that you all formally vote on that this is what we think, because the reality is, it's the mayor and Tim and I are collecting all the ideas and figuring out the pricing, and we're hearing from large swaths of people what they want. And what we want is people who want to help with this and organize this and help. I honestly didn't actually read the whole motion that Lois had written because I was trying to get out of the office. But more conceptually, it's a better use of your time to figure out what are things the city could do and how could we help and what are different kinds of programs and stuff. then spend time wordsmithing something that we're going to read and receive and say, OK, this committee feels that way. That's nice to know. I want to direct your efforts as useful as possible.
[Brenda Pike]: And I would add that from the minutes of the previous meeting, we talked about this. I pass that along to the mayor and to Alicia. So the discussions they're having in these meetings that that is being communicated to people. So but if there are other things that have not come up before or if you want to reiterate things that we talked about before, that could be that could be useful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see Barry.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, so I guess everybody here knows that I'm not a big fan of this initiative. And I'm also, so I've just got a couple of questions. One is the survey. I mean, it was affirming to hear that it was done by marketing professionals because it was obvious to me that it was PR and marketing and it was not a survey. A survey is when you're trying to find out what people are thinking so that you can adjust your policies to that. But instead, you're trying to figure out how do you convince people to do what you want them to do? That's PR. You know, so that was really obvious. As a credentialed educator, I have the same kind of concern about education efforts, because I ask myself whether what we are talking about is education, which is empowering, or whether it's indoctrination, which is trying to get people in line with what you're thinking. And so that's a question. When you're asking questions of the community and listening, to what end are you asking the questions and listening? Are you willing to adjust the program based on what you're hearing? throw it out, if that makes sense. Or are you not? Because if you're not really willing to make changes, then you're not really listening. So that's my comments on that. But on the program itself, I mean, my sense is that it's an austerity move disguised as an environmental initiative, which upsets me from an environmental point of view. and upsets me because I don't believe in austerity measures. I believe that governments are here to provide services, not to cut back services. But the idea from an environmental point of view is that cutting back on trash pickups from every week to every other week is going to reduce waste. And I mean, I don't believe that, but I don't have any evidence against it. So I just don't believe it. And I wonder if there is any evidence that that actually reduces waste, or if you're just going on a supposition. that the same as me, as I'm supposing that it's not, if you're just equally supposing that it is. And I will stop at that.
[Alicia Hunt]: So let me actually respond to a little of that. Because I think, actually, it's the exact opposite. It's an environmental program disguised as an austerity measure. Because the environmentalists who believe in zero waste, They like that it also saves money. And the people who only care about money won't be convinced by environmental measures. And actually, the goal, the real goal, is to get everybody composting. because a third of what people by weight are putting in their trash cans should actually be returned to the earth as compost. So this is actually an environmental effort. And we started with the early adopters, the people who were already paying the compost, and we gave it to them for free, and we opened it up to everybody. Hoping to just sort of naturally bring in the people who just didn't want to pay and we got a good number that way I don't have the numbers in front of me, but we did and then we started pushing a little and then we started doing Education and PR and it's not that hard and join your neighbors and using stuff to convince people to stop putting that valuable resource that should be going back into the ground and in the trash and in the incinerator where it gets burned and turned into noxious fumes in an environmental justice community. And we've been working on that, including the door-to-door push has been going on for nine months, and every week we get an update with probably 20 to 25 new subscribers a week from the door-to-door efforts. And we know that there is another bunch that will only do it with a stick. They will only move to composting if they're pushed there. And the push is that your smelly, gross stuff goes in your compost bin and gets picked up every single week. And only the things that are real trash goes in the trash. And we do understand that there is some percentage of people who will never move that way. It's just like there is some percentage of people who probably don't recycle any at this time, but they're also probably the people, some of those people with the overflowing trash cans. So that's sort of, that is actually what we're doing. But if we came out and said that in a press release, we would lose the 50% of the people who were like, I don't believe in climate change. I don't care about putting nutrients back in the soil. I don't care about those things. So that's actually the spin here. And sorry, there was one little piece in all of that. Oh, I actually want to address the dog waste, because people go, but what about the stinky dog waste? And I hear that. And I also hear from a number of people going, why the H are people putting dog waste in their regular garbage can? Like, I know myself several people who already have a separate trash can that they put a garbage bag in, and that's where they put the poop bags, and that that can Every two to four weeks, they tie that up and put that into their regular garbage can. And they're like, Alicia, there's no problem with this. Now, I don't have dogs, but this is what other people with two dogs are telling me. And so the answer is that this is where education is not, I'm trying to brainwash you. It's like, actually, a lot of people probably never thought about having a separate sealed container for dog waste, right? They've never thought about how to make these things work and how is it not so hard. That's where we're talking about education. People who are like, actually, I didn't realize that cloth diapering wasn't that gross and horrible. I know a lot of people in Medford who cloth diapered, for example, and it would be great to like spread that out again. So I don't want to like. make it a back and forth with everybody, but just this idea that it was an austerity measure disguised as environmental, like, literally, it's the opposite.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think I saw Lois next.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah. Alicia, I can't tell. entirely where my emotional feelings come from. Since I was on the task force, the Solid Waste Task Force, and we talked about these issues, and I just feel like I was slapped in the face with a fait accompli without even getting a chance to give input. And I can't tell if it's just because I was on that committee or just because I live in Medford. I think there are many people who feel that way, that this was just shoved down people's throats. And people who might have been interested in talking about it and coming to a conclusion the way we did with the task force, that that approach might have been more effective than the hammer approach, which is what this came down as. I mean, shouldn't we have been getting out into the public and putting forth these ideas and having discussions before coming down with this? It's happening in July of 27, whether you like it or not.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm very sorry you feel that way. I'm very sorry that the communications happened that way. I think the problem is that Tim and I were part of those early conversations. There were a lot of there were public meetings and surveys and outreach and stuff. And then we kept working the program. And we've been working that program all along, and we lost sight of the fact that not everybody else was working the program. We're like, look, we rolled out the composting. Look, we're doing all of these things, but we weren't communicating the same way. And it's because Tim and I are not communications experts. We didn't think about that we were like here were the goals here's the zero waste goal from the comprehensive plan from the climate plan here are the things that we got from the from the waste committee will keep doing them and we kept doing them and then we. went to the communication staff at the city and said, okay, we got to communicate this and and they helped us shape the communications of it. And we probably should have had more marketing professionals and PR professionals helping us with that or communicating. You might have noticed in the mayor's newsletter. Every few months, she was listing how many people were composting and how far along we were to be getting everybody composting. And we were talking about it. We just weren't talking about with the goal of getting to zero waste, because that would have been, I don't know. That's just, I'm very sorry we didn't communicate it that way. But internally, that's what we felt like we were doing.
[Lois Grossman]: We're at where we are. Whether we should be feeling the way we do, we can't change. I mean, it's a fait accompli. We can try. This committee can certainly try to help. That was behind some of the ideas I floated that I wanted people to be thinking about. I'm not going to sit here and pout over my hurt feelings. Quite the opposite. I want to be as effective with this group as our solid waste group was. I thought we were very effective in getting out the issues and understanding the needs of the community. So I think we have to continue in that vein.
[Alicia Hunt]: Excellent. And I'll share that as of a couple of weeks ago, 42% of Medford residents were participating in the compost program. It's actually quite successful. And that is a number that's been growing, and we've been sharing out over time as well. But yeah, we've been just keep going. And I feel like we kind of stopped communicating about the trash goals and the zero waste goals that were in the climate. plan.
[Lois Grossman]: You have to keep putting the statistics out there constantly. We have X many people doing this. Now we, instead of having this many tons of trash, we have this many. And show people the actual reduction in cost and in unenvironmental behavior and so forth. I think you have to keep getting these statistics out there so that people get behind the saving money.
[Alicia Hunt]: And we are updating the numbers on the website that I just posted. If you go to the city's website, the main thing you click on, waste and recycling, it takes you here. This is the 1 that I was saying doesn't look like a city web page because they helped us with it. So, we are updating, particularly the percentage composting at the top.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Right. I'd like to recognize, oh, we have a member, not from the Energy Environment Committee, but if you'd like to speak briefly, I see Dennis.
[Denis Dettling Kalthofer]: Hi, so yes, so I live at 120 North Street. So I think composting is great and we compost. But I think this is the solid waste problem is not just about composting. And here's what I think. So our family is only two people. Our family, we're very careful. about our waste, we reuse single-use plastic produce bags, which is as much as possible. We don't throw out black plastic containers, so we have oodles of them, okay? We don't know what to do with styrofoam or polystyrene, And what I'm most concerned, so I think we can probably manage every other week, but there's only two of us, okay? There are big families in Medford. A lot of them have children, babies with diapers, okay? So here's what I'm suggesting. So first of all, I think it's a great idea to have a ban on black plastic containers. There certainly are compostable containers that can be used in restaurants. There should be a ban on all single-use plastic bags, produce or shopping, any kind of single-use plastic bag. You have to ban those if you really want to reduce waste, because that's a lot of our waste. Even after we use them, 10 times, and they're totally filthy, they still have to go somewhere. They don't compost. Then you have to ban styrofoam. Okay, I don't know how much the city can do about that. But certainly, the packaging of food on styrofoam plates with, you know, shrink wrap around them, maybe you can ban that the city can ban something like that in the supermarkets. And then Finally, if you're going to ask people to do cloth diapers, is there going to be a service for cloth diapers? Because as long as there are plastic diapers available, how many people are actually going to remove the poop from their diapers, put them in the washing machine and all that, you know? Even the most environmentally conscious people I know are using plastic diapers. So you can compost those. So if the city is going to provide a composting service or get a deal on a, not a composting service, on a cloth diaper service, that might help. But it, I mean, you got to ban single use plastics. I mean, otherwise this is not going to work. And the key to testing the success of this program is the rats. Okay. We know how many rats there are in Medford. We know how many people have rat problems. And, um, You know, if people throw their poopy diapers in their waste basket barrels, and they fill up their barrels with all kinds of waste, including, you know, poopy diapers, and it overflows into this, you know, the second week the barrels open and so forth, you're going to have a bigger rat problem than we already have. Yeah, I agree with Barry. Whoever said it, it's a fait accompli. I think it's a great idea to reduce the waste, but you have to do some steps to make it possible. And composting is less than a third of our waste. We're very conscious. And yet there's all kinds of other waste. Composting alone is not gonna do it. That's all I have to say.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I'd like to throw to Prabita, who I know is very active right now, looking at zero waste initiatives, hopefully with some opportunities for us to push this forward.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Thanks, Will. Nice to meet you directly, Alisha. So a couple of things. I had thoughts similar to what were raised before, but just to consolidate mine, probably reiterating some of the others too. I wanted to touch base on the education and outreach piece of it. So going back to our discussion about the reduced trash pickup, a couple of concerns, not concerns, things to think about and potentially something like the MEEC committee could take it forward and discuss too is regarding outreach, right? Like as you said, even members of this committee, like the outreach and the communication, somehow it's not reaching us and reaching the people. While all the programs you had mentioned early on about like education on recycling, cloth diapering, single-use disposables, my concern is that we might not be able to or at least kind of the outreach that we are having or the platforms I'm aware of are not reaching probably a lot of the people right and I'm afraid if it's going to be the same targeted audience that's going to receive the information and a big bunch of them are going to not know about these things, even if they are interested in learning. I think somehow we, either the meek, the city, should figure out a way to actually reach residents who are somehow being shielded from the information, who are probably willing to learn. That's one thing I wanted to touch on. And again, we can take this conversation either in future meetings or even brainstorm now. And the second thing I will also mention about it, a couple of us are very eager to help with Zero Waste Medford projects and we would be very happy to work closely with the city or I guess there is another business, I forget the person's name that's involved, so we would really appreciate if we have the opportunity to work together on this because As you mentioned, we have 18 months to potentially implement, but also learn from the residents what could be the hurdles and hopefully find a way to transition and have some, you know, opportunities to modify the program so it's accessible and it's useful for everyone, right? So again, we would be very interested in collaborating closely on that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I see a hand from Luke.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. I echo what Parvisa just said. And I want to, a couple of things. I want to thank you, Alicia, not only for presenting and representing this to our group, but also for your work in trying to pull things together. I totally get that. It's not easy to go from the logistic working through a program to the marketing of that program. To Barry's point and to yours, 18 months is a good bit of time. I think that the communication, as I think we've seen in many different efforts of ours in this committee, it's really hard to reach all of the citizens of Medford. I think there are a few ways to do that. that we know, you know, in the water bill, some of the reverse 9-1-1 or 4-1-1 calls that the mayor does, I think have good reach. There are a few methods, I think, that do get out pretty well, but For much of this kind of thing, this is stuff that, frankly, my parents and even I, I'm too busy, I have not seen a word of this come through the mail or I'm not looking at social media and so, you know, some of this gets missed. by any busy working adult. And so I do think, A, it would be good to maintain that open attitude towards potential change. And I think it's great that you're meeting with the consultants again next week. but I hope that the open opportunity for listening and getting feedback and changing the program will continue even until that 18-month and even beyond. And so I think that would be valuable to communicate that we are listening, we are accepting feedback, and we will modify the program appropriately as we move through this process. I think on the austerity versus environmental policy front, it costs money to provide services. And I think it is okay to be clear that if there are budget constraints, There are budget constraints. If we would like to have a certain amount of service, there is a certain cost to that. And that has to come from somewhere. Where is it currently coming from versus where will it be coming from? I think those are valid ideas to be communicating in surveys and in discussions. And I think that that should continue. And lastly, I just want to say, for those of you who wonder, I have two girls now, 18 and 15. We did cloth diapers and it was great. You know, you throw the poop in the toilet and you wash the diapers. It isn't so bad, actually. You do have to get a little poopy sometimes, but hey, they're your kids. All right. I'll leave it at that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Thank you, Luke. Next up, I see John.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right. So let me lower my hand. So the biggest problem I have with this is just that every other week thing. I live on the border of Malden, and I've noticed that Malden has gone to 32-gallon containers. And they're all brand new. And Republic is the company that they used, and these containers seemed to arrive right when that strike happened. But I've noticed that my mother lives in Malden, and I go to visit her often, and I cut through Malden all the time to go visit her. I never see them really overflowing. It seems like every house has one, and that somehow seems to be working. I don't know how, but it seems to be. I know at my house, my container's only half full all the time anyway. So I'm thinking that the biggest fear that I have is the rat issue. And I've also noticed that my containers are starting to crack due to the UV light. So my containers need to be replaced. I'm wondering if going to 32-gallon containers is something that is actually feasible. That's all I have to say.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Thank you, John. And I think the last hand I'm seeing is Bob.
[Robert Paine]: Take us on. Yeah, John, I like that suggestion. But I was also noted that Alicia mentioned a possible drop-off capability, if that can be developed. Seems like a good idea to try to pursue, because there will be people who need, cannot store two weeks of trash and would like to be able to just take it or have, maybe there'll be a service. A cottage industry, if somebody will, some company will pick up people's trash who can't wait two weeks and deliver it to maybe some Medford place that takes it. There could be all sorts of interesting side industries that develop here that people need because they can't wait two weeks. There's also the issue of, and we've done this also with some of the more recent initiatives for these yard sales. There's stuff that gets thrown into the trash that other people would like to have, one person's Trash is another person's treasure, maybe more initiatives to have ways to. Reduce trash by having exchanges of that would be another way to reduce trash. That's that's the end of my comments.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And to China, I'm sorry, I'm 2nd.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I'm not using my video, but thank you, Alicia, for attending and explaining this. I didn't know about the 32 barrel, 32 gallons. Is that what they're proposing? Oh, okay. So the only issue I, well, I shouldn't say the only issue, but regarding the every other week rubbish, I think the city should really consider In the future, and I know we have a long time to get to this point is enforcement. And what I mean by that is the last meeting I said I was against. overflow bags. I didn't clarify that. I'm not against the overflow bags, but I don't want to see people using it instead of putting their rubbish in the container closed, which could happen. But also, you know, I've had firsthand experience with people overflowing immensely their rubbish and causing huge rat problems. So I just want you to keep in mind, how are we going to enforce that when we see a lot of overflowing trash? Because people do not have the money to buy an extra bin or don't want to, and they just overflow anyways. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, if you don't mind, I have it seems because I want to avoid the feeling that I'm arguing, but I do have information that I want to share based on a lot of the comments that I've heard. And so I just want that to be heard the way I intended. It's like there's because I have sort of there are answers or things that people may not be aware of. And I do try to take every opportunity to make people aware of it. Luke, actually, I want to thank you for mentioning that when you cloth diaper, you put the poop in the toilet. It was interesting because I have one of my staff whose children are younger than yours. She did not cloth diaper. And she's like, Alicia, doesn't everybody know that you're not supposed to leave the poop in the disposable diapers? in the trash that you're actually supposed to dump the poop into your garbage, into your toilet, no matter what diapers you use. And I said, well, you know what? No people don't know that. They really don't. Yay to her for realizing that with disposable diapers, she was supposed to be putting it, and she's like, my poopy diapers smell a lot less than people who leave that poop in there in their garbage cans. So I just sort of mentioned that. And then I have I heard from a mom of five, whose kids are all high school and younger, down to like two who said Alicia, we don't fill up our trash can every week, different people make different choices. It's how, like, You know, and it's possible. And there are families who are not concerned about it. There are other families who are very concerned about it. I've heard of people, two people who overflow their trash and recycling every week. And some of what we have already been successful in doing is getting people to think about trash and think about waste. and think about recycling. And I have been in the environmental space for a long time. And some of you may know that I was actually a green living blogger before I ever worked for the city, back before I made it, like I became in my career. And one of the things that we talked about was that you have to make the choices that are right for you. And there are a lot of ways that you can do the right thing for the environment and different things work for different people. And as a city for a long time, I've actually been sort of preaching that, that people have to pick which things work for you and do those things. And this is a case of where the city is now coming and saying, turns out that that waste thing, that sending this stuff to the incinerator and the landfills, turns out that's really worse than we thought it was, and we need to start thinking about this. And we're now asking people to prioritize thinking about their trash in the world of what they're doing. And so there are a couple of other pieces of information that I think is useful. The thin film, the plastic bags, including the vegetable bags that we get, plastic bags, the Ziploc bags and stuff, all of that can be put in a bag and put and taken to the grocery stores. We have looked at having return receptacles for those in places like City Hall and all, and it turns out that the only way we can get it then picked up is that we have to take it to the grocery stores where they have to bail it up into the right scale bales. in order for the recyclers to take it away. So everybody, almost everybody goes to the grocery store. Anyhow, they kind of have to go back to the grocery store. And I think a lot of people don't even know that the wrapping that goes around the toilet paper rolls and the paper towel rolls, all of that can go in there and back to the grocery store. And that's some of the education that trying to figure out how to get that out there to people is super important. And along those lines, We really welcome, how do we get this information out to people? It really feels like the only way we can reach people like Luke, your parents, is by making the 5 o'clock news. And we don't want to be making the 5 o'clock news all the time on everything, but I swear to God I know we're going to do it again on this waste stuff, because we are. But it's really hard to reach everybody because people are too busy to pay attention and they don't pay attention until it becomes a really big deal. And even sending people to knock on people's doors. We tried it with the Solarize program, right? Like it's not that easy and you can't get people to answer the doors. let alone putting something in their mailbox. We will do the water bills, which don't go to everybody. They don't go to renters. And a lot of people get them electronically. We will do the real estate bills. We didn't do the one just now because we weren't ready for that. But those go out quarterly. We will do those. But we really welcome ideas on that. And I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your first name. Prabita? Prabita. You got it. Prabita. As you were talking, something that I realized is that the city relies on the translation services that are like built into the city's webpage, and I tried it on that waste page and it doesn't work. And so I have to actually raise that back to our committee, is that the way it's laid out now is actually super helpful, but we also have to have a version that says for translations and to click here that people can get the information in a way that will translate for them. And translating these things, people are always like, why don't you get the information out faster? Well, because once the information's ready to go, it then takes weeks for it to go out to somebody to translate it, professional translation, and then we get it in, and then our in-house people who speak the various languages vet the translation and make sure it says what it's supposed to say. Sometimes it has to be relayed out, so that can take quite a while. The waste brochures we put out this year, We do have printed copies in, I think it's seven languages. The main ones we always see around the city, plus Italian, which we don't usually do, but we did for this one. So we're very, how do we get it out to other people? A few other things that I realize that people might not know. One is I don't like this solution, but if people wanted their trash picked up twice a week now, they could call another hauler and they could get that happen. In Winchester, for example, the town does not pick up waste and recycling. You either take it to the dump or you pay a service to come. The services exist. and nothing prevents people in Medford from doing it. I don't want them to, but they can, because it's actually all those extra trucks on the road that are not great. I think the better option is that once we go into the new system, an extra 64-gallon cart would cost $12 a month, which is like less than a cup of coffee a week. And an extra recycling cart would cost $6 a month. It costs more right now. It costs $12 a month right now. But when we go to the new program, we would discount it to incentivize that. The other thing with those carts is, John, I hear you about your big trash cart is cracking already because it's getting old. We ask residents to pay for the new trash carts. But also, residents have to notice, those big waste management trucks will never really notice that there's something wrong with your cart until it's literally falling apart, because they don't touch them manually, right? The arms do it. Every composting cart is touched manually by a person. And the policy is that if it appears to be rat chewed, then it gets replaced. And he has spares on the cart, and it gets on the truck, and it gets replaced on the spot. And so somebody is looking at those all the time. So that's a really helpful service that they're providing with the composting. And I think I jotted down a few.
[Adam Hurtubise]: What do you think of the 32-gallon rather than 64-gallon?
[Alicia Hunt]: Approximately 150 communities in Massachusetts are already doing 32 gallons once a week, which is literally the volume we're talking about. So that's not uncommon. And we know that works, which is why we're a little less concerned about the visions of overflowing trash that people seem to have, because those communities are also not composting. But those people are thinking about, what am I putting in the trash? What am I buying? What am I doing with these things in 150 towns? The way we see it is that would mean replacing all those giant plastic containers with all brand new small plastic containers. That would be a massive waste that, hopefully, at that scale, we would arrange for recycling of them. But then again, we actually pay for the trucks more than we pay for the actual weight of the materials. So the weekly pickup is more expensive. The trucks on the roads, those trucks are much more damaging. statistic we had in one of our presentations, Tim knows it, about how much more damage a garbage truck does to a street than cars do. And so it's measurable. It was like 100 times more or something. And the pickup, the cost, and then having all those One of the things we're doing is half as many trucks running through the city is part of what we want to see if it works. We think it can work. And we want to give it a chance, because it would be really good for the environment. I would say that doing something like, oh, we try this, and it turns out that some problem with it, but we could go to 32-gallon, then let's talk about that as, what are the backup plans? and not the let's try that first. It would sure be a shame to do that first and then try to do every other week trash. At least we have the right equipment this time. So I think those are sort of like the. pieces of information. The big one that I don't know how to get the word out is how what did all these plastic bags and the thin film recycling and that those can go back to the grocery store. We did talk I was very, very involved in working on the styrofoam ordinance. So the styrofoam ban in Medford bans it at restaurants. And we talked a lot about doing it for grocery stores. And it became really clear that we we didn't have the power to do that in the sense that these grocery stores are mega chains and there aren't other great solutions for it. It was going to significantly increase their prices. or their costs of doing business, that it wasn't clear if we had truly the authority to do it, that maybe if we were LA and we were such a large area and such a large population, maybe we could do it. Or New York City, but not a small city, we would be more likely to lose grocery stores than we would to affect change. And there was not. there was a reasonable chance that the grocery stores would fight it incredibly hard. I'm trying to remember back to those conversations. Everything that's pre-pandemic is a little woozy for me sometimes. But we did, we talked actively about whether we could do the styrofoam plates. I think the real styrofoam problem is the packaging that comes in fragile things that are mailed to you. And honestly, we're seeing less and less of that. More and more of that's cardboard. At this point, it's the styrofoam containers that medical supplies are shipped in. I mean, I get one of these once every month to my house, too, with the medical and the styrofoam. And there's nothing to do with it but put it in the trash. It's not even got a big enough inside to make it usable for something else practical.
[Adam Hurtubise]: One thing that you may not know, but you probably know. So I work for a medical instrument company. And we are required, as part of our regulations, that we have to reduce our styrofoam footprints. So we've already done it. We don't ship anything in styrofoam anymore. Everything's in that cardboard that's kind of like pulp pushed into a mold kind of thing. And I've noticed that a lot of products that I buy now, that's how they're packaged. So there is movement, I guess is what I'm saying.
[Alicia Hunt]: And those can go into the recycling stream.
[Lois Grossman]: I can't believe that nobody here remembers the days of diaper services.
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, yes. And they exist. There is a cloth diaper service. Well, sorry. There was when I was cloth diapering my youngest in this area. I did not use it. I have not checked to see if it still exists.
[Lois Grossman]: It would surprise me, but it used to be everywhere. I need diapers.
[Adam Hurtubise]: My youngest brother was 10 years younger than me, and I used to change his diapers all the time. And there was no drama to it at all. You take it, you dump it in the toilet, and then you wash the diaper in the wash machine. It was simple.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I just Googled. There are several. cloth diaper services, and the Diaper Lab is in fact still here.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: The Diaper Lab. And not actually feel grossed out about, I love it.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I will say there are some costs associated with it. We bought a little sprayer to attach to my toilet so that I could wash the diapers off like a quick clean right there on the toilet. Okay, yeah, that costs some money. You have to invest in some diaper, some cloth diapers. But in the end for us, we determined it was cheaper to just buy a bunch of cloth diapers and a sprayer than to go through a service.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Just because I want to also be mindful of the time. And I appreciate Alicia, you sticking around with us as long as you have. I'd love to kind of round this conversation out with it seems like there are a lot of things that you already have in the works. You have people doing a lot of things for you for the city already. Are there places you imagine us being helpful?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think, in particular, this idea of thinking about education, what I said to Sam and others at the library is that I'm not picturing a series that says, we're going to every other week trash. What does that mean for you? What I'm picturing are classes and programs that are centered on waste reduction that would be helpful for anybody. Whether they're on Medford city service or not on Medford city service, I think the easy for us is that we could bring garbage to guard been in to do some of the. uh, composting stuff. What I think that would be great is to think about if there were people who wanted to like, spend some time brainstorming on what could other things look like? What would other titles like? Certainly, I'm going to reach out to the MFN and talk about like, can we pull together some cloth diapering support groups, Um, but then, like, um, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. recycling? What don't you know about it? How to get rid of things that you think that you didn't realize? Like, what do I do with this? And how do we frame those things? How do we put together those sessions? What do they look like? I've almost wondered if there should be like a talking trash series that's like one week they talk about black plastic and one week it's about plastic bag. Like, I don't know. I'm not you know what, I'm not an educator. It's not my field. I kind of want to sort of catalyze it and pull the right people together, but I should not be putting together curriculum. So that's kind of like finding those and tapping and people who are enthusiastic about these things to work with us on this. That would be really helpful. And then again, the whole communications, we do have the Community Liaison Program where we have people who, I assume everybody knows that here, that we have people who speak other languages, who are employed by the city, they meet regularly as the, oh, Brenda, the Climate- Climate Equity Council. Thank you, Climate Equity Council. And Brenda, you should probably figure out, we should figure out me coming and having a conversation like this at that. group as well, but they don't reach everybody. And how do we reach the people who need to be reached? We really need to figure that out. And it's just super hard when you live this close to Boston, frankly, short of getting on the news.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Well, yeah, Zero Waste has been front of mind for many of our members already. So it's good to be realigned and know at least a direction that we can begin. But this will no doubt be something we revisit and I hope that you lean on us as much as you can because we care a lot about this and we want to make sure that this succeeds and it does the most good that it can. Thank you again.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I just had an idea that may may help you out. I don't know if they can do mixed 32 gallon and 64 gallon. But what you could do is people who have who want an overflow barrel, you could give them a discount on a 32 gallon barrel and then maybe slowly phase 32 gallon barrels through the city as barrels expire.
[Alicia Hunt]: I certainly think that maybe offering 32 gallons as an option for people might not be a bad idea. I have heard from one person whose concern is that they can't figure out how they would fit a second barrel as an overflow. next to it because of the space that they physically have. And that's also like a real thing. And so I really love the idea of people who are willing to consider their options. I find for me that it's really beneficial to talk through problems out loud, sometimes in the space and wave hands. And to have somebody, people who would be willing to go to people's houses, people who say, I want to help, but I don't know how to do this. Well, would you be open to having somebody come and talk it through with you standing in your kitchen? and then have people who would be willing to actually go do that. Let's see, where could we fit these things? Would this work in your house? Oh, I never thought of it. Oh, it's blindingly obvious. That happens all the time to people. And so figuring that out. And so both, I think this is a both in, if there are people here who can help with any of these things that I've mentioned, and if you know somebody who would actually be a good person to help with this. I think that that's helpful, too. They don't already have to be on a particular board or commission if they have a particular skill set or enthusiasm to help with some of this.
[Brenda Pike]: And if this is something that you are interested in being involved in, you wanna volunteer, especially if you have specific ideas for things that you would really like to, you'd be passionate about volunteering for, reach out to me, reach out to Will, and we'll make sure that you're being passed on to Alicia and to others who are doing the work here.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great, thank you. And I think that I'm not going to stick around, because I tend to dominate any room that I'm in. I don't want to do that. And my family would like to see a little bit of me. My oldest two, for those of you who remember them, are home from college this week.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, nice. Great, enjoy. Yeah, it's a pleasure seeing you. Yeah, great to see you.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Have a great week. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Bye. Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right. With that, hopefully that was productive. At the very least, it helped to direct my energies down some pathways, some ways that I can feel productive and helpful. But if you have other thoughts, please email me. See if there are ways that we can redirect energies towards something powerful, something productive, something that reduces waste. But given how much time that took up, I'm going to kind of move with a sort of abridged agenda.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: If Barry is willing, I'd like to hear his thoughts, response to all of that, since he was taking a somewhat different position. I'd like to hear if his mind has been changed at all, or if there's other things he'd like to respond with.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I don't buy it. I mean, I don't buy it. I don't buy that it's an environmental initiative disguised as an austerity move. I'm not, I just don't see the evidence that the frequency of trash pickup is the key to unlocking reducing waste. I don't think that's it. I think that the way you reduce waste is we move to weekly, recycling instead of biweekly recycling, as well as weekly composting, and that we reduce the amount of waste that we're producing in the first place, which doesn't happen as a result of cutting back on services. I just don't see it, you know. And I'm talking as—I brought this up just in case I needed exhibit A. This is This is my trash for this week, right? I'm not, I'm not talking for me. I'm talking for other people, you know, just like when I defend public education, even though I don't have kids in the school, I think that people need trash pickups. My neighbors need trash pickup every week. And, um, I just don't, if it isn't actually an environmental initiative, I don't think this is the right approach for just like putting on sweaters wasn't the right approach for cutting back on energy use.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Luke, I see your hand jump right in.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. Well, I hear you, Barry. I appreciate that perspective. I do want to ask, though, I am also a firm believer that incentivizing is the best way to get people to do things. And yet, there... well, I shouldn't say the best. It is a great way to get people to do things, but I do feel the best way to get people to do things is a combination of the carrot and the stick. And there is a cost to service. And I do think that there certainly is an environmental cost to more service when it comes to sending trucks through the city every week, especially if there are more trucks, if we're adding, for instance, recycling every week. I think those are good ideas, but I think my point that this should be a continued discussion, it should be a continued description of what the services can be and what they will cost. I mean, do we want our taxes to go up in order to support that? Is that what we would have to do in order to add recycling Every week, um, uh, what will the costs be next year? Uh, so that does come down to. Okay. Yes, there is austerity. Perhaps that's going to be the driver there. Okay. Um. But again, what will actually make us recycle more, compost more, throw away less, buy less stuff? I mean, I think we've been trying a bunch of different ways on that already. I don't know that anything other than your own personal attitudes have a very significant impact unless someone forces you to do a major change. So anyway, I'll leave it at that.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I agree with Luke on the carrot and the stick. I just don't think that this is the place to have the carrot and the stick. I mean, I think that the place for the carrot and the stick is in the purchase, in the manufacture and purchase of the garbage in the first place.
[Lois Grossman]: I can agree with that. I don't think there's much question. Yeah, we can't solve the problems of consumerism and the plastics industry in Medford, which is why our committee should not focus in that way. I think our committee should focus in smaller, more reachable targets. And I honestly believe that we can put knowledge out there that most people don't have. For instance, waste management is now taking paper cups. This is new. How many of you know that it's okay now to put paper cups in your recycling? But it is. Pizza boxes weren't allowed. Now they are. Clean or dirty, pizza boxes can be recycled. There's information that people don't have. These helpful, tricks like Brenda's group, you know, coaches, as Alicia mentioned, if we know anybody who wants to go and help people coach, but we can also give the information. Did you know that squashing your juice or milk carton takes up less room in your trash? You know, we need to put small, concrete, reachable things out there for people. and not try to get involved in the major issues. It's just an impression I have.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That said, if we come across good ideas along those same lines, alternatives to single-use plastics, alternatives to black plastics, alternatives that can be cost-effective, that can be available, then we can do a lot by promoting those in our restaurants and our grocery stores and our whatever, if there's a way of pushing that in a positive way.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: to maybe just put a bow on the end of it on the side?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: If I could just raise in passing, we won't have time to discuss it. But we've talked about the possibility of figuring out the best method of getting a compulsible containers only ordinance passed in Medford. And I don't know whether this, disagreement, dispute, whatever that's going on about the every other week trash pickup makes it easier or harder to try and do that. And at some point, I'd like to have a conversation about whether it is something that we should support and then what the best strategy is for trying to move forward on that.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I fully agree. I know Prabita just dropped off, but Benji, Lois, Prabita have been still working on this. Getting this as a formal push is an excellent space. The other thing I think was solidified by this conversation more than anything is that we may need to exist in the world where this is going to be attempted. It's not like it seems very clear that this is what the policy will look like. So what I want to imagine now is how we maybe use those savings to make new systems, to make new services that hopefully alleviate that burden and make it easier for people to keep up with what is being proposed. That's where I think my
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Mind is leaning towards something that I'll be trying to draft up, but I encourage you all to think similarly Yeah, very well, can I just please interject and I'm sorry to do that, but I do want to two things I think throwing it out as fait accompli and that this is what must be is actually counterproductive and That was one of the reasons I made the point to Alicia that this should be a dialogue with the community up until and beyond the point of instituting this, because frankly, plans change. If Mayor Brianna is not elected and a whole new administration comes in, they might gut this whole thing. If anyone cares about it, They should be working together on things that work for everybody. And if Barry's and my neighbors need some accommodations, we should have pathways for accommodations. you know maybe those accommodations cost something but they should exist and it should be a discussion and it should be considered open until further notice i think rather than like no there's no alternative i fully agree and actually i'll i would like to amend yeah no i appreciate that um
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, it's something that I'm still grappling with of how, what we can affect. And I don't want to minimize that. And I think we should, I would encourage us as a committee, that was something I wanted to come away with, potentially draft whatever I'm not going to say rebuttals, but amendments and things that we'd like to see to this service change to make it a little more formalized and something that we can work with our neighbors to push forward as potential alternatives, potential systems, potential ways of approaching this issue of waste and garbage. Loretta.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, I'd like to reiterate and agree with Luke. I think this has a long way to go. Plus, we have that public meeting at the end of January. I forget the date. And I think we should take direction from the office to see what the input is and what the community says. So we're not spinning our wheels. I mean, there's a lot we can do. We know what we can do from our meeting tonight. But I think we should wait and see what they need help with and how this goes.
[Lois Grossman]: Alicia has to keep us informed, right, to be part of whatever's going on all the time.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Right. And I just, you know, hope that they realize doing something like this, we need some kind of enforcement. And that'll be interesting to see how that pans out with overflowing and people not complying. And, you know, there's a long way to go.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. On that front, on the Smart Waste Program Recycling webpage, there isn't any meeting listed for January. There was one in December, and then there's, there was one in November, and then there's one in July 1st of 2027.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: It should be on the calendar for January 26, I think.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I agree, but I don't see anything, so. And it would be wise for the city, I think, to put something onto the recycling.
[Lois Grossman]: I've seen that meeting announced. Yeah.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It's at least not on the website. So yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: I think it's on the events calendar. I'm not seeing it on that website either. So yes, thank you for flagging that. Sure.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah. Bring it to someone's attention, Brenda, so that it gets back on there.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely.
[Lois Grossman]: I'm looking at the events calendar.
[Brenda Pike]: My two cents about what you were saying earlier, Will, I don't know that this committee necessarily needs to formalize something that everybody in this group agrees on necessarily. But I think it is super useful for all of you to be giving your feedback like you have in this meeting and like you have done all along. You don't necessarily need to all agree on something in order to give really useful feedback that can really inform the program. And then there's a lot that this committee can do to work on helping people reduce waste, no matter what the program looks like in the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot to mull over. A lot, a lot, a lot to think about. Please reach out to yourself.
[Lois Grossman]: Yeah, we're hitting our... Sorry, everybody.
[Brenda Pike]: I didn't get to give city updates. Is everyone okay with me sending around slides with the updates that I would have given? And then if you have any questions or feedback on any of it, feel free to email me about it or call me or whatever. Yeah.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: I like it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All right, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn and email me if you have further thoughts.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Motion to adjourn, please.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Perfect. Any opposed? Fantastic. Enjoy the rest of your evening.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. You too. Take care.
[Lois Grossman]: Thank you, Will.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thanks, Will. Bye.
[Lois Grossman]: Bye.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Everyone, have a good night.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Happy New Year.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_21]: Happy New Year.