Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Wednesday, August 8th, we will call the first meeting of the Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee uh to order at 7:02 p.m. Uh because we're all full remote, we'll do a a quick roll call and comms check. Uh Mr. Mallaloy, yes, I'm here. Okay, Mr. Perrick. Yes, I'm here. Mr. Rock. Hello. Miss Foley. Here. Mr. Brousard. Here.

Excellent. Um, first item on your agenda is to organize. Um, somebody like to kick off a discussion or make a motion to appoint the chair. Is anyone interested in being chair? Well, Mr. Mallaloy uh from the previous meeting seems to have the most experience in the area is pretty knowledgeable. I'm sure we'll be leaning on him a lot. I don't know if that leads to also being chair, but that might be my pick.

My only my only concern is I may be I'm planning on being uh out of the country for 3 weeks. um mid January to early February. Um and I thought if we had a meeting during that period, I'll be in Asia so I could, you know, log on using Zoom, but it might be 4:00 in the morning or something weird like that the next day. But um I'm okay doing that. Um, but I'm also happy if uh one of the select board members who is the rep on the committee is interested in doing it.

That's me. Um, and just FYI, Larry, I feel like the chair, it's really more the paperwork part of it. It's not really the expertise in the area in my opinion. Um, so I would rather not commit to it, but if if no one else does, I I I can I'm happy to be the vice chair and step in as needed. Um, I just I'm involved in a lot of things. Yeah, I I can potentially do it. I I just want to have a sense of what the the extra time commitment is. If it's paperwork, I really don't mind. Um, but you know, if it's if it's if it's very voluminous, then it's potentially a deal breaker.

Really just making sure that the Sorry, Evan. No, making sure that the agenda is to the clerk in an aotted period of time, coming up with the agenda, but that would be in conjunction with the members. And then additionally, um, well, our clerk would handle the the minutes and getting those. So, it's it's really agenda preparation and making sure that it gets posted in time. Um, Evan, anything to

Yeah. Uh, well, it was our intent kind of I think through the, you know, the thought process of creating this committee that my office would do a lot of that work for the group. So, uh, minutes would go through my office and, um, the chair would just communicate with Amber and I to set the agenda. Um, but I think it's going to be a pretty light lift as far as chair responsibilities go. I think the real work will be when everybody's together. Okay. I mean, with that in mind, um, if it's sensible to everyone, I'm happy to be the chair. I I also don't want to step on any toes. So, uh, whatever works for for the folks here.

I would like to nominate Larry Percheek as chair, then. I second. Thank you, Larry, for your brave service. I will help out as we can. Uh, I don't have a ton of municipal experience on the rules of order and process of filing things, but um, happy to help with the lift however we can. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, you have a motion in a second. Is there any additional discussion? Hearing none, we'll um do a roll call vote. Mr. Mallaloy in Yes. In favor. Mr. Pickric, yes. Mr. Rock, in favor. Miss Foley? Yes, Mr. Rousard. Yes.

Okay. Motion passes unanimously. I uh I turn the meeting over to you, Mr. Peric. Congratulations, Mr. Chair. We didn't mention that part. Yeah. So, uh Mr. Chair, uh if if you want, I can help navigate the rest of the meeting as it's a little trial. I find her I'm uh been down that a couple of times now. So, yeah, that would be really helpful. Please. So I think it's in the best interest of the committee to also select a vice chair for in case the chair cannot make it. Um and since uh yeah maybe Mr. Rat could do that.

I would be happy to volunteer as vice chair. Um not an expert but yeah with with the company present can't go wrong. There you go. I move that we nominate Mike Rack as vice chair of this committee. I just need a second. Second. Second move. Any discussion? Oh, yeah. I'm just hopping. Yep. Right. Fell right into the chair piece. So, uh yeah. Uh Larry, this is where you would normally say uh you know, all those in favor. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor and then we have to do a roll call because we're online.

Yep. So I I can I can help with that. So Jim I. Mike. I Yeah. Larry. All right. Great. All right. Um do we need a clerk? I don't think you do. I think we have we're going to use up my office for support. So I I think if we get to that if we if we find the group finds it needs it later on we can we can pivot at that time.

Um so uh Mr. Chair if you don't mind if we went on to item number two um I could throw up a quick slide just of kind of where we are currently. Um that that would be great.

Okay. Full disclosure, um I cannot remote into the server for some reason tonight. So I uh did this on the fly during the fin meeting that I was just at before here. So um I I do have documents that I am going to put into a um shared drive that I will send out to all of you that has more supporting detail, but this will be kind of a 35,000 foot uh overview. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And if I can get this to go see. Okay. Everybody can see that.

Yes.

Okay, great. Um, so currently in Grafton, and I know you're all Grafton residents, so I'm sure you are aware of how we operate, but just to go over it. Um, currently the program is 100% pay as you throw, which means that that's the only option that that residents have in front of them. Uh, we currently sell a roll of large bags for $14 and a roll of small bags for $8. Um, one of the documents, uh, or one of the sets of documents that I will put into the share drive is, uh, previous memos that I have written to the select board to change those fees over time, uh, with the intent of funding at least 50% of the projected cost of the program with those bag fees. Um, now, why 50%? And we'll get into that a little bit deeper, but generally speaking, when I came on board, we were in the high30s. Um, and we could see that that was really putting a strangle on the growth of the municipal budget and being able to keep pace with um both the town side and the the school side. Um, so we decided to increase those fees, which is how we got to what we're at today. Um the the total cost of the program includes uh recycling. So back you know when I started 10 plus years ago and I'm sure when Jim was in different communities you know we used to get paid for recycling uh that you'd get a credit on your bill uh to supplement your your uh municipal solid waste program. However that's no longer the case. So through a a slew of different reasons, um you know, recycling costs about the same amount uh as it costs to dispose of your muscles solid waste. So um the bag fees are now covering both the

the tipping fees for trash and recycling. Um, so with those 50% fees, we're still using about $600,000 of uh the operating expenses of the town to cover the remainder of trash. Um and subsequently having having you know observed that for a number of years here in Grafton um the select board determined um along with myself that we should create an enterprise fund uh in May of 2025. And so um I I put just the the state's definition of what an enterprise fund is here. Um but essentially it it takes the um cost of the program out of uh the tax rate the taxpayer funded portion of it and makes it essentially a fee for service. So you can see that it's it's what the the cost of the what you bring into the enterprise fund is is in theory at least supposed to cover all of the expenses that you have in the program. Um and so why did we do that? Well, we did it for a couple of reasons. One is that as the budget gets tighter um and as inflation happens and costs get tighter, having that uh portion of the tax rate funded through the tax rate or sorry the portion of the of the municipal solid waste program funded through the tax rate is less and less desirable. Um but there's another reason for it that's a little bit more uh you know philosophical which is that um everybody in Grafton is paying into the tax rate but not everybody in Grafton is utilizing the municipal solid waste program. And so, um, you find yourself, uh, like let's say you live in a condo, you pay your condo fees to have your solid waste removed, um, but you're also paying as part of your annual taxes for everybody else's trash to be removed.

So, there's a little bit of an equity um, component to it. I wouldn't say that that's the the end all beall of of that, but that's that's kind of the underpinning of where our conversation was uh heading into the May town meeting. Um so that is about where we are with the exception of and I realize I didn't put this in here. Our current projection for fiscal 26 for the cost of the trash program is uh about $1.35 million. Mike, did you have a question? That was exactly my question is the the total cost at current.

Yep. That that's our current our current cost. Um so you can see that you know we're we're funding we're we're we hover around the 50%. We kind of bounce back and forth and it also depends on a number of other factors which is how much the bags cost at any given time and um how much people are throwing away at any given time. So that eB and flow that es and flows a little bit. Um and we we do see that fluctuate. Um and so we can put all of that data again in the in the drive and we can look at what those fluctuations look like over over time as we kind of dig deeper into the the solid waste. Yeah. Jim.

Yeah. Um just curious when was the last time the town went out to bid for sanitation services and for how many years was it? So when is the next bid do? So it's fiscal 25 is when we went out. It's a three-year with a two-year extension. However, um we did write language into the contract that would allow us to um look at different service models as we as we went. Okay. Did that have a um built-in cap on what the increase could be each year? Correct. Yes.

Okay, good. So, we we have a pretty good idea. My only concern would be that, you know, we come up with a plan and if we're going out to bid a year from now, you know, we put new charges on people and then shortly thereafter it's like, oh well, we just went out to bid now it's going to go up by 20 or 30%. So, it's good to know that we've got a bid or a contract in place for up to five years, it sounds like. Yes. That would at least let us know what those costs were going to be going forward as we look at different fee structures. Thanks.

Yep. Exactly. I uh as an aside, I I had I had had a different vendor uh in my previous community that uh attempted to shift the the cap model um to just tie it to the consumer price index. Um and that was a lesson learned for me. I I didn't agree to it, but that was a lesson learned for me that I want a solid percentage uh built in of what we're going to see for rising costs. Okay. Any other questions on this brief overview?

Evan, the only other thing I I want to um throw out there because uh Larry and Mike may not be aware of all the aspects related to how an enterprise fund works. And one of the important things is like most communities when they have a water and sewer system that works on an through an enterprise fund, right?

And those have to be self-supporting. And if they're not, what will end up happening is at the end of the year when we when the town submits its schedule A to the Department of Revenue, if we don't raise enough funds to support the enterprise fund, then what ends up happening is the state will hid the town's free cash figure or a number of different things that if we have um stabilization funds or we have room to raise it in the um tax rate or something like that. and then we would be falling back into the same position that we're in right now where we have um uh property taxes supporting the the service and not necessarily the rates and we don't want to have it both ways. And so I I I just want to make sure that Larry and Mike understand that that um when we go to set rates, we want to make sure that we have enough of a um and I I hate to put it this way, but a cushion to make sure that whatever we do, we raise enough money to ensure that we have um the funds available to cover the the full cost.

So, just to make sure that I understand what you're saying correctly, if there is a shortfall in the enterprise fund, that deficit comes out of the free cash fund and is frowned upon by the state. Well, it it can either come out of free cash or stabilization or they'll add it to the tax rate as a raising a deficit basically. Um, we don't want to do any of those, right? It would be bad for us as a town. It would look bad to to create a enterprise fund and then immediately have a deficit in it.

Yes, we do we do want to avoid that. And there's a a number of of reasons why, but I think that's a great point, Jim, to to dive into that. We can we can certainly go deeper into the mechanics of uh u the enterprise fund as we as we move along. I have a question. Sure. Um, you mentioned that the contract that we have with our current provider uh allows us to explore other options while while the contract is pending or ongoing.

Yes. Um, are we are we absolutely comfortable with the terms and conditions that are in the contract that if we go out and either negotiate with other vendors or even contract to work with another vendor, it does not expose the town to a breach uh a breach lawsuit with with the current vendor. Uh yeah, so you know uh absolutely comfortable is a hard thing for us to define because we get we get we get it kind of from all sides. But yes, we we have a I think we have a reasonable um level of comfort that Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, like these are terms and conditions that we've used before, other towns have used and they they tend to hold up.

Yeah. We Yeah. We did not reinvent the wheel with any of this uh documentation. So, um, obviously when we get, uh, if we, if that's the direction the group starts to head, um, then we'll engage, uh, town council on that end of the conversation and and talk how to navigate that.

For sure. For sure. Um, you know, one of the things, and this is just an aside, I guess, but one of the things that I found in being in Grafton and working with Eel Harvey in particular is that they they do provide a a very good service to the the town. The amount of complaints that I get in our office uh of in a town of 20,000 people is a fraction of what I got for complaints in a town of 8,000 people. Um, and so that was one of the kind of one of the delightful things about coming to Craftton was half my day wasn't taken up with people angry about their their trash program. Um, you know, we still we still hear uh complaints from folks and we try to handle those as best we can, but it's definitely, you know, I think we have a pretty solid program to to either build off of or pivot from. Anyways, um, all right. Anything else specific to that? I tried to keep it again high level as we'll we'll kind of dig down on on topics as we move forward with the group.

I'm happy with that. I'm ready for the next slide. But Ann Marie,

yeah, I just was going to add that um in terms of like looking at we're doing what we're doing now and why looking at a different system might be better in addition to folks who live in condos who are being kind of taxed twice. Um, for me it and when we talked about this and kind of sold it to the to the the committees and public in the spring, um, it's more equitable generally. So, uh, as a senior, let's say, who's, uh, you know, producing like one bag every two weeks, um, that's fine. They're they're saving some money on the upfront costs of the bags, right? But they're still supplementing this 600,000 plus um, in their taxes. So, it's a little, you know, and again, if you have a family of six or eight, then it's going to be tough on you, right? It's going to be more expensive. But, um, all in all, it just kind of divides it out in a more equitable manner if, um, we're not, you know, everyone's just paying for what they they produce, so to speak. Right. That's a great point, Amory, that and you know, generally speaking, uh, in the the world of municipal solid waste, the most equitable program is always going to be paid as you throw because you pay for what you produce. So, if you're able to reduce how much waste you produce or increase your composting or uh you know, pay attention to your packaging or however you choose to to do that, uh you know, you're going to pay less than uh your neighbor that is not doing any of that and is just producing more waste. So, it generally is seen as the most equitable uh program. All right. Do you want to just look at the other side? The other side is again just really basic. There's really only three things that I put on here and we can certainly explore more as as again as the group goes forward and I get access back to my server here. All right.

Come on. There we go. So the three main models that I've come into contact with over the years in the town or in the state of Massachusetts um really are three things other than what we currently have. So pay as you throw definitely a lot of different communities doing that. There are programs that are called totar programs or automated programs. And what these are is that every uh residents, every address in the community gets carts that are tied to that address. So if you move, they they stay there, right? They're not your property per se. Um and they are all different sizes. So different communities will do uh some do a 35gallon trash receptacle, some do a 64 gallon, some I don't know of any that are doing 96, but I'm sure that they're out there. Um and then you pres pro provide uh recycle bins as well. Um generally those are the larger of the the two bins. Um so the pros to that is that generally you can get a better price from your hauler because the program is now completely automated. So they're not getting out of the truck as frequently. They're grabbing it with the arm, dumping it into the truck, and moving on to the next property. So there is some some economy to be to be gained there. Um the problem becomes um and this is actually full disclosure, this is the program that I have in the community that I live in. So we have 164gallon barrel and uh you can have up to two 96gallon recycle bins. What happens is if you get into a situation like uh you host Christmas like I do or or the holidays like I do um and you got 26 people at your house and you produce a lot of trash that week. I wind up storing bags of trash in my garage because there's no way to get rid of them. There's no other potential. It either fits in the bucket

or it doesn't. Um, which is problematic I think for residents in general because one you you know it's it's fine in the winter but if this was the middle of summer you probably would have a bigger problem with that. Um it also invites you know problems with with uh pests. Um and in I think it does lead to higher instances of public dumping. Right. If you have no way to get rid of this, maybe your option is to find a quiet road in in Grafton and dump your waste, which is never good. Um, the second program that we see a lot of is the same as I just discussed, Totar Automated, except they have an overflow bag program. So, think about the pay as you throw program that we have. Um, except those bags are only used for trash that you cannot fit into the bucket. So some communities go to a 35gallon container. Um and then once that's full, if you have other waste, it goes into again like for us it would be a green bag that you have to buy separately and that's how you fund kind of that additional tipping fee uh or tonnage that you're going to pay. Um and lastly, you know, there's a lot of communities that still have no curbside, so everybody kind of fends for themselves. And while it would be very hard, I think for Grafton to go backwards to that, I do want to mention that that is how a lot of communities in Massachusetts still operate. So, um, Jim, I don't know if you came across anything else as far as how that works in other municipalities, but that's what I've seen most regularly at like those D conferences and talking to other town administrators.

Yeah, th those are the models I've seen. Um, and and I the the I'm not real familiar with some of those um because I just haven't had to use utilize those um formats. But um in in the community you live, Evan, um you said that you have different sized um trash totes and then recycling totes, right? So, do you pay on a um monthly basis based on the size of your tote? Uh, no. So, it's just a quarterly fee. Okay.

Um, you know, all single families are one fee. You know, duplexes are one, you know, and so on and so forth. But it's just one flat fee for for the quarter. And I believe that the the idea of the larger toaders for recycling is just to try to promote recycling as a environmental practice as opposed to um you know a real cost differential I guess you know. So the the D puts out a um a spreadsheet that has every single community in the state in it.

Yes. type of program they have and uh how much recycling is being generated, how much solid waste is being generated by percentages and everything. And I think that would be really helpful in um to get that uh an updated worksheet from the DP so that we could um take a look at what the impact of making some of these decisions would be because if pays you throw from the last time I've seen any of those spreadsheets pay as you throw communities have by far the highest recycling rates

other systems have lower recycling rates because the incentive or the disincentive isn't there for them to for residents to um recycle. Um and and I and I know we have um a composting program. I backyard compost because I don't h I have a septic system. I don't have a garbage disposal. So we've been backyard composting for the past 15 years. We come up with all kinds of surprising tomatoes in my wife's herb garden, which which is great. tomato. Um

but uh you know it also then how do we start talking about um expanding the um if we do curbside composting, how do we get that so that it's expanded so that that drives down some of our solid waste as well? And is there a fee for that or do we do it for free and all of that? Right. And and um Oh, Amy's raised her hand. I was going to punt this over to you, Amory.

Yeah. So, um the curbside composting that um I brought that into our town through Black Earth maybe five or six years ago um just as a an individual um thing that I took on and built it up to I don't know maybe 70 or 80 uh people that were participating. um then plugged it to the town to the select board in addition to Evan who were on board with um with doing this as a town model. So still with black earth compost. So I think now we got it up to like maybe 150 residents. It still isn't impressive. You know if you look at other towns actually our size they were quickly able to get up to like a thousand or 1500 participants but and there's a lot of variables to that right here at to your point people are doing backyard composting. we have some space, a lot of us in our home, so we can do that. We don't need a curbside program. So, you know, the 150 or thereabouts doesn't really capture, no doubt what's, you know, truly going on in the community. Um, but actually to to support that, um, through the town minister's office, we're also doing a subsidy for backyard compost of bins and that was pretty successful, I understand. So, we probably I don't know how many of those we got got rid of, but there are certainly. So that was um we provided them through DBW at a you know a cost of 50% off or something and so you know to your point I think absolutely I'm a big proponent of of composting and and then when that will be part of what I would hope to bring to this group is that you know I'll continue to try to push the composting because it's an incredible amount of tonnage that goes in our trash relative to composting. So, trying to make it as easy as possible for folks. And I think again, if if I'm faced with paying for all of the trash that I get rid of, not just the $8 bag every other week, then yeah, I'll be more incentivized, right, to to try to get rid of it in other ways. So, the good news is we have a

composting program in our town. The schools are doing Black Earth as well as the senior center now. Um, so at least we can just, you know, build on that and maybe use some of these, uh, you know, the the dividends program to, um, you know, beef that up even more. But

yeah. Yeah. We used, um, we used Black Earth and in Lexington when I was working there. And, um, we actually because we felt we were going to be reducing so much of our solid waste that we um, covered the first year for any resident who wanted to um, get Black Earth. But we capped it like 500 households a year or something like that. And um we we sold out every year in the first it was the last two years I was there that we started doing it. And um and so it it does significantly because I don't think people recognize the weight and the volume of food waste.

And Black Earth because of the way they handle it, you can pretty much put anything in there. Whereas when I do my backyard stuff, right, it's it's just vegetables and paper towels and and things like coffee grounds and things like that. Yeah. So, what the what Evan's office supported and I think I'm not sure if the select board was involved in this necessarily, but um through that uh what is it the dividends program grants uh we are giving the bags and the bins for one year to residents who are interested, but we didn't go so far as to cover the cost. But that, you know, maybe in doing all this, we could we could see if we could um

just beef that up a little bit and maybe take care of people's fees for for the year. We could probably utilize that RDP some of the RDP money we get from Yeah, that's what the thing that I'm talking about. I'm calling it the wrong name, but yeah. No, that's Yeah, that's what I was trying. I I just want to make sure we recognize Mike. He's had his hand up for a little bit, too. Uh yeah, couple of questions now. Thank you. Um, first question. So, we have Totar Automated, Totar Automated with Overflow, no curbside. What's the correct name for what we currently have where we have curbside, but it doesn't have to be in a bin. So, it's just generally speaking, it's just pay as you throw.

Just pay as you throw. That's what our system is is referred to as. Um there I guess we can get into the the full details of that, but is there a position or an option between automated with overflow and no pay as you throw where we have pay as you throw but it's with you know bin. I see what you're saying. Yeah. So part of the problem with that is that the drivers then can't verify what's in the bins until they're already in the truck. Understood. So So you you know compliance is a challenge then.

Yep. Compliance is a challenge. Yeah. That's that's and it still happens today. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of people that put their black bag at the bottom of their bin and uh you know the green bag on the top and um you know we we police that as as much as we can. the drivers actually do a fairly good job of policing it. Um, but I'm sure that there's still plenty of it happens that goes on, you know, with the amount of waste that they're picking up on a daily basis. So, and then question two, I think it was Larry, you mentioned RDP funds. What is the RDP acronym? Uh, RDP is well that one second now. Recycling dividends program.

Thank you. That's a state Yeah, D essentially gives you funds for uh your environmentalism as part of your your program. So the more of their certain criteria that you meet, the more money you get uh allocated to your community. So it's it's like a point system. Okay. Excellent. We can we have we've been awarded that I think well the the whole time I've been here but I think even um the the town administrator before me with the the I think they did eight or nine years while he was here um he got art very good amounts of RDP money at uh as well. So

and the the RDP points translate into dollars at some point. Yeah. And then you can use that for other programs either supporting your municipal solid waste program or what we've used it for is we've supplemented the cost of backyard composters which I think we're I think we've moved almost a hundred of them. I can double check with Will but I think we've done about four pallets uh of those and I think they're 25 per pallet. Um and we've also done some other outreach things. We've subsidized part of the black earth and I I just can't remember what the the dollar amount that we spent on that was but and I think the NDP N that we supplement

NT we we supplement part of that. That's a great your great uh point. So NT is where you would bring any of your hazardous household materials. Um so yeah I have a question. Um, sorry, you mentioned on the totes. So, I've did have done some research on different towns. So, there's some different things with that too. A like would the the hauler own the totes or then there's some municipalities where the municipality owns the totes and then it talks about like if the homeowner owns the totes and they get ruined or they don't really take care of them, etc.,

right? So, those are those are definitely things that we would have to consider. Um,

what I have seen in the past and again they have a I can't remember what it's actually called. I call it the trash summit. They have a thing every year that the EP puts on and you go and they show you all this all the new technology and you can talk to vendors and and things like that. But um you know, one of the things that that uh is kind of neat out there is that the town can use grant money from D to pay for the totes and then they become the town's totes, which in my opinion is a preference. Um because then they stay with the address. Um and you know, they um they just they're branded and they're they're very, you know, they're easily identifiable. Um, I've seen other communities do the ones that the hauler owns and the benefit to that is you don't have any part of that program. So, the the the tote gets ruined, uh, car hits it, whatever happens, it um, you know, it's all on the hauler. The the the resident calls the hauler, the hauler brings out a new bin and and you know, all is good. Um, and then the ones that the the homeowners own, um, a lot of times they are that I've seen anyways, they're not a specified container. So, as long as they're x amount of gallons, you can use it. And, you know, there's there's again there's pros and cons to that, too. People maybe can save money buying them, uh, there's a little more freedom there, but also it's harder for us to to track and ensure compliance again. Um, yeah. Philip

Evan, is there a um I I believe there's usually a difference in the cost of the hauling contract if the town absorbs the cost of acquiring all of the um as opposed to the contractor and and I'm not sure what what is in the current contract. Um it might be good I mean it's a public record. It might be good for us to all get a copy of that. I it it will be in your drive to tomorrow. Uh it was going to be in your drive tonight, but like I said, I can't get into the server from here for some reason. So, uh I apologize for that. I also have I don't I have to check the date on it, but I do have the D document that you were talking about, Jim, that

Okay. breaks down all the the communities. So, if I don't have the most recent one, I can grab that from D uh quickly. Yeah. Um, so I will say that uh to interject here, I did look into who owns Eel Harvey. The company is named Waste Connections. They are slowly creating a single vendor system up and down the East Coast.

Uh, read their corporate niche deck. It's a little a little some would say ghoulish, some would say capitalistically efficient. um and that they are doing a very good job at moving towards a single provider being available in every zip code. Um but my question is um when we put out the RFP, we have discussions I'm guessing with EL Harvey um about like what moves the price needle like if we switch to an alto system, things like that. These are conversations that the town has previously.

Uh yes. So, um, yeah, we don't really have it with just El Harvey, though. We we we go to D generally. This is how we've done it in the past. We'll go to D. We'll talk to other communities. We'll talk to other uh vendors at different junctures. Um, and then we'll put it out to the market. And, you know, it just so happens that in Grafton, you know, E Harvey has been the hauler for quite a while. So they they have a really good idea of how to bid that that contract, but we're not um you know, we're not really we will get advice from them only as far as we feel that advice is advantageous to the community, right? So

um yeah, I I I full disclosure, it's actually interesting. So, uh, the gentleman that is our liaison for EL Harvey now, uh, was my EO my rep in my previous community when he was with a different hauler. And actually, before I even got into local government, I went to a retirement party for a T town administrator and wound up sitting with him at dinner. So, I knew him before any other government folks. So, it's it's been kind of interesting that we keep running into each other over the years. But um yeah, Jim.

Yes. Um so uh can we also get a breakdown of what the um because of the 1.35 million um a portion of that goes to Eel Harvey portion goes for actual disposal, right? I assume we take it to the Wheelerator plant in Milberry. That's correct. Please stop. Yes. Sorry. my uh nine-year-old was hauling the dog in front of the camera for some reason. But um um yes, we we can give all of that that data and we are using wheelbarraider currently.

Okay, it it would just be good to know that because at some point if we choose a system like totes and we recognize that maybe recycling will go down then we have to recognize that then the cost of disposal goes up through wheel of braid. Right. Good great point. Yeah. Question to you again, Evan. Sorry. Um Oh, good.

The on the the recycling, did we get information on that? Like, you know, how we did this quarter versus the next quarter in terms of clean recycling and contaminated recycling and all that. Yes, I I will have to look at how often we get our contamination number. Um I just can't recall. Um so but we can I you know I think that what my my intent here is is to put as much of that data together. Um so that we can have these you know really robust and deep conversations that that this being the kickoff I just didn't get see what everybody everybody wants to look at and and I think get get our feet under us. Um, but yes, that's a that's a valid data point that we need to look at, Jim.

Sorry, I didn't I didn't lower my hand from before. Oh, okay. Good. I fixed it. Okay. Excellent. Good. So, you know, Evan, for what it's worth, it is you mentioned like fully automated with the totes versus the pay as you throw. And my experience, at least, I don't know about the rest of you fellas here in town, it is fully automated. There's just a driver now. And it's it's even just with our bags, they're just Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. I think that you know what you see I'm not a huge fan of the automated with just the bags because that's where we get the the highest failure rate. Um you know, and I I think again we've been pretty lucky. The drivers do a pretty good job of cleaning up after themselves if the bag doesn't make it, but not 100% all the time. So yeah, but my point was more like it shouldn't be an additional increase for us as a town. Um if we

or I'm sorry, a decrease in cost if uh because we have three drive three eyes on the truck right now and if we go to a tote system, it's goes down to one with the automation. So we save money. We're already there. Like so there's no savings to be had maybe on that. I I think that where the savings comes in in general is that if you have everybody runs the same tote, you have less opportunity or less cause for the drivers to need to stop and get out because it's less likely a failure point to just dump the bin. I that's how I understood it um with my last conversation with the RV. Yeah, I I've I've seen them picking up the the bag, too, which

I've seen bag pickups with the arm be successful, and I've seen a lot of bag pickups that are not successful. It tears, the driver spends mid time running around picking it all up. So, they try because, yeah, who wants to get a stress injury, but uh I think there there's a lot of cost baked into chasing down trash when the bag tears. Yeah. And I think just to I mean we have to keep in mind so we are we are running a municipality to provide the best services to residents for the least amount of cost but any hauler we get that's not their mission right and so uh you know even though this is a municipal service you know you Mike you had talked about how they're they're kind of buying up their competition and creating a there there's about four majors in this part of the United States and they're all doing that. That's their That's their goal. Um and you know, we we just happen to be the recipient, but

it's good business. It's bad for us, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yep. Yep. All right. Um Okay. Uh Mr. Chair, I think you Oh, Jim, and I have one other question. Sure. Overall, and and maybe either you or Ann can answer this. Overall, um, do you have a pretty good feeling about the satisfaction level of residents with the current program? Um, yep. Um, I would, yeah, I don't have, you know, if I was going to guess a percentage, we're at maybe 80%, 75% anecdotally.

Um, and and it's dependent, right? So sometimes we get a bad run of bags from the plastic extruder and then people are very dissatisfied the bags rip. they, you know, there's there's problems with the bags and and um quality control sometimes and so then, you know, that impacts. But as far as again, just gauging the amount of complaints that we get through the office and through board of health, um it's, you know, maybe one or two a week and and of those one or two a week, they they don't all get vetted out to be an actual problem with the hauler. Um, you know, we we get a lot of calls of, um, you know, they drove right past my house and didn't pick up my my trash. Um, a lot of those are people that missed the the time to get it out and they want us to have them come back and we we do uh you know, but that that's a lot of it and and um you know, so there's some onus on the homeowner and some on on Harvey, but it's it's a pretty I'm telling you, I I'm I was shocked when I got here because I spent a lot of my time on on municipal solid waste before and um you know, I think they're doing a pretty decent job and I think people are generally happy.

Yeah. Good. Um, and I I can just say from my own perspective and working in different communities and being a resident in this community that I'm as a resident, I've been very happy. I think we've been with the current system for maybe the last 13 years, 14, something like that.

And um I I can't think of a time during that period where I've had any kind of an issue at all. And and if if we have, we've just called up Harvey and they've come and taken care of it. And with them owning the bins, one of our bins did get hit by a car in a high wind day. It blew out into old West Bro. Cars by at 50 miles an hour. I live on a curve. Somebody hit it and it was obliterated and and the front of my in front of my house and um Harvey just came and picked it up and brought us a new one. And so, um, I've as a resident I've been really happy with the system and I'm just I was just curious whether or not

my my level of satisfaction is pretty general with that throughout the community. Yeah, I I feel like it it is again based on complaints, but I I do have one other anecdote that is just aside and I think it's more driver based than it is, you know, eel Harvey based. We we we have heard from a number of our our seniors uh most most of them, you know, widows um who have long driveways or they have a that the driver pulls up to their house and gets out and goes to their garage and brings their trash out. and and you know that's that's um and I'm not I'm not generalizing it that I think the only folks that have called have been older senior women to tell us that this is happening but um maybe they're doing it in a more broad practice but um it it's it it is pretty neat to see that happen when you have folks that are here for a while and get to know residents and uh go that extra mile. So that's been that's been kind of nice to hear. Yeah, I think that's generally a trait with the L Harvey too is um because we did have them for a while in Lexington and I know that um they sort of go above and beyond a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Amber Marie, did you put your hand up too?

Yeah. I was just going to say just to answer you, Jim, as a select board, well, first of all, as a resident, I've been super happy with with Eel Harvey. I don't have any problems. Nothing ever happened. My trash bags don't break. I don't have any put it out there and it it goes that's the last I see of any of it. So I have no complaints. I think I have had some experience particular the previous driver who went above and beyond a couple of times and things. Um and as a select board member the only time um and I don't really hear from anybody about trash and I hear from a lot of people every day about a whole bunch of other things. Um but no one has ever talked to me about trash in the four years I've been on the board. Um, but what I read on social media or where have you is when we increase the cost typically around budget time, then there's, you know, folks complain about this is ridiculous. These bags cost too much money. And then it kind of feeds into there's a quality issue with the bags and I don't know if there's like to Evan's point, I don't think it's a consistent quality issue, but we've had kind of some es and flows with that. So

outside of that,

I think that the the system works. And if I can digress for just a second about the bags and I'll give you some more data about this, but we have looked at other vendors. Um, they're either not cost-effective or they're the exact same plastic extruded at uh same coming from the same exact place. So, it's not going to really fix our problem. Um, one of the things that, you know, you have to kind of factor in when you're doing a pay as you throw is that you want to have the thinnest bag possible, uh, that is still strong enough to support the weight of the the refues because you're you're doing this primarily for an environmental impact, right? This is why pays you throw is is kind of taken taken uh hold. And um you know if ever if you start buying you know hefty bags that will never break uh you know that's great but the cost of those bags goes up which then drives up the cost of the program. Plus it's not really a great great way to be trying to be as uh minimal plastic as possible. So um you know we're we're trying to thread that needle. I I think that the the quality's gone up a little bit since uh postcoid. During COVID, we had a lot of plastic extrusion problems, but um seems to have stabilized a little bit, which I will knock on wood because I don't need that coming back. All right. Anything else anybody has? Uh I would like to chime in just to make sure that we are all roughly aligned on like what the long-term objectives of the municipal solid waste advisory committee are. So we want to like touch into the enterprise fund mechanics, go over some of the best practices, make sure that it is adequately funded to avoid frequent rate changes, but we don't want to have it like you know more expensive than it needs to be. So it

would be stable but level funded. Uh we want to evaluate our service models and vendors. Um you know we're looking for something that is equitable. I will agree that yeah Eel Harvey has been for the community. I feel a remarkably good vendor that goes above and beyond. Um yeah making sure that whatever solution we choose is equitable. I think Evan bringing up the different service models was really helpful. um talk about our pricing strategy, some of the compliance, the unintended incentives built into some of those other models, you know, dumping or recycling may go down as part of that. Want to talk about our waste diversion streams. So, Ann Marie um discussed uh black earth composting. I didn't know that Grafton subsidizes that, but I do see those around those black earth bins. We do backyard so it's um not really something we've had to dabble in but yeah waste today version streams um both residential and you know business commercial waste is sort of its own thing they're doing their own thing on that but we might be able to capture some of the waste diversion streams for that as well um and then nobody said it explicitly but some community outreach and input I think um you know poll on some of the satisfaction pain points, community needs. I feel that we as a group have captured them pretty pretty accurately. They match what I'm hearing in the community, but I think that having some community outreach would still smooth the process a tiny bit. Um, you know, when we transfer from the current model where it's coming from our operating budget to a enterprise fund, you know, nobody loves change. Um, so just making sure that we're engaging the community so they're not shocked. Are

there any other main objectives of the advisory committee in our several months in office? I I think you covered that with a great synopsis, Mike. And then I would also like take a moment to thank everybody who's here. Thank you for caring about trash. um and not getting too annoyed that I I'm not following the the municipal rules of Robert's rules of order, but um I feel like I'm in really good company here, that there are people that care about this. Um thank you everybody. I look forward to working with all of you. Yeah, thank you, Mike. Likewise.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you got a really good group. I'm I'm happy to be uh able to work with all of you. Um, I do want to just note one thing. Um, and then Mr. Chair, if we're wrapping up, um, you know, I I have marching orders to put stuff, uh, what we need what we need for documentation. So, I will certainly work on that in the next couple of days. Um, but I do want to note that, uh, it is my intent that when we get to the recommendation phase of this. Um, I will not vote uh on that because I am not a resident of the town of Grafton. Um it's kind of a weird uh process and Grafton does this sometimes is they put staff onto committees and and that's perfectly fine. Uh but I want to make sure that you know this is representative of of residents that are actually using the service and not just the town administrator who has to figure out the budget. Um so uh you know I just wanted to put that that out there. Um that I'll I'll abstain from that moving forward.

Thank you for the transparency. Oh, sorry. I was going to say, no, I'm just hopping into um I think that'll be fine. Even though it leaves an even number, I would anticipate that by the time we get to the end of this, we'll be in agreement with the system that we end up proposing. So, I don't think that'll be a problem at all.

I I think moving forward, I'll recommend to the select board that uh you know, I be name if I'm going to be on a committee, I'm an exeicio member and we create an odd number of uh residents. So just so we don't run into that cuz I like I said I I well you get it. So um all right. So Mr. Chair, if there's nothing else um we can move on to a journ. I can have Amber send out another email to try to poll folks on a follow-up meeting and get everyone's availability and then like I said we will build that that file. Jim,

I I I was just going to ask that is whether we wanted to do it that way or if we wanted to try to schedule a regular like every other week or something like that so that we had um because we've we've got a limited time frame. Yep. And I think if we have, you know, regular meetings then you've got a target of okay, you need to get us information a few days beforehand. We know that and you know that so that we don't all of a sudden say, "Okay, well, we're all available next Tuesday and now you've got to cram something when you've got a busy schedule as it is already and so I want to be cognizant of uh your time and

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that very much. Um, do does so this is Wednesday, right? Sorry. Yeah, it's Wednesday. Um, is that generally work for folks Wednesday evening? This evening time is okay for me. Sorry. Okay. So, 7 pm on we'll we'll start doing maybe every other Wednesday to start and then see what's necessary. Okay. So, we're looking at Wednesday the 22nd at 7 o'clock. Yep. That'll be just after town meeting. Does that work for you, Evan, in terms of getting us some information?

Yeah. Yeah. I I I think given the conversation we had, I think I have probably 85% of it on the server as we speak. Um, so I can I can make sure that that that gets made available. So that that works for me. Great, Mike. I think Mike has uh one one final thing. Um, I take a lot of notes on everything just because if I don't write it down, it it's gone. Um, so if you need assistance with some of the clerking, I don't know the process of uploading things like that, but I'm happy to assist

that. That's awesome. What I think I will do is when I make the folder um to share with everybody, I'll make it so that you can put things in as well as take things out and we put a little notes section in there and and I'm sure Amber would would love to be able to take a look at those. Um I'm going to tell her to go right to the end of this meeting and just take your synopsis and make uh that was just like our our goals like make sure we're all pointed in the same direction. Yeah,

I love it. Awesome. I had a question in terms of preparing uh an agenda for the upcoming meetings. Um you know, you're sort of steering the meeting, Evan, which is extremely helpful for me. Uh but but showing up here today, I didn't really know what we were going to talk about. So, in terms of preparing an agenda in advance of the future meetings, um where where is that information coming from? So what what we yeah this being the first one it's a little wonky but what we generally do with other committees that we support and select board included is um you know we will take

some of the discussion points that were had here tonight and we'll use that to inform the agenda. Um okay we'll also then send it to to you as the chair. um we and say all right here's what we've we think is going to be needed and then you know you you'll give input on that and then we will post it um okay once you once you agreed and and uh you know um okay and I I think I have everyone's email address here so maybe once I receive a proposed agenda uh from the town I can circulate it to the team here if if anybody wants to provide some input as to what they think is coming up in an upcoming meeting then all the better maybe.

Yep. Yeah. We can Sorry, Amory. Go ahead. That's okay. I was gonna say that's great, Larry, because then that gives the ability for the other members to say, "Oh, Jeepers, can we add this? I wanted to chat about that tonight." So, you can add like a couple of days before the due date for the agenda. Um, it'll give us a chance to throw anything or ask you if we could throw something else on there. Yeah. All right. Yeah. And Amber's really really good at at that, so she'll she'll help guide that process. Um, great. And Larry, just so you know, the agenda is available on the website. So, if you go on the town website and you go under boards and committees, um, yes, we Okay, so you saw tonight's agenda. Yeah. Yep. Okay, great. Just making sure we knew.

And I I forget what the service is called, but you can get the agendas just emailed to you whenever they are posted or whenever they are updated. I'm subscribed to a bunch and I need to uh set up a subscription for for our committee. That would make sense. Likewise. Yeah. But um yeah. Okay. I move that we adjurnn. Second. Oh moved. Second. Third. Any discussion? Anything else? I don't think so. You could just adjurnn without exception. Uh we should do it. Yeah. I sure

we'll reflect that in the minutes. Okay. Thank you everybody. Uh I think this was really productive. had a great first first