El Dorado Solid Waste Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Hey, Catherine. Can you hear me?

Yeah. I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Hey. I did it.

Yay. Yeah. Me too. We always have issues with this system. So

I know. Well, I've never set up a meeting before, so I was nervous to get the going.

Oh, I feel you. I'm just looking I'm seeing on my end how to start my video. It's

weird. There's not an option.

Oh, maybe it's because I'm just a participant.

And then you're listed as an attendee instead of a maybe I'll promote to panelists and then Yeah. Yes.

Okay. See if that okay.

That too. Okay. There we go. Now try. Okay. There oh,

look at us.

Good stuff. Well, we'll see. I mean, we didn't get a lot of responses of who's all coming. So k. Yeah.

Hopefully, we get a quorum. Katie and Sarah both said that they were gonna be coming here. Okay. Yeah. So they should be here in a few minutes.

And that is some intense wallpaper in that room.

Oh my gosh. It it's a lot. I know. I'm always like, should I start the video?

Sorry.

How's the weather there? It's really hot here.

Yeah. It's been hot here. I mean, you know, hot for us. It was, like, in the upper eighties the last couple days, and I think today as well is supposed to get up that that high. And then cool off a little bit. Is that kind of what's going on there?

I think today is, like, the peak of it, and then it will go down a little bit. At least give us a little break.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. That would be nice.

You can see the agenda that I'm screen sharing? Yeah. Alright.

I know. Alright. I'm gonna run and grab, like, my my laptop and stuff, so I'll be back in a few minutes. Okay.

You. Glad to be here today.

I thought you might be. You probably why I'm not huffing and puffing or running in here. I figured I'd better get here early in case you have any questions. I

was more nervous about getting this set up. So I think

I can I can believe that?

Yeah. So now that that's all set, I think I'm good.

You're be able to pull up a flag for us? Oh,

thank you for that reminder. Preference? With one outside? Maybe this one? Yeah.

That's that's a good one.

One that's flapping. Oh, never mind. It's an Amazon.

But the second one. This one? Yeah.

Same thing.

And that works? Just to make sure. Okay.

Alright.

You feel good that we have a a quorum coming?

We haven't gotten a lot of emails saying that they would come. So Yeah. Night. Everybody's got a few. That is fine.

Are there

gonna have seats for our planners?

Probably these ones for now. We'll see when those comes. I have agendas.

Oh, thank you.

Hello, Zach. Hey. Good to see you again.

Same here. You know, I'm trying to last night, I I looked at everything a couple of days ago. And when I went online last night to try and pull off couple of attachments, And everything that showed up on LEGISTR for this meeting showed that they were removed. So there's nothing there. And I've looked again this morning. What was it there?

Lamp side?

LEGISTR was there, but when I went to today's meeting, and I wanted to to look at something Uh-huh. And I clicked on went to LEGISTR and clicked on this, none of these things showed up. It said they've been removed.

That's all I got. All of them on here was from Leicester.

Today? Today.

This morning. Oh, okay. Maybe it's modded by computer.

I it's kinda a lot of clicks. You have to click on the meeting, and then click on the agenda, and then click on the items, and then click on the PDF.

But I wanted to click on the agenda this morning. It says it's gonna be moved. What I want Everything's there right now.

Yeah. That I I was able to pull it up.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

I pulled everything off of Legislature, so it would

consistent. And I pulled everything off.

You you might be looking at the meeting details, which it says there's a page here about meeting details, and it breaks down every item. And there's a thing that says action details, and that's those are actions taken on the item. They're not posted until the minutes are posted.

Yeah. You can go to that one. I started with the with the agenda that I printed out the day before, and I clicked on one of the blue links for the agenda, and it said it was removed.

The page you're looking at? This is where I pull everything from.

Yeah. So I clicked on the agenda up there on the top left, and it said this has been removed. And everything that I tried to click on so I don't know if it was just on my computer. Because I've gone from Windows seven to Windows 11. I've done but But trying English. Nothing is, like, reduced to me. So it's like, I'm on YouTube all the time. You don't need updates on it.

Hey, Julie. Yeah. Just some notes. Make sure you move anybody who's a party voting member to participants, not like or, like, basically, panelist on the chat window if you go to participants. That way they can talk without being prompted. And then the, South Lake Tahoe girls are gonna be remote this time. So we only have one other person that can or two other people that can miss, so we won't have a quorum. So, I know Dixon's out. Hopefully, two more people don't not miss it.

Okay. Yeah. And I have Catherine as a panelist so she

can Okay. Yeah. We don't have anything that we're anticipating for that session that we have to, get approval for this meeting or anything. We're we're good on that. Right?

I'm sorry. What was the question?

The remote meeting approvals, we don't have anything to worry about on that. Right?

No. No. Everyone's in a normal place.

Okay.

I'm gonna be logging off in about a few minutes here, though, because I have to leave.

I hope you're enjoying a vacation or something. Pleasant. No.

I'm going to get a preschool assessment for my son. Oh, no. It's it's not a it's not an easy day. And I've been sick for, like, the last two weeks straight, with RSV. So

awesome. I have stomach flu, though. It's before. It's been like, can you say this? Can you take this? I'm terrible.

I completely almost lost my voice. I went to have a like, I've had, like, nine colonoscopies in my lifetime because of the high incidence of cancer. I've never had a problem. The last one I had right after Memorial Day had some aspiration that came up while I was on the sedation. And the anesthesiologist just messed out of my voice box when he had to go and go and, like, suck it out.

Gotcha.

By that evening, I was in emergency room in. In the morning, you already showed up eight hours later. At school, and I would

just get sick by every three or four weeks. Yeah. I really have to be. That face in my head. I have

all those runny noses and cough. Yeah. I don't know how

to never get sick. Now I have a cough with a cough in my face.

Hey, Julie. Do you have access to the Zoom?

The what?

So there's one thing I forgot to tell you to do. I'm sorry. It's a silly procedural thing.

Uh-huh.

Can you change your name on the Zoom from board of supervisors committee to just EDSWAC?

Oh, okay.

Yeah. I forgot to mention that. I'm sorry.

That's okay.

It's like a procedural. That way, Kaylee can clip the video easier. You can't do it. It's fine. I think you just right click your name on the dots and

then Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Change your name.

What do you mean?

Hey, Terry. How are those water fountains working out?

I good. I know some of them still working on getting out there.

Yeah. I saw I saw a new one, and it looked great. So I was really happy.

Yay. Yeah. And then we're just working on getting that plaque to to that put on there as well.

So Awesome.

But, yeah, very amazing.

Cool.

Very helpful. For sure.

Alright, Julie. That's you pretty much got it. Hopefully, we get a quorum today. If you guys don't get a quorum, you can you can still proceed with the meeting. You just can't vote on anything. The only voteable item that was coming up was to take action on the ad hoc committee stuff. So, hopefully, you guys can get a vote on that to just move forward, but that's pretty much it.

Thanks, Tim.

Alright. Good luck. Everyone have a good time.

You too. Bye, Tim.

Bye.

No. He has a son today. Yeah. Yeah. I I got this up. So I'm done. You guys have done the rest of the meeting. You're out

of the show today.

I know. I was just telling them this is what I was the most nervous

about. Test.

You in charge, Dawn, today?

Yes.

Yes, please.

No tax on overtime, so I don't mind. This is my. Oh, really?

Because that makes sense.

Folks. Right?

Yeah. They are, but they don't count for a form. Only to whom?

Well, that makes

that makes sense because it was confusing to me because they they were saying that it was an approved location. So it was like, what what was it?

Approved location that they can vote. Right. But they don't count as a quorum. Amazing. Yeah. That is I know. Yeah. Like last week, frightened him. I've been printing out the bylaws and read the bylaws. Do we know about that? And can you say No. I haven't heard I haven't heard from anyone. Okay. About who's coming. But the bylaws do only state you have to say that you're not coming.

They don't say you're coming. Oh, maybe we could change the app. I know. Maybe it's That would make a little less nervous. It's Michael. Like, he always comes a little late from here. Doug is yeah. Yeah.

No. Is this normally the

one we have? And Oh, okay. Like that one? No. That won't be the September 1. It's the Did we swap it up? Did it used to be, or has it always been? Last year was September. Okay. And the year before was September. Okay. And then that's all I know.

Think she was just making the observation. It'd be a great time to be a Todd.

I would much rather be torn there than EVP at, like, midday, you know, 100 degrees. But you should have a nice sheet structure out there. Right? Yes. You do. Yeah.

And that's the last piece that we're waiting for. Right?

Yeah. That was kind of the bow. Yeah. So looks great. We're excited. Mhmm. Hope. With August right around the

corner. Yes.

Full time. Yeah. That would be good.

And I don't know how you approved it. Yeah. So Sarah, Catherine, and Katie. And then it looks like you'd be one of the old interns. Maybe?

This is Katie. I used to be AmeriCorps. My old coworker and I did a presentation at EDSWAC around this time last year. I'm full time STR now. I work under Catherine. So it's good to good to see everyone virtually.

Yeah. And then the other intern now works for foundation.

She's she's doing edible food recovery work in South Lake Tahoe.

Yeah. What's the foundation's name again?

The Marcella Foundation.

We're going to.

Yes.

People who volunteer to pick up food, like, say, from the grocery store and then transport it to a approved location. And she built all of those. Oh my. Yeah. So it was I actually met with her, and she talked to me through how she did it. And they're willing to expand the app here. Uh-huh. We just have to build that foundation that she did where you have the connections of, like, this is where this goes. Right. All of that. But yeah, so maybe in our future. Maybe only more of us. I know. Right? Oh, alright. Dominic, you wanna call over there?

No. Let's wait until ten after. Okay.

Do we not have a quorum yet? Is that

No. So from what I understand, we need a quorum here of six. Shoot. Oops. We lay at four.

Oh, darn. Sorry, guys.

But we can still have the median, it sounds like. We just can't take any action. Yeah. Which is only one item to do that on it.

Yes. Okay. I it's based on that. That's why we have to go over there. He has to know. Why do why aren't there are there usually six there? Or Yeah. I think there's If

he you know, he's like, who's come

he asks who's coming and where you're gonna log in.

I don't know that I Would you write

them all these? We are done. Now the parking walker? No. I don't think you can talk to anybody. Yeah.

Okay. Julie, for that for the agenda item

on the greeting report, do we

have a presentation by Zoom? Or

So it was an attachment. It was about a 100 page attachment.

I know. Yeah. They can bring that one in. Wow.

Briefly summarize it.

Okay. It was in a the board supervisor meeting board item. Is that the recent is that the last some kind of grace award, right, reward? Yes. Yes.

Okay. There

was new the new grant was approved for this next year.

Oh, they're supposed to do it tomorrow. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's on it's on the January tomorrow. Yes. I saw. For our new contract with them. Yeah. Yes.

That was timely. I pulled that one up to look at that one, and then I hunted down the one for this.

I really wanted it before the month started because we have a two week gap with them right now. So that's, like, kind of a good thing. We have to get them qualified for it. So I haven't talked to them in a few weeks. But I actually am doing a presentation with them on Wednesday for a power cycle like Zach, and we're practicing tomorrow. And then are you is that the shower power cycle? No. This is the shower power cycle Zoom meetings. Yes. So no windows. Yeah.

But we're gonna I just like, K through 12 education, but it focus on recovery. So, yeah, I'm excited to have something.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, we actually did something right that wants us to present about it. So

Well, we're always trying to find presenters that aren't just in the bay.

Yes. Yes. We've talked about that that it maybe we can relate. What are the rural counties? Alright.

Well, let's go ahead and get started, I guess. We can go through the and all that other stuff. Maybe somebody will come in and then leave stuff. You know?

So the call call to order?

Let's call to order at 10:12AM. K. Go through the roll call. We're supposed to start with go ahead with something like. Oh, let's just go through the list here. Yeah. Sorry for my voice here. Dixon is is absent. Present. Laurel, proud.

Absent. Doug Venable. Here. Katie Sheehan?

Here.

Sarah Levin?

Here.

Dina Watkins Howie? Here. Michael Churchill? Here. Terry Gautreaux? Here. Kristin Brown? Here. Catherine Howells?

Here.

Do we have any alternates that are here? Okay. We have a visitor, Zach.

No one online.

Yeah. Nobody online? Mark

doesn't count. Okay. We

show anybody from the public that's online. I just left him.

Oh, Mark is here.

Mark's making sure I don't screw it up. Okay. You're back.

Alright.

Alright. So then just to continue on the the roll call, we now have a quorum. We have Michael Churchill. Okay. Remote meeting approvals. And I understand we don't have any votes. Go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I agree. I have it. I pledge allegiance to The United

States Of America to the republic for which

it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty,

and set up for all. You have option.

I the order is fine.

Open forum. Has anybody from the public checked in recently started?

No.

Okay. Nobody from the public for the open forum. The adoption of the of the agenda and approval of the consent calendar. Do I have a motion to approve the the agenda? I'll make a motion. Second. Second. Okay. And then the approval of the consent calendar. Thank you. Okay. Does anybody wanna point the consent calendar for discussion? K. So approval of the consent calendar. I would have first approval.

Okay. Second one? Right. Okay. Discussion item three.

Waste recycling reports. Go ahead and start off with EDD. Should

be yeah. Hopefully, it's it's June it's June's date in there. It should be the right one. Then Scroll down. I'm just gonna oh, scroll up.

Yep. There you go.

Hello. Lot of time to comment on here for me. Pretty standard. They should see what happens in the trash.

Usually, the usually the heat grabs people away.

At least as smart as, you know, third party customers, people coming to the member of transportation, but I'm pretty pretty in mind what we're used to seeing.

Let's go back up. So so I can see that. So green waste. Is that the second call?

Yeah. So what you see there, Terry, as far as, you know, the October, if you're wondering why is it just zeroed out, that was when we started, basically, to come everything is now just mixed organics. Got

it. Yep. And now it's

under That's it it'll be under your The fourth. It'll be Fourth.

Fourth. Yep. Residential. Yeah. Okay.

And then you see your

bid there for commercial. We set nicely out the commercial for this program.

Wouldn't you glance at the at the the version dated after the six months that we have for 2025? Are we ahead of of the the same six months year over year for those two years? Are we doing better for at least six months 2025 than we were for previous two just looking forward? It's kinda hard it's always kinda hard to tell now with this new this new format is that we don't have it totaled up. So it's just it's just broad data that we're looking at.

Yeah. I mean

So the highs and lows are a little bit different, but it's kinda hard to tell. Yeah. That Are we on track for a better year this year for MRF diversion?

I mean, you have to average out the percentages. But, again, I think as we, like, usually kind of discuss here, I mean, when you look at the, you know, the two years' worth of stuff there, normally divert what people bring to us. Mhmm. So

And if you did the comparison, there's only one year that you're lower or maybe two I mean, months. First month, you're good. Second month's a little lower. Third month's a good.

Yeah. The third month's.

And then the sixth month, I think. Right on. So, overall, I'm doing that comparison in your head. Yeah. So compared to January, you're up. February, down. But now it's just yeah. So slightly. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I had a question on that. On the inert recycled, all of these charts seem to go back to the columns here,

but we have a we have

a graph here for inert recycling. Where does that where does that correspond to on that on the the first page? We don't have the

Scroll down.

Being pulled out of is that being pulled out of c and d, or what what is that exactly?

Scroll down a ten seconds. So if you count to the years, I would look at the tonnage show 1,500 in January '23. Can we scroll up to the top? 1,500. Keep scrolling. Nine.

We don't have a we don't have a topic there for. So it's obviously Yeah. Pull out of somewhere.

So you're looking at the recycling column there.

Okay. So that's, like, the p in CRV and most of CRV, I can expect. Because we don't pull much out in our facility.

Well, yeah, every so everything that comes in curbside recycling Yeah. Yeah. That's that's all categorized under here. Right. That's. Yeah. Recycle Street.

She had the label to inert and put it to recycling, so it's clear, but where's the? Or is that

We can adjust the graph.

Yeah. Maybe, like, inert in the recycling side. Yeah. Yeah. Because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to do some sort of rental gymnastics to pack something out of one of those columns Yeah. To get to commodity. Okay. Does anybody else have any any questions with if not, let's go to South Lake Tahoe first to see whether or not you have any comments on any questions for EDD on on theirs?

No. No.

Let's go ahead quickly and look at the STRs. Anybody have any comments or questions? I still find myself reverting back to

May was a good

And that really helps me. Oh. But then that's, like, the end year. Do you wanna scroll out all the way to the last page and then cut us? It doesn't show the the three years. It does show the use that kinda puts it more into perspective.

Catherine, did you have anything to add?

You know, not really. Also pretty standard for us for this time of year. I mean, May was, I think, maybe a little bit better than some previous Mays as far as the construction and demolition tonnage. So that's helpful for the diversion.

Catherine, how was the influx of tourism after the July 4 and all of the pre card compliance going? Do you have any sense of that yet? Maybe a bit early.

I mean, yeah. May just anecdotally, we're realizing we're we're coming, like, into sort of a whole another wave of customers that have not even seen the carts yet. You know, they're just coming up for the first time since the carts were delivered maybe if they haven't used their second home or something. So sort of another round of education, But, you know, that's sort of to be expected.

Sarah, any stats on plastic water bottles? Did it look better this year than last year?

We're not tracking that. It's just because plastic the the water bottles are mixed in with the general PET ones, so it's just kind of a anecdotal observational from the crew here. That's all that's the best we can get, so we don't actually have data.

Yeah. I volunteered with Keep Tahoe Blue. Oh, good. Yes. And oh, and I got to see the parade, and STR had a great oh, I wish I had the picture up, actually, but, they used recycling bottles to make an American flag on the back of their truck. That is awesome. So, yeah, they had a great display in the parade, and then I volunteered the next day at Zephyr Cove because we were staying at the campsite right there. And there was a ton of people that showed up to go out there. And usually when I volunteer, because I bring my son, he's usually the only little kid living through who did these things, but there was a lot of families Mhmm. That came out with

little kids. That we're talking about after fourth of July.

The day after fourth of July. Yeah.

There was

a lot of instruction.

Just don't pick up anything.

Know, he's three. He wants to pick it up. But Yeah. That's cool. But, actually, I saw a lot of the bottle caps just, like, for any, like, plastic water bottles or beer bottles. Like, the caps seem to, like, show up. It was a good it's a good cleanup effort for sure. They're on it, and they had really great signage for the beaches as well. I think they did some new signage and had kind of some slogans about what the slogan was for. But before you got onto the beach, you saw at least three signs about picking up litter.

Copper Cove resort to this, like, a really, I think, pretty impressive effort to divert food waste Oh. Which was cool because even though they're in Nevada, they don't have to. Yeah. I think diverted about 1,100 pounds or so.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't have anything else really on this unless there's other questions. Or

Okay. Go on. Before we go to any further, just wanna make sure that I missed something here. Under the consent calendar to approve the meeting list, we didn't actually I I didn't actually mention the meeting list. So are we okay on approving the meeting list when the last meeting was? Is that covered under what we

It's uncovered Okay. The second, sir. Okay. Cool. You guys did. You said. Right.

Oh, I guess we didn't

do that. We didn't vote.

Oh, you didn't vote. Forgot about that. Do wanna vote? You wanna go ahead

and do that? Yeah. Yeah. Can you guys can you guys hear me at stuff like Tahoe?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. On the agenda item for number one to approve them, the meeting minutes, we had a first and a second to approve it, but we didn't go around the table to go through each one to go ahead and go forward. So let's go around the the table to approve the meeting minutes from the May 12. It's like meeting.

K. I'll go first. Aye. Aye. Sarah? Aye. Tina? Aye. Michael? Aye. Jerry? Aye. Chris? Aye. Did I get everybody?

Doug. Of most the one I have. It's a woman. Okay. We're good.

Catherine and Katie up here. Hi.

Hi. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Okay. Let's go on to the next one there. Oh, the RDRS. So we'll start with ADD.

Anybody after looking at this, does anybody have any questions or comments or anything they wanna bring up? From here? No? Sounds like, Tahoe, did you have any questions on the EDDs?

Nope. Nope.

Okay. Shirley, would you pull up page six on on that one?

I

just wanted to just kinda point this this section out because it it may be of use when we get to the last item about our report for the the five year review. This is this is something different than than the last five year review. We've had a lot of a lot of questions and misunderstandings when we're doing our five year review. And I imagine when we talked about it here, we have the same things here as far as the 50% diversion and and when that occurred and why it's different, what have you. But what's important about this section is we now have the information that we are collecting that we didn't have when we did when the the state first determined the 50% diversion.

And so this is gonna be key to tracking ourselves to whether or not we're getting a 75% diversion. And, Zach, you can you can speak up to this if I'm listening to speak on anything. But under the when we got our 50% diversion number, our pounds per person per day, and they converted to they converted to 50 over 50%. We basically had to make this this information up for that last one when we came to that point in time where we had to go ahead and determine whether or not the jurisdiction would meet the 50%, and we were only collecting the landfill data. We kinda had to go back and make up this data.

So we pulled things from did represent we had, like, for CRV or what have you, but we did stick things in there like grass recycling and other things to to bring up to our 50%. So that's why we we're not able to really come up with a percent recycling number that's that's valid. But looking at this, and and I don't know how the state, when it comes time to enforcing the 50% diversion, the state will now have this number whether or not they use these numbers that they're tracking now to come up with how we're gonna determine a 50% or 75% diversion. We'll never know how we're gonna do that until the day they they tell us that this is the way we're gonna do it. But this is now important data that somehow we should be tracking just as we were tracking on on this type of data, because that's really good data.

That basically puts all of our recyclables into a commodity. So I just wanna point this section out because it may come up later on when we're talking about our five year review of why we're we're constantly trying to figure out where are we when we have 50% diversion of x pounds per person per day. So I just wanna zero in on this section. We're probably talking about this section and utilizing this a lot more. And that does correspond, I assume, with the the percent Murphy's recovery numbers, because I did on one or two of them go back and just kinda check on one of the like, when I was looking at one of the reports that you guys give us, I went back and checked those numbers on the RDRS.

For that month or for that quarter, at least the ones that I looked at, they matched. So I don't know if it matches for all of them. But since those that I I'm assuming that they're pretty darn close, so we we actually know a lot sooner than we would at the end of the year Yeah. Of how well we're doing just by looking at this section.

So, Zach, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the r RERS is basically a facility report. So what you're seeing on there is reflective of we're basically taking everything that we intake at facility and Pretty good. Here. So this should definitely correlate.

Because the regulatory requirement is to reach 75%, but we that's something we can't measure. All we can measure is up until now, we were to use this. We just have the pounds per person today, which is based on the fact that we've been able to accurately measure the amount landfill from the very beginning when we started this.

Yeah. Yeah. I can try to speak to this, which is that it is really difficult to measure the recycling that's diverted because it can get diverted in so many places, but the, the waste that's diverted, landfill is easier to measure, basically. So by getting that RDRs reported total tonnage disposed per year, and then, you know, calculating it out as per person disposal, that's an easier metric to use year to year if we're trying to measure the amount of recycling per year. So I believe that's why they switched to that method in terms of getting a rough proxy for percent diversion because those PPV targets are based on that. I don't know if that helps explain anything.

Be positive.

I think it does. Yeah. But I think to Don's point, we'll we'll never know if how much we're diverting because of what you've said. But I think going forward, are we gonna track pounds per person per day? And, you know, we have to look at our accounting and and see if what what's impacting that? Is it is it more trash in in the system, in the stream that isn't recyclable? And is that a reflection of just, you know, commerce and how we're operating today? You know, those are some of the questions that we asked in five year review.

And when CoverSite was looking at this five year review, so what I understand right now, they're really just looking at, you know, your progress towards that PPD target as a rough measure of how things are going and how they compare year to year so we can pull up a graph of how has that PPD number changed for the last six years, see any reasons why it might be changing, then trying to look at programs more holistically of, you know, what education and outreach is being done, how the operations change, etcetera. So we're trying to look at just the broad landscape of

things and not just that one. But regardless of the the actual numbers, the important thing is that under the two systems, the pounds per person per day, we follow that, and that's important because that's gonna be the regulatory reporting requirement. Mhmm. And then the MERF percent recovery, since we have exclusive franchises, We basically are be able to monitor and and document everything that's coming through the system through the MERD. So we're lucky in that effect.

So these numbers are should be pretty darn close. Because even when you look at the annual the electronic annual reports, in the earlier days, we used to have things showing up where our numbers didn't match the numbers that were landfilled. Mhmm. But that was because we were getting, like, tonnage because it was they were asking ZIP codes at the at the gate, at the landfill. So we were getting waste down, like, in landfills and our ZIP codes at the at San Diego landfill.

The numbers seem to be matching what we're tracking on these numbers with what we're showing on the electronic annual report. So we've got a pretty good data set here. So by still tracking the the MERF percent recovery, that's as important as a pound per person per day from a different perspective, and that that's basically telling us the effectiveness of our programs and what basically, if we start looking at at the cost of of of what we're spending, that'll give us a return on our investment. I think that's what that looks really. So they're two of both important.

And the fact that we're we keep them together as a unit, none of the parameters have changed. So the numbers are pretty you know, the numbers are in that that design. So the numbers are gonna be valid. And the thing we really need to keep track of is you know, the first thing is we just need to be able to show an improvement and not really worry about, you know, half half a percent or whatever on on the coverage. That's all I wanted to point out because I don't know if that's gonna come up with the way we're gonna. But, hopefully, that kind of situation will go. Anything from South Lake Tahoe? From which shall we close this session out?

No. No.

K. Agenda item number five. Do want an update on the We're

still on. Oh, okay. We have three attachments. Let me see.

Best of care. I just forgetting about the.

So, yeah, Catherine, any comments on STR? I can go to that same page.

No comments. We haven't submitted for this next quarter. So this is actually the same report that we reviewed last time. You

know?

Yes. You need mine?

Any questions about that that I can't answer?

That's why I've got some time.

I think the dumbest guy.

Great question. You're hot. That's fine. Okay. Now we think we've. Okay.

Okay. Let's go ahead and go ahead and do an update on the status of SB thirteen eighty three to include the brief report, that final report from twenty twenty four twenty twenty five.

I know that's just round robin. It

starts here. Yeah. Real quick. Pretty quiet on our end. We are, you know, just trying to we get a lot of information from health throughout our disposal, and we push that information out and keeping them informed, whether it's has to be thirteen eighty three related or batteries or whatever it might be. So we're still looking at getting some communication out there. Just hasn't been done yet. We still have grant funds that we're working on pushing out to communicate all this information, but we are just trying to find a time

to do them. Especially with someone and help them

be very harm. So, no, we're all pretty quiet for them.

I'm up. Everything's going good. I would say, you know, working with you, Julie, the county is kind of the last hurdle, I would say, from, like, a commercial organic standpoint. So we've got a plan there. That's good. That's promising and encouraging. Outside of that, compost program is going really well. That's potential to add kind of a different layer and with potentially bringing it back to the bag, not just loose. And so nothing concrete there yet, but exciting potential opportunity to do that as well.

I don't know anything before. I know, like, I spoke with you last meeting just about how you did with talk to the different schools. We're in compliance and took advantage of the funding. I don't know how that went.

Yeah. I'll give a update on for you. So the hospital was just working on our implementation record, and we kinda got the conference covers going on up there. So who knows? I have a This week. Do you have Do you have a receipt for that one? Not by payment.

You could.

Email it to me.

I will. I have to. You can get that paid through. Yeah. Other than that, we're just, you know, working on some things with Zach today. We're gonna go look at a couple of places. What's my question? Judy, do did

we do the fair yet? I know you would ask. Is that already done? Okay.

Yeah. The home and garden show you can. I know. I know. Oh, we didn't do the fair, the county fair. Home and garden. So we did the home and garden.

How does the BENS work out? What was your

how did

you guys did a bunch of that? We'll what? We did

the the effort on that one. We did from the county, we did reach out to the coordinator of the event and the fairgrounds and meeting and trying to leave everybody in. I don't think we ever heard back from the coordinator on the event.

Jim said it was not as expected. I think people Yeah. Large event. People don't really pay attention or obey.

Yeah.

So I think you said most of the organist.

Yes. Yeah. And I Christina did make some notes about just the logistics of the bins and working with the fairgrounds because the for example, the ones that they normally use are wide open, whereas our organics containers, people have no lift to put food in. And that that one challenge could have just made the difference some like Right. Whether they use the bin or not. And so they they I think the baron's just a little resistant to do kind of the way we wanted it. We've all three of them next to each other. So I think that we can mark it. So we have some notes to improve. Yeah.

But, ultimately, I think some of the observations were that people were the food was so expensive that people were really, like, eating all of it. They burn shrimp. Not trying to. Yeah. That's so You know? And then I think the biggest comment, Tim, and this would be a long term thing, is just the food trucks and the vendors that they have all compostable materials. So that it's just the whole thing to go in there, and people don't have to

And so I got paper and work with vendors.

Yeah. So Yeah. Because we're gonna let, like, the bigger counties force them to do that in, like, some county maybe. And then you know? Because they they travel between different counties, so they're gonna be getting pressured to do that.

Didn't you guys order a bunch of the just the ones for the household? Yes.

And we handed those out. So I think We handed about 500 of them out. Out

of those. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. And so the kitchen containers, we had the gray top and the green top. Yeah. Seemed like it was fifty fifty. Everyone liked one or the other, so we'll I think we'll just continue purchasing both because back off that. Yeah. And so then I had labels made for them, and then we gave out BPI bags with them. And so those were handed out at our booth at the Home Garden Show. And I'm hoping to actually work with the library system now to help them help them out. Oh, okay. Because that would be a great Yes. People to go pick them up, and they'd be easy and free. So And who didn't get the API bags? Sure. I think we just ordered them online. This summer. Yeah. Easier. I

just shot you in some information on bags. I can give it

to you. Yeah. You too. I mean, because the last time I did that massive order, but I did it for China.

Yeah. And

they were, I mean, cheap, but it's a lot of

work. Yeah.

Yes. So at least the

Yeah. If you don't do I know you guys have the customizable ones. If you don't do customizable, it's pretty easy.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's where you get some nice. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, the contact you're is that for the kitchen tails.

Oh, that's right. Yeah.

I think there's actually. But they work perfectly. Was great. So Yeah. And they were well priced. The best price I've seen. They were under $5. How much? They were under $5. Great. And they're good quality. Yeah.

And if you need me. But

Yeah. You can do that, but I might

Up to you, Terry, that it's old. Leaving Dina too. If we're attending events and you want us to be the distributor, we're happy to help them on doing it.

And you went to our concert.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

So we're for Free California, I think this is a little bit in the staff update as well. Oh, yes. Sorry.

South Lake Tahoe?

Do you guys have any updates for S B 1383?

I can't think of anything new or different we've done since the last meeting. I'll defer to you guys.

Yeah. I mean, I guess

just from STRs and we had been so focused on the sort

of residential compliance with the rollout of the carts. We're kinda now transitioning to looking more closely at our commercial customers and compliance. But, you know, nothing nothing huge there.

How's the animals doing with the food waste out there?

I mean, doing okay with the new carts. We've had to replace a handful

Yeah.

Of the rare crash carts that, they've not been able to, from what we can tell, like, breach the lock. But if if people leave, you know, food containing garbage basically out, I think, you know, for multiple days, especially, we've seen bears or, you know, carts where the bears have, like, been able to either bite or claw apart sort of the rim of the lid to the point where it needs to be replaced. Yeah. So we're definitely still trying to get the message out to not put your garbage out for collection until the morning of trash day if possible if you don't have a bare box. But other than that, these

carts are

working really well.

I'm sorry. I imagine it'd be really difficult. If I'm leaving on Monday and trash isn't you know, until Wednesday, I can see the challenge if you don't know your neighbors and they help you out. So you guys have a, I think, a specific and fairly unique set of circumstances that present a lot of challenges. Yeah.

Yeah. It is challenging, and we try to communicate. You know, there's some options. Like you said, get to know your neighbors, or they can drop it off. They can install Bearbox. But, yeah, it's challenging for sure. But it does I don't know. Again, this is anecdotally, looking at our records of what we just call animal messes, like scattered trash when when STR comes. It it seems to be getting better. So Katie wants to talk about yeah. It seems I mean,

I haven't run the numbers, but the field crew's feedback has been that, you know, a lot less animal trash messes. And I I it's gotta be from the carts, I would say.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we've seen a pretty marked improvement there. That's awesome.

Before we go on to that, was having 2.1 observation and just a couple quick questions. Kudos. I did notice this year that we did have the three carts. We had the food waste out on Channel Center from the fourth of July celebrations, which we didn't have lunch here. So Hey.

Good job. And I did notice when I those are the concerts, you know, on first nights there, they still have like, they're providing their own containers, and they just have a recyclable and a trash. And everybody's bringing I I can see that nugget market, you know, everybody has has done their part to do away with the Styrofoam and and to have these recyclable containers that everybody's bringing to prove it. But it's all being thrown in the trash cans. And there's nothing for food waste. And this is mandatory collection in the Eldorado Hills. I assume that includes does that include commercial?

Correct. Why

is it that they don't get the same containers that that we get in residential? I mean, they go around, and they put the black bags in the recycled container and in the trash container, and then the guy comes around a couple times during the concert and pulls the black bags out and takes it to the dumpster. Yes. So the black bags that go to the landfill are fine, but the black bags that have recyclables in it I seem to remember we've spoken that bags aren't allowed to go in the recycling containers. They do go, and then then it goes automatic to landfill. Is that true?

It doesn't automatically go to a landfill, but it's contaminated, you know, which is I mean, we frankly, we see a lot of that in our

group size. You They're emptying out the trash.

Yeah. We would need to have a conversation with their mates to confirm.

Yeah. Because they're As much as they're rushing around, I'm sure they're not going through the dumpster and climbing up off the dumpster and cutting the bags over and dumping them in the dumpster.

They're pretty decent. I know they they they work pretty pretty hard at it. You know, when you're in somewhere like town center and you've got five commercial businesses using one enclosure, it's they're challenged, but they do they do a pretty good job. But there might be an opportunity there with the with the summer concert series. Regarding kind of your question about I mean, so we have the event.

Right? We could roll out the the containers there. But at any at any rate, anytime we do those container things, the maintenance department then has to go pull all those containers to a central location where we could get that style service truck in there to then dump them off. Because we we bring a different we bring a commercial service truck in there. So it might be the maintenance preference to just collect it all and then go dump the bags out or throw them trash. But rather than chase down

a bunch of different containers, try

to wheel them all to one area.

It's because based on the technology we have in touch, our new MRF, we have no formal capability of sorting other than it's sorted at the source, and then it's taken to a location in your covered area, and then it's put on a truck. So all of that, we could say that if we see something in a in a clear bag or something, we may cut open the bag, but that's no later on the program. So that seems like that's a very important point is to to kinda look at this as far as because we've got, like, 60% going to landfill. And and a lot of that

You're saying once once that there's the streaming goes to the MRFs, there's no way to handle it at that point. Right. So there was a mixed bag Right.

Right. That needed to be sorted.

Right. Once it goes once it's there,

The commingled stream is transferred to basically a Murphet then then unveils the material and goes through the sore cell.

It gets sorted. Yeah. Yeah. So

so and then no. I've also seen it, like But as

far as bags, yeah, I mean, we've been trying to get bags out of the recycled

I know. We've been while. Just a

random thought. So I because at my store, I sell wood wood stoke pellets. Mhmm. And those end up in real wood recycling. Those bags? Yeah. They're bags. Yeah. That's unfortunate. Yeah. And people think it's plastic and so something like that. Yes. I almost felt like, man, if if I just I could put a sticker on every, like, fifth one, it just says do not recycle me. Yeah. But, like, you know, when done, put in trash. Yeah. And, like, if you just give me, like, a thousand labels. Awesome. Like, every on the slapstick, you

know, I don't know.

You just tell your customers when they buy them. I do, actually. You will no longer be allowed to buy them here. Be a searcher.

Okay. They try to, like, educate people. Why do they hate kids? She's going to Honestly, the manufacturers

are still putting It's like we were selling

it somewhere in the world, possibly, but definitely not. Yeah. Like, grocery stores used to accept film plastics sometimes. Yeah. I think that's that's polypropylene, basically.

Right? We're working on film plastic recovery too, but that's

the one. That's a whole server. Wow.

Complicated. And another situation I've noticed is, like, at the gas pumps, like, at the Supermarkets where they have three rows of of gas pumps, and they've got six containers there of garbage. And people travel, and they dump everything they can dump into those containers. And when you when you look in there, I've got pictures of them. But when you look in there, you know, there's all kinds of bottles and cans and everything else.

And when I talked to the the manager at the facility, he says, well I said, well, are these things recycled? He says, well, we have one bin for trash was picked up every day, and we dump these things out six, seven, eight and up times a shift into that container. The only thing we recycle is cardboard, and that's once a week. Packaging. Yeah.

So in the old days, when we had a MRF and when the regulations came in for commercial recycling, where you have to be able have to have some sort of mechanism for recycling, will do it on your own or use a facility that does the recycling. In the earlier days, everything went over the sorting line. So we didn't have this issue of of the fact that well, we could we could say that everybody was using the MRF was meeting that requirement because everything was being checked for recycling. We now no longer do that. So how do how do they

We have a separate container. That's It's a That's how Yeah. That's how the business Yeah.

But I'm talking about these other commercial facilities.

They have a separate container for recycling. It's just their job to get the recycled material in the recycling. So I can't implement business processes for businesses, unfortunately. The business has to figure out their process for getting their recycled material in the recycling. And that

may for the rash and and the recycle. Right.

They don't they don't have that at the gas station. We still have to sort it at the gas station. Yeah. And they don't do that. I don't think that's gonna be practical. No. So you don't are gonna contaminate initially. Fortunately, that bag should be going to landfill and not recycling because then it's gonna cost him a handwashing down a lot. So, yeah, I think education and getting to do it, and, frankly, the gas stations probably won't have it. And it's at the it's at the the drugstores and all these places.

Commercial. And they they you know, they're pulling the bags out, and and then they throw it in in their trash. Even if they have a recycling container bin, they throw in the bag of recyclables in that. And Yeah. And and, yeah, I don't know if we're just talking about this is the way it's supposed to be, or it it's almost that we need to look at the effectiveness of our implementation and not just as we did with the five year review of checking to make sure that we checked off, that we've implemented all of our strategies.

If we're relying see, we've moved the sorting process from a new MRF to off-site facilities to do it. So we now we don't have the opportunity to look at everything that's being thrown in the trash or even things that are being put in the recycling that's being put in that's being diverted to the trash because we can't send bags full of cans and bottles to the next recycling facility.

Yeah. I think the challenge, Don, is trying to, you know, implement business practices for a business you don't own.

Right? I mean, I can go

up every day and say, here's how you should do it. Here's how to do it, and here's a laundry list of recommendations. And then we walk out the door and their staff doesn't obey. I mean, this is the Starbucks problem. Right? You're you're hoping that a business with high turnover really get their people to buy in on best practices. We try, like, I'll get out. We keep trying. I mean, we're out there and feel a lot doing this stuff.

Have a educational aspect that in the works that help businesses with this. So our marketing firm is that we work with. I want to put together a video with them or that we can provide to restaurants, most specifically restaurants, maybe other commercial places that we'll apply to, but actually a training video that they can show to their staff because they're required within, you know, a certain amount of time to train staff. It's written in power cycle. It's up to three. And so instead of coming down on these businesses, wanted and their staff training. Mhmm. And so I wanted to yeah. Instead of coming down on them, I wanted to provide them resources Yes. Yeah.

In in our outreach to them. And so one of these we're hoping to create is a video in multiple languages because we know that's a challenge as well. Actually, and showing them how to sort and how to do those things in their business. So it'd be, like, a guidelines. It'd be something that's available. We put it on the website, and everyone would have access to it.

You could make that

video tonight with AI. Mhmm.

That's funny. You said that thing, it was the marketing firm just said they were like, they can't have anything against AI, and I'm like, I don't even think they're ready for AI. But but yeah. So we're we're yeah. So we're definitely considering AI to help us and make it a little bit cheaper too. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.

I would say that's a good that's a good point, Julie. And I would say a lot of times we reach out to new businesses and say, can we come talk to your staff? And a lot of times we just get a concern, or they don't allow us to. And so Okay. You know, you open a new restaurant, we're like, we'll come in and educate the staff for you. And sometimes they just say, okay.

But Yeah.

That would you know, because the property manager doesn't put here or the franchisee or preferred.

So from what the video, you can say you can access it whenever you want. Yeah. You know, show it to your employees, you know, when they're hired, or just if you're having issues, here's show them again.

So from what Donald is saying, when we're putting two two together, it's like there's obviously an issue with this generation source. And it's more difficult with food because it's completely hard to, like, sort food out of trash. Yeah. It's a lot easier to take a two liter bottle for one of those big water drives or something out of the trash. You could easily identify. Much harder to pull, like, a facade out. But at that point, once that's the problem and it goes into the stream, what what all he also mentioned was it there's no other mechanism to pull it out. Although, I thought there is some sorting.

I didn't you mentioned things getting failed and bundled and sent

to another facility where they do process it. And I don't know. I didn't I have not seen it, but I have certainly seen that process where all the trash is, like, on a big conveyor belt. You got all these workers with your PPE on. They're told somehow that is that what happened, though?

Like, do we we do we still have that?

Yes. That's what's happening.

For the commingle stream, not for the not for the trash not for the trash.

Okay. So Our trash is Alright. So the 30% of what we're trash out of recycling. That's what we are doing. Taking recycling out of trash. Right. Okay. That that that was I was curious about. The the term I think would like, dirty murder thing is when there's you're taking the entire stream of waste and recycling. You're you're going through all of that to see what you can pull out Mhmm. Versus just going through the company for recycling, which gives you presumably higher a higher rate of recyclables that you're gonna pull out even. Well, then I get that that was the what I was

first one too.

There's no other mechanism. There's no other way to say there's no other way to identify, like, this trash source is commingling. There's recycles in the trash more than some other source and taking that trash and diverting it to some facility where they are. They can sort it. You know? But, like, that that's I

guess that's not possible. I think that's where we focus. People have They don't do that. No. We don't. And that's where I think we focus education and do as best we can to educate and give them the facilities, and then it's gonna be up to every individual. Essentially, there's no way Yeah.

To start someone to track. Right.

They got to ship a sale. Yeah.

What would be helpful for me from the advisory council would be recommendations of education. So, like, hey. We have an idea to do the video, do you have any other educational recommendations before?

No. That should all be at the high school

level. All the

all the stuff that the government wants us to do, like drink water when it's hot, don't say mean things to people All that stuff should be taught in high school because as a business owner, like, some of these things are common sense that I have to implement all these programs.

It's a great transition

to I

do think that's how that goes. Over here. But I will be there after.

And that's part of our presentation on Wednesday, really, with previous they wanted us to touch on thank you. But they wanted us to touch on, you know,

why why did we choose

to spend our grant funds on education. You know? Because not I don't know if a lot of other counties are doing that. So and that's kind of the main reason is that everything they're really gonna be the ones that make the change. They'll make their parents somewhere, Do it at home. So this is the final report that Brie put together for us. We just completed a year contract with them. And so they did this last school year previously, and they did a ton of legwork on outreach because I think at every single meeting, I told you that we've had a really hard time getting in touch with schools, getting interest for them to participate in the program. And so we've made so much progress on that. It only makes sense for us to do one more year.

We have another year of grant funding to send this on, is to just keep rolling out what they're doing. So the contract that we're seeing tomorrow from the board of supervisors is that we will, roll out, full hands on program with the team schools, And then the rest of the schools within the county, that don't get on to that 15 first 15 schools participation will receive, like, a starter kit. So they'll get all the tools to do it. They just won't get the hands on kind of, like, in the classroom stuff. Not all of them are interested in it, but at least then we set aside, okay.

We have bins and all the resources for them that we will at least provide them that. I think that ends up being 35 it's 35 schools total. So that will be 20 schools with resources, fifteen fifteen more schools on top of the 10 schools. So we completed education for 10 schools in person. We'll do 15 more in person with the other 20. Is it? There's a lot of schools in this country. High school and

middle school and or just this elementary anymore?

High school. And high school is a little bit different. I mean, the great thing about Breathe is they're so adaptable. Yeah. They work with every individual school and their needs and what resources that they have. So they've learned with the high schools, you know, working with the clubs and getting them to continue and do those things. So, yeah, it's definitely been very interesting just to see how different it is for every school that we're at. Was that roughly about

two thirds between last year and or this year and next year or last year and this year, I guess? Would you say, like, fifteen, twenty, and then twenty more weeks?

So we did 10. Mhmm. This past year, we'll do 15 more. So that does that 25, and then we still have 20 is what was left. Okay. And that doesn't even include the sounds like. Okay. They've Terrific. They've already been working on it to take care. But, also, include outreach for edible food recovery.

What Brieve has been doing is reaching out to the individual kind of what falls under the umbrella of the food banks, all the smaller organizations, the churches, and things like that that are close to the schools and letting them know and just kind of building that connection between the two that, hey. You know, you have this resource right here. This is who you would contact and work with. Figuring out what they can and can't take, for example, at the different places. So they're building that bridge for the schools as well.

So, yeah, this is a very long report on everything, but they've been very detailed about all of our communication and outreach, that we've done. I'd say maybe the slide you'd be most important or interested in is the very last slide, which they actually did some diversion data. So the what they've done with most of the schools is after implementing the program, they go back to the school and kind of evaluate how the program's been going and things like that. So so this is the data they came up with based on the student population and what's been diverted.

Well, that was for the whole that 12.9 tons was for all of those schools diverted for the whole year for that those schools that went through that program. The Texas. And that grant was for, like, a 166,000.

Yes. And and we came in under budget.

Oh, yeah. We did. They did a terrific job on this all the way from the way they planned it to the way they documented it. It's amazing. They did a great job on it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Georgetown Elementary lead the way.

Actually well, Georgetown mostly because they have, I think well, Georgetown and actually, North Texas is kicking butt. They are, like, they're not even they don't even eat. Have people that are taking the stuff on their pick farms. You know, they found a full closed loop system on their own, but they did the last meeting I had with brief, they said they returned to Northside School, and they're like, they're amazing. They're just doing such a great job there.

Nice. Georgetown's still struggling a little bit, I think. You've read it in some of the notes that are pretty funny from they asked there's the staff notes in here, so they asked them to fill out a survey about how it's going in the Georgetown. I think that's. I I well, I'm a little negative about it.

It'll be interesting to see, I think, the high school percentages because just from a volume standpoint, they do have more. Mhmm. But from a practice standpoint, you're dealing with maybe a little more abrasive population.

Yeah. Well and it was interesting because I I can't remember what high school it was, but one of the high schools was like, can we have 50 cans? So we're just gonna put 50. Next to every trash can, and we were like, 50 is a lot. That might be a lot on your maintenance staff. You know? Maybe we start with 20 and have certain sites that are closest to the cafeteria.

Any of them using, like, BPI liners or anything?

She provides BPI liners to all the schools. And one thing for you, you know, their expertise is pretty good in that they've learned to provide, you know, larger BPI bags than the the bucket itself. Yeah. So that those kind of it's not crammed, and it

won't

rip. So they do provide them BPI bags. You know, they but that is a cost that will be on the school's long term.

Yeah. Yeah.

They wanna continue to use those. And then their the only other cost to school, really, and we've seen this challenge with Fosterville is paying for the extra bin. So Oh. So that's really their only other change of cost. So we're hoping that, you know, because of this last year, a lot of them are aware of that cost. Hopefully, they can write it have written it to their budget for this.

I I thought it was worth asking you about the the bags because we were thinking, really, for many of the jurisdictions that you had grant funding to try to provide some of your commercial customers with larger liners because, you know, most of those BPI bags were given to the the residents, which is Yes.

Which is great. The smaller.

But I feel like sometimes you might have commercial businesses right or wrong just being, like, dispensed.

Yeah. You know?

Or they're taking black bags and put them in good ways. Yep. All for loss.

Yeah. Actually, some I had a call from the public the other day, and he told me that the baby diaper pail company Oh, yeah. Genie Yeah. Makes compostable bags for the Diaper Genie. And so he said, I just bought that. He's like, I don't have babies, but I just bought that, and that's where I put all of my compost in the like, I need a bigger one. The kitchen kitchen pail's not big enough for me. So he says, is this the diaper Is it any boxes to help? No. Really?

So I that's that's not funny. Yeah. And this doesn't include Oh, thanks. So there are the most school diaper companies, and they will pick up from your doorstep. I don't think yeah.

The We don't want diapers at the big waist. No. No.

No. But there are companies that I mean, it costs obviously a little bit more for that service, but I think it's called diaper, d y p e r. Obviously, I don't get that service in Georgetown. But but I think probably maybe in El Dorado Hills or something they they would pick up. Yeah. I use the the service with them. They're going close with the You're talking to diapers out of the hills. Bags.

Or switching from Yeah.

We sell a larger BPI bag. So move them on.

I use them. Hello? Okay. Yes. My kids have

them plates. Yeah. I just. Yeah. Yeah. But even with not having very much, like, kind of weed, like, weaning material in

those bags, they're they're not very sturdy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The nature of. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

I have to be very careful about the. Yeah.

Commercial.

You guys wanna move on to the next one, we do need to go.

So No. I just I just wanna just point out. So this is for the 2425. The organics requirements kicked in full scale on 01/01/2023. We pretty much implemented our organics in July '23, mostly with the residential, and and everybody was supposed to be on board. Were these schools brought prior to '24, number one, were they required to be separating food waste, and were they?

They are, and, yeah, they are. Our issue with them, and I think we've discussed this before, is that we are not the enforcement agency on the schools. That's is an enforcement agency, and so we have no jurisdictional

Right. Okay. Authority.

Yeah. Our only requirement that we have as a county is to provide education, And that's what we're doing.

It's to provide provide education and and then for, like, edible food recovery to to inspect them and, you know, go to the district offices and say, hey. Are you diverting edible food? If the answer is no and they don't have conodontics in place, then that gets referred to Calricide.

Mhmm. That's our enforcement issue. So in in 2023 to 2024,

Schools were basically optional.

You don't have any. You didn't Oh, we tried.

Yeah.

They weren't they weren't doing it at all. You didn't have a I don't know. Like well. Go out and ask them to do it, and they they simply try, and then you Or they just said no. Okay. So we don't have anything to compare to know what they were doing in twenty twenty three, twenty four. What we know is that we know that they they diverted 12.9 tons over the years. They were zero. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

There there may have there may have been that new pull. But, again, we're taking a route track to multiple.

But my point is just that when every when we when we present data, it seems more often than not, we're presenting raw data, but we're really not comparing it to a baseline for measuring improvements. That's just my that's just my but this is yeah.

It's really what saying.

Now now now it's clearly continued the discussion. It's it should drag that out.

I think the challenge will be, though, is we only have three for one more contract, and and they're the ones we need see. So I don't know how we would continue to maintain this data from the schools after Brie was no longer a contract with

you. That was my other question. Now that we've we've taken this sample group and spent the money on them and, I assume, train the trainers or the teachers, did we get did we ask them formally to continue with the program and to provide any continuing updates of this, like, for the next year? Is that gonna obviously be it won't be covered for these schools. It'll be for the new schools We'll be jumping into this. But how are we gonna continue to build on this?

So, basically, you know, Brieve has built it, and it would be and EDD has been super involved with Brieve. They come out to the programs. They're they're on every email string. They're involved in all of the process. They will carry the torch of maintaining the program with them. I don't know if EDD will be able to maintain it at this level of a 100 page report. Right. So I think that really comes down to, yeah, figuring out.

Yeah. I think just schools have always been the top of our list for, like, educational targeted stuff sometimes getting getting connected, and then then someone carving out thirty minutes in their school day for us to go and try to talk to people or meeting staff. I mean, that's always been a challenge for us. But, yeah, I mean, we're we're happy because we want

The most great really is to launch us. I mean, it was so difficult and challenging to sit down. We've made huge progress on that. And so, yeah, that's really well. The hope is a big delta than what we can just You

know, to to your point on the education, I don't know if you noticed this or not. When you when you said education, we need to concentrate on the high schoolers. I don't know if you picked up on this if you noticed this, but the high schoolers, they were not able to even do an audit because the high schoolers did not put the effort or whatever reason. And,

no, I think They

were saying it was because the children are they have to take the food, and they throw it away. Teenagers just buy what they want. But even after that case, they couldn't even do an audit because it was all too too too confusing.

The audit's difficult. It also was a challenge because the high schools were launched around March. So they were launched later in the year, so they haven't been able to really probably do a full year cycle with them. Whereas, like, Northside School and Georgetown School were some of the first ones that we launched in, you know, early in the fall. Oh, yeah. So Yeah. So, yeah, if you're looking at, timeline, like, these guys just literally launch at the end of the school year. And they just didn't have time

to do June 30. Right? This year? Mhmm.

So they've only been on board for two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. So these guys just came on board the high school. So so and and and that will be part of our continuing contract. We'll continue to work with them. So maybe we'll have data. Yeah. Next. I missed that. No.

I didn't

I know you're working with 15 more schools. Are they gonna continue to collect data on these original plan? I need to I understand. Yeah.

Yeah. And they'll and they're great about reaching out to the schools and saying, hey. How's it going? Yeah. Do you want us to come out again? Do you want us to come back? Do you need us? Any other resources? So they stay in touch with the schools. That that's a big part of the contract is the continued education and outreach. And

this doesn't include Southlake. No. There's additional. Now they've made a huge impact there.

Mhmm. Yeah. And I think that they really they focused a lot on organics last year, and then you guys might wanna chime in. Now they're focusing on edible food recovery.

Anybody wanna talk about school? Yeah. So yeah. Well, we have STR hasn't really done anything with edible food recovery, just the food waste side of things. And all school year this past year, 2425, the elementary schools have been doing fantastic.

We're planning some, TK and kindergarten lessons for the schools this year. And this year, we also went into the middle school for the first time, and so we got the sixth grade lunch on board. And they have a second lunch period with the seventh and eighth graders, so that's gonna be a project I'm gonna be working on this upcoming school year. And I feel like as as the elementary kids keep on sorting, it's gonna be easier for us to tackle the older kids. But, yeah, I've been really, really pleased with the elementary schools.

I think it's really been implemented into their routine now. I've checked in with all the custodians, and, they're all just doing a really great job. So really happy with the progress.

Thank you. I think we can move on. I just wanna say that you did a a fantastic job. Guess the documentation is incredible.

Same thing.

I will pass it on. Yeah.

Even you can even off of this, you can even go back and pull up all the lesson plans, all the slides. That's awesome. It's incredible. Yeah. Very

nice. Good.

I guess we could get out the lesson plans, then we made sure we could be getting some.

Yeah. The that they're seeing is actually reviewed all of them and given feedback. Yeah. And one of the questions for Wednesday is why did we pick Breathe to be to do the education? I was like, well, we definitely have a whole lot of options where we're at. We just got super lucky with such a great organization.

And another thing I think we're gonna cover a little on Wednesday is, like, you know, after BREED finishes their program about REACH, like, what's the future of this gonna look like? At least that's a question I could see coming up in the q and a later after the two. So talking about how those educational materials get transferred to you guys.

Is that board supervisor's meeting? Yeah. On Wednesday? Yes. Tomorrow, Tuesday. Board of supervisors is moving, and then the presentation is for our cycle for Wednesday, the.

That's the one I'm working on. Got it. Okay.

That's awesome. Yeah. It it's on their consent calendar for tomorrow, so hopefully, they just freeze right by. Yeah.

K. No more questions or comments. Let's go on to the last one, number six, which is the the draft report slash letter that we that the subcommittee has drafted up for the five year review of the solid waste management plan. Does, yeah, does anybody have any idea of best way to do this? Hope number one, it's gonna be difficult to do this since everybody can go to the.

And I don't think you just like to just glance at it and see how many pages were on it. To really understand the relationship, it's gonna be hard to go through this. Because what I like to say is, number one, do you have any questions on it? We've really looked at it. Does it make sense?

And where do you think we have some questions that we still need to build on? So do we wanna go through page by page and just kind of prompt people to to look at and see if the jars in their mind? Or what do think, doc? Well, I think if you haven't read through it yet, we should offer a some kind of version where they can everyone can review and make comments as recommended, and then we should go with those comments at our next meeting before we submit it to the board of supervisors and my thoughts. If I mean, I think everyone needs an opportunity to comment on it, but I think you absorb as we read it in this form is different. So

we have homework.

Maybe maybe Lake Tahoe. And I I just wanna say thank you to the committee. We've, you know, we've met several times, and it was good for me just to get my hat and kinda wrapped around what we do as a committee and where we're going, where we've been. It's very I think oh, Sarah or Catherine, at that end, do you wanna chime in at the beginning on this? Do you have any thoughts on approaching this, or you wanna start with any any key items that you think would be beneficial to those that didn't have the opportunity like we did to really reeducate ourselves and kinda dig into the the solid waste management plan and kinda go through monthly iterations of this?

Sarah? Yeah. I don't know

what to say other than to assure the rest of the committee that what we went through, like, every suggested action in the plan and really, like, talked through, you know, the progress to date and if it's feasible going forward and discussed, you know, kinda how to how to track it for the next go around. I just feel like we did we did a thorough job, but happy to take any feedback to make adjustments to the next draft.

Yeah. I'll, you know, ditto that. And, I mean, the way I saw it, there were sort of two pieces of this, both kind of, like, taking a step back and giving the board of supervisors some data on where we've come the last five years and some context for that, which is like the the letter and then the, like Sarah said, if you're just looking at maybe the, like, Excel spreadsheet attachment, then we went through strategy by strategy what's in the solid waste management plan and talked about whether it was something that had been completed, was, you know, if we had ongoing implementation and then or whether or not the strategy was infeasible. So, yeah, I thought it was really thorough. But it does, I think, sort of make sense for folks that maybe have not looked at, you know, looked at it yet to maybe take a look and have a little bit of time back at the office or something and respond with comments because there's a lot lot of stuff to go through.

Yeah. The plan is pretty old and the world around us has shifted since it was written, and so we we did what we could in reporting back on the implementation of the plan. I think there's a lot of good context in the letter. That's all I got.

I wanna receive the comments before, and then let's see my name so you can respond.

Okay. So we we're looking at it typically, the way I do my plan is if we have a a deadline that we have to meet, look at that date, and then move backward. So we know by the September, we wanna have something to the board. Okay? So that means that you're getting towards the end of the year and then the things on the board, getting a time is gonna get less and less available. So you probably need to pick a date so that you can get the date, and then that's our drop dead date. We'd have to have everything ready by then. That's number one. And then we need to have comments. Probably the best way to do it is to way to to look at this.

And then on the word track changes, just go ahead and track everything and send it to the subcommittee to the to all of those, myself and Doug and Gibson and to Catherine and Sarah.

So the your next meeting is in September.

Yes. Yes.

So that would be two late.

Is is there a supervisor meeting before? Because I I think one of the things we need to do as committee is to approve the letter before we present to the board.

I don't Yeah. And we're gonna don't need time to get that on the agenda.

Right. Can front load it and put it on the agenda, but I wanna make sure that we have kind of deadline of of getting the final two on the agenda.

Yeah. Do you want it on the board of supervisor's agenda? Does that confirm?

That's the deadline, right, you gotta get to the is that or for the end the year? I would say the end of the year. I'm just like

Oh, okay. I'm trying to

I'm following from here to here. We've been trying to do it in September. Yeah. Yeah. Us I would

on experience. I would say, I would we'd be finalized couple of months before want to go to the. It usually takes about a month. So you can, know, get it to ten within two months. I'll go somewhere three weeks to make sure that that's.

And the the letter go first, and then we can follow-up months later with the with the presentation. Or do you deliver the letter at the board or what?

Be ready to be submitted or not to register.

Okay. Because we were pushing to ask into January for the board meeting last time.

Been such a pleasure.