Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

fit into the agenda. Uh the the first item I have is to continue to review programs and data. Um Mr. Pursard, I know you circulated some new spreadsheets that you had compiled. Um

Yep. And so if you don't mind, uh, I will share my screen for a moment here and just show what we've been working on. Um, all right. I think you should all be able to see that. Um, so what we did, we we took the communities that I had sent out um maybe on Monday. um those were the communities that kind of fell within the same um you know with some degrees of separation but um the same amount of customers served. So rather than do it by the you know socioeconomic communities that we find ourselves compared to for our salary studies and things like that do it just based on the number of customers served. Um I I was struggling with either doing that or by the tonnage. Um but in the end I I settled on on this and we can also it's not that hard to break down other ways but um so what we've been doing is contacting all of these separate communities and getting a little bit more data on how they're running their programs um specifically and actually it's not uh clear on here so I'm going to have to add a column But these these communities are um generally oh no there is a it's under the trash cart size I guess we put it in but anyways trash cart size I'll have to change the title but we've got if they're pay as you throw we've noted it there. If they've got some kind of gallon um to we've noted it there. Um, and some of these have have overflow like an overflow um program and those are generally the ones

that say like six this is a 64 gallon um but you can do a 33gallon overflow bag. Um, and we'll we'll I think I got to denote that a little bit better. Um, but we've also broken down uh how many bags you get per roll, how many uh what the cost per roll is, uh what that equals in cost per bag. Um, some of these communities have pay as you throw, same exact program as us, but they have a uh annual fee for service, right? So, it's every every household serve pays $235. They then also have to buy bags um which are actually right around the cost of what what we are doing. It's really not that that much different. Um so like Ashlin, that's their program, but they do have um an annual discount for seniors. Um which is, you know, it's only $125 for the annual fee. So they they're clearly trying to do what we've discussed, I think, in in the past, which is try to make that more equitable for people that uh you know, maybe have a fixed income or or maybe don't produce that much waste. Um yeah, I won't go through every single one, but um some have a weight limit on their on their tote um like Hollist does. Um they use an overflow uh sticker system. So rather than doing bags, you use whatever bag you want. Um you've get your 35 gallons uh gallon container. It's a 40 lb limit on that. Um and then everything else is the overflow sticker. So similar to what we've discussed again,

um Hopington annual fee of $6.99. Um they do have um I I believe this this program is um curbside with overflow bags. Um something we've obviously looked at. Um IPS switch has a kind of a neat program where they've got their weight limit, but then they also have a they have a bulk item sticker. um which is is a neat way I think of of kind of subsidizing that for for folks. Um Maynard pay as you throw. Uh Mike go ahead.

Oh, this is a ton of work that went into this, but one question for helping me understand this. When they have both a tote and a bag, is that bag assumed to be an overflow bag or are those bags that go in the tote? Yeah, they're um they're all overflow bags in this particular case. There may be a different model somewhere, but um all of these communities that have a um a gallon uh size associated with them also are using them as overflow bags. Wonderful. Thank you.

Yes. Um, yeah, and some of them we still have some feelers out and trying to fill some of these data points in that aren't readily available. Um, but you you get kind of the idea. There seems to be those two main programs, right? So, you've got your toar. We've talked about this, the totar and the overflow bag, or you've got strict pays. you throw um the the interesting kind of breakout that we've been doing is you know that annual fee that some communities have even on top of their pay as you throw. Um so that's that's kind of how they're I think getting their bag fees to be fairly in line. Um and then um you know subsidizing that with with the onetime with the onetime fee. Um so Evan I I I would assume that part of the reason for charging a fee like that is also to um provide some equity to larger families that would be generating more bags. Um obviously then the smaller households are subsidizing that sum. Um and if we were to do something like that, it would require you to um expend the additional administrative costs that you identified at the last meeting and were included in that email like 65,000 a year. So it would cost more to manage a program like that, but it might provide some

um you know bumpers on what the small and the large families are paying and right equalize things a little bit.

Yeah. And I I assume the ones with the annual fee also are using that fee to cover the cost of the program so they have that stable income that they know is going to cover, you know, whatever it is they need to do. But I think that's a great point, Jim, is they're probably using it to kind of pull down the the top payers and and you know, provide a little buffer there. But, um, Mike, yeah. Uh, one one question on this. for the bins that have a weight limit stated. Do you get any insight as to um you know, is this a tower system with a mechanized scale or is this somebody manually picking it up and oh, if you threw away 35 cinder blocks that week,

you you get a the non-compliance sticker. From what we've been able to to garner, it's the arms on the trucks have a scale on them. Um, and so I think there's some, um, I don't want, well, we'll call it fudge factor. I think they give you a little bit of leeway, some discretion. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I don't think they're um, you know, it's not it's not your doctor's scale. It's not, you know, um, but they do they do monitor that. And um some of the towns have a system by where they say let's say you have a 40 lb limit on your tote um and you know one week you're at 50 lbs. They'll still take it but they slap a sticker on your trash excuse me trash barrel that says you're over the limit and you know in the future you need to you know use blow bag or whatever flow bag. Um that makes sense.

Yeah. is the logistics of having a tower system with a scale on it. Is that something that you think El Harvey would be able to provide without buying new trucks and mechanized systems? Yeah, they're doing it in other they're doing it in other communities. I think the they're doing it in Hollist. Um I think uh no waste management is is Long Meadow. Um but yet they are doing it in places and I actually believe that the truck that they're using currently in Grafton has that capability. Um, magnificent. Thank you. Sorry for diving straight into the weeds on that.

No, no, that was a good good question. And also generally the fun part of looking at this stuff is learning about the technology that all these pieces of equipment have that you would never think about otherwise. Yeah. Um, all right. with with that if we're this is a lot to digest and I think we're going to have to kind of decide where to go with that. Um but I do have um I we've been collecting some other um some other data. I'm just going to open my file explorer here real quick. Um, oh, stop share. Um, I we also have collected we've only got five so far. We're we're continuing to work on this, but we have um other communities contracts that we're trying to build in. Um so um and we're expecting you know to be able to fill that entire list obviously but we just haven't haven't received them all yet. So we've got requests out and the ones that um yeah so anyways we're we are trying to build that that part of the file out as well so that we can take a look at the exact language that they have. um like Abington with Boston Carding. That's the name of their company that they have. Um and it kind of details all of the the different uh you know waste categories that they have. Um service recipients. It's very similar to what we're running now, but it does break apart um you know the collection re uh

receptacles, which is you know single family will get a 64 um for automated collection. And then it talks about um two families and three families and condos and and so so on and so forth. So it's a it's a lot of data uh in these contracts that I think are is going to be valuable. I think that you know we've we've seen some I'm going to just jump into a little different direction here. I think we've seen kind of a lot of data and you know maybe our next step to be considered is that we we kind of put together two cost assessments on our maybe our top two programs that we want to see what that looks like and then you know build out a little bit of a a cost basis analysis and then we'll you know kind of know where to where we want to head. um unless we think we need more data or I haven't answered any of the some of the other questions that were asked previously by by that spreadsheet. Um Emory, yeah, I just wanted to confirm. So the the admin fee of approximately $65,000, whatever it might be, is is going to be something that we have to incur almost no matter what.

Is that true? No. So if if we stayed just straight pay as you throw, we won't need that. We won't need that fee. That's a simple in and out. Yes. Yeah. The reason that that admin fee becomes important is when we're you're doing um like a tot system, we need to monitor addresses, do bill, you know, all Yeah, I know you. No, no, I just wanted to confirm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's that's where that money goes. Yeah. Okay. So straight bag fee or bag increase. we negate that administration cost with probably most other systems. We will incur that whether it's tote plus bags or totes blah blah blah. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, absolutely. Well, I Ian, Evan, I just think that um your your last comment about um starting to hone in on some different uh cost analysis makes a lot of sense because we're at a point where we have very few options that we're looking at right now. And I think at some point we do need to have that so that we can take a look at what our final recommendation to the select board will be. Um, and you know, I I looked at the um, it looks like you added a couple more um, uh, data points in that spreadsheet that you just showed. Um, because when I looked at it earlier today, the average for those other towns was around 350. It's like 344 and change now. So, it's hasn't changed much. Um, and then when you look at where we're at, if you have a average family that uses one bag a week, I don't know what the average is. You probably can figure that out on number of bag sales and number of homes and stuff. Um, that uh, you know, our our fees are substantially less than that right now. And so I think and and we talked about this previously that it was important to get that data so that when we go back to both the select board and um when the select board and you and um whoever else has to do it uh justify it at TA meeting this year um can actually point to some of those data points as justification for where we're at on our fees. Um just show that we're not doing something totally crazy. We're not, you know, up above Hopkin there. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's a great point and I I um Yeah. I mean, I think we've done enough Well, there's never really enough, but I think you you'll take my point. I think we've done enough due

diligent building out kind of what other communities are doing. We have the gist of it. Um, and yeah, I think I think time will be well spent kind of building the the maybe two programs and then analyzing those down further. Um, which I I to me that's the next step if if everyone agrees. But

Mike, I I I have a brief set of questions. Um so I looked into the recycling dividends program. This is money that the state gives um on a basis for how sustainable you are. This appears to be focused strictly on uh single family home residential trash collection and then some other community service like uh hazardous waste and things like that. Evan, if I read that correctly, the the maximum we would get from a basil RDP is $1,100 a year. Is that

uh No. Um I can actually provide you with um what we've gotten from the program. I think this year's award was 3,000, but we we have had years where we've gotten more. Um they do continue to refine that program. Um so that the dollar amount does fluctuate. Um and then just for uh this group's ratification, we have used that money to subsidize both the black earth black earth compost program as well as the backyard compost program. Um and I No, we've also used it to subsidize the rain barrel program.

Yeah, the rain barrels we got through them. Um Black Earth has gotten some grants independently for subsidizing bins and things like that, which is fantastic. Um before we go into a full, you know, cost analysis, I just want to doublech check the scope of this advisory committee.

Um you know, we're we're talking strictly about uh single family curbside residential trash. We're not talking about multifamily waste streams or waste diversion. Multifamily. We're there there's commercial is way out of scope. Is that correct? commercial is yes and um I'm actually trying to remember how it's worded but over a certain um number of dwelling units I think it's more if it's more than two in a building um that then you have to provide your own

uh service so uh like condos apartment complexes build uh industrial commercial all of that is excluded um with the exception of our contract covers the municipality as well as the schools. Um, which that wouldn't change with what we're talking about here really. We're still going to do that. But and um I I I understand that it's out of scope, but there is no current mandate for providing recycling at a multif family unit. Correct. Or no, correct. We don't have that uh mandated as of as of yet. Okay. So, that's something that if that were to be enacted, that would go through a town meeting and things like that as a petition.

Yes. Okay. All right. Um, all right. Thank you for clearing that up. That just helps me make sure I'm pointing in the right direction. And yeah, absolutely. Emory, sorry. Sorry, Larry. I saw you go into the unmute. I figured I'd just You're quick.

Yeah. Just gonna say uh to that point, Mike, um you know, I've heard from many folks who live in condos and and multif family units. um in our not multif family but condos in in specifically I guess because they also pay taxes and this is you know an issue for them where they are subsidizing our trash fees. So looking at this being fully um self-sufficient or you throw Yeah, thank you. Yeah, whatever it is. Um, yep.

It it it it makes it more equitable for folks who are living in in situations where they're paying taxes and they're also paying for trash and recycling um fees separate.

I I I totally agree that yeah, this this is a more representational use of those funds. Um, you know, for the people who do live in multif family housing, there is some frustration that there's no recycling mandated in a lot of those. Um, you know, we can look at this through a financial, you know, equitable, reasonable, sustainable, or we can all, you know, put on our Captain Planet shirts. And but, um, I I agree with what you said, Marie. Thank you. I mean just to oh sorry I didn't raise my hand but to throw it out there just to say for me um going fully pay as you throw I would like to see that as something that we are going to you know if we're going to go down a couple of routes in terms of um looking at the financial implications um that is the system that I think is the most equitable um and I would like you know again I'd like for that to be one of the the options Jim,

I I just wanted to agree with um Anmarie there that I think pay as you throw needs to be one of the options. And I think um further whether or not we have it fully funded by bag fees or an annual fee plus bag fees um I think is one of the things that we need to talk about. And then whether or not those are our two options or whether or not we have a toer and a recycling bin, which is setting a whole different system and other costs associated with having the other toers and stuff like that and getting people used to a different format. Um, and maybe not encouraging recycling as much as the pay as you throw goes. I I'm all for sticking with the pay as you throw, but coming up with a funding mechanism that works so that it is truly self-supporting.

That's what I was looking for. Self-supporting. I knew it was the word you were looking for. That's why I threw it out there. There a minute ago.

Yeah. I I um I I think that you know if we're looking for the most equitable program I think it's going to remain to be pay as you throw. I think that I mean clearly that's the model that that uh you know uh drives people to recycle more and to be more careful with what they purchase and you know what the things that they purchase come in, right? The containers, the all of those things. I think that that helps drive that. Um, so I I I think that, you know, we can refine our numbers on what that looks like. Um, we need to do some math on, you know, when we make that switch and that announcement. I think we're going to get a lot of people that buy bags at the lower price. So, we've got to kind of figure that into year one and kind of do do a little uh other, you know, augmentation to our math. Um and then you know the other thing that I think um you know has kind of appealed to the group is the limited size to um with with overflow um to just kind of still still drive people towards that recycling model, right? if you only have uh 64 gallons a week or whatever the number winds up being um you know you you do still have to be conscious maybe not as conscious as you would be with pay you throw but um you know and I think uh in speaking to our our vendor Eel Harvey you know they are willing to help us put together um you know a loose perspectus on what it looks like for um the tot system um based on what they've done in other communities Um, so we don't have to, you know, reinvent the whole wheel and and it would get us into a ballpark. Um, it's not going to be the same as if we, you know, put together an RFP and went out and saw what the market is is bearing, but I think it would get us a a good idea of where where we would end up

if those are the two options we settle on. I don't want to. Yeah, I am fully in support of a pays you throw. I'm in agreement with all of you on that. I think that if there's an option for having a automated arm lifter and having the waist in some sort of receptacle, whether that is a fixed size to where everything you fit in it doesn't have to go into a bag and then anything else goes into overflow or if we have something similar to what we have now where it's, you know, it's in a bin, they can pick it up with the arm, it goes into the um intermediate, you know, transfer tray in front of the truck so they can see that everything's in a Um, but the the ability and ability to encourage residents to put things into a bin. Um, yeah, there's there's some opportunity for poor behavior and trying to sneak in some, you know, hefty bags underneath one green bag, but uh I think that that is respectful to the people who are handling the bags. Reduces animals getting into it, reduces trash blowing around, things like that. Um, I realize that's a difficult sort of ideal Goldilock scenario uh with a full pay as you throw or a pays you throw plus fee. Um, I think that that's challenging but worth considering is navigating the option of a, you know, full bin system even if it's not a full barcoded tote or city compliant bin. Yep. and Marie.

So, if we were to change the bag color, is that like an increased fee for some reason? Um, no, but we would have to I would recommend we use up what we have. Sure. I just think of, you know, if you were if you were considering that

folks stocking up might might, you know, be a bit of a an issue, then that would be a way to mitigate it. Yeah, that I think that's something to consider for sure. I I I was thinking of it as a we know we're going to have a certain amount of loss that's not going to go into the program early on. And if we figure that that's a I don't know, pick a pick a number right now for for argument sake, but say it's a 25% hit we're going to take, then we need to, you know, account for that in in year one. Um the the you know the the nice thing about the enterprise fund is that the money if we and and this is never our goal but if we received if we overestimated at 25% and we you know we have a buffer in that account um you know that's not going to go anywhere else. It's it's always there. So in future uh fiscal years if there's a dip in that um you know we we have we have some flexibility there.

I was just thinking that that actually if you provide or you put in the buffer which obviously we would do um and then if we all don't go crazy with buying up all the supply that perhaps the following year maybe the bag fees might go down by 50 cents because we didn't what we ever we anticipated didn't happen. Yep. Either way. Thanks.

Right. Yep. Absolutely. Sorry, had a bunch of questions here. Um, okay. Do you so are we in um loose agree or not loose agreement are we in agreement that we'll look for um running the numbers in in depth on the pay as you throw program um maybe do that math out you know three to five years because we may see like I said a little bit of a bump in the beginning we might want to account for that um and then uh a tot system with overflow bags is That is that

I think those are the two options. Those are the two. Sure. Would would it um be appropriate just to make a motion to limit it to those two different options right now so that um Evan has the ability just to focus on those. He doesn't have to worry about anything else. because if that's appropriate, I'm happy to make a motion to focus on a uh pay throw system and a um tote plus a recycling bin system only. Second.

Okay. So, Larry, if you want to call that vote, um Sure. We'll take a a vote via roll call. Uh the motion just made by Mr. Mallaloy. I peric I Bully I Mallaloy I Rock I

Prisard I It's weird being a uh voting on anything. It definitely does not feel natural given my my job thousands of meetings of never saying anything but uh All right. Um, Mr. Chair, do you want to move on to uh the item that Amarie had asked to put on, which is discuss tracks reduction incentives and programs? Yes, I think it's a good time to move on to that. I wasn't sure if that was going to be actually included in tonight's agenda or if that was something we were floating for for our next meeting, but uh if folks are up to tackling it now and we have some

topics to discuss, we should dive in. Uh, if I might, uh, I I'm happy to float that into January for sure. I just have I don't know about the rest of you, but I've heard from a lot of folks, you know, with ideas on on how we can help get rid of things and that again just trying to figure out incentive programs for reducing trash and um, making systems that we already have in place such as the DPW barn, etc. better. So, um I have a ton of, you know, ideas, uh some from my sustainable grafting, um work, but it doesn't have to be we don't have to discuss that tonight for sure. Just we can push that to the next meeting. And um I think the long story short is that any change that we make, which is going to end up costing folks more money for the most part, um it would be great if we can then talk about ways that they can offset that, right? either via composting, better recycling, so on and so forth. So that was um the gist of it.

Yeah, I think that would be a nice balm to to add on to the backside of this. Like anything that we any change we make, I think is going to be received with a certain amount of pain and maybe some groaning. So if if there are solutions that we can bake into it, uh I bet that'll be helpful in terms of uh public reception of what we're doing here. And one thing just um to note so based on that uh sorry the graph that you had there Evan of other communities a couple of folks have talked to me about you know we don't have the bulk um items anymore and I don't know what that would take and maybe just again we're have to talk about this tonight but in over the next you know six or seven months um you know how would that look for Harvey to now take one bulk item per year or I saw some communities with it like once a month or something even if it for a $10 fee. I think folks are willing to even pay something to get rid of some of these things. So, that's been brought up to me by a number of folks um for sure that I think people would be super happy um to think that they could get rid of one or two of those bulk items over the course of a year. We we do have a we do have available a program and I gota I

I don't want to misspeak on it so I won't go too far in detail but you can call republic uh not republic um eel Harvey now

and um have them do a bulk pickup for you for a fee and the fees vary depending on what they're picking up um and as so Amarie and and I had an email exchange about our hazardous waste um information which is not really in a very advantageous spot at all. Um that we need to do a better job advertising. Um but you know, maybe part of this is advertising kind of what we do have for bulk and maybe we are able to subsidize that a little bit. So instead of it being $30 per item, we get it down to 10 and you know that that helps people in in some way. Um,

so yeah, I can kind of compile um some information I have and some ideas and maybe I can shoot that out to Amber and then she can disseminate that for like the January meeting. Yeah, I think that's I I think that's great. If I could, Mr. Chair, if I could share one more thing. Um, please.

Okay. Um, so this is this is uh something I grabbed from the the town of Auburn. Um, and it's just it's just a PowerPoint that lives on their their website. Um, but it's really good. They're doing a very good job in Auburn. Um, they it appears they have a full-time person that this is what they do is is the re you know um solid waste and recycling um activities. And I I think they also that person I I believe also sometimes goes out in the field and monitors the truck and like watches what is being thrown away and and adherence to the program. But what I thought was neat is, you know, they've got um they've got an overview of how they built their program with the different carts. Um they've got a whole bunch of great slides that are from Recycle Smart Ma. Um, but then they also, this is the only reason I'm So, they've got pictures of what violations look like, which is kind of neat. Um, just it's just great data, but they also have, you know, these really substant I'm trying to get to it now. This is the stuff I think Amory that is kind of where we're where we're we're going to want to hone in. they they've got their their textile recycling program and we don't uh have a textile recycling receptacle at like the municipal center. Um, and that's something I think we need to consider um or up at the the transfer uh station at the highway garage to to focus in on on textiles. Um, you know, they break it down for mercury, other hazardous waste. They also use NAD like we do. Um they've got I mean they they've just done a really good job of compiling this all into one spot. Um and uh we do a lot of these things. We just don't do a very

good job of showing you how to do all of it. And I think that so some of this is I think looking at at what programs are out there and also doing a better job of coalating this information and putting it in a way that residents understand that yes you you do pay for your pay as you throw stuff but we have all these other programs available as well for other things that don't necessarily go with that program

that nobody bags for the textiles. That went away. We used to have the pink bags for the textiles, but that went away. I think during the pandemic, I think that company disappeared. But, um, that was a a handy thing to have. You just get the pink bag and leave it out there. They'd come by and pick it up and leave you another pink bag. Yeah. I I it looks like the model that most of those companies have now gone to is they they it's kind of like the the book dropper or the clothes donation bins that you see. Um

but that you know that's that's how they do their textiles. Just for example, I tried to get rid of a rug through bulk pickup here and they told me that I have to It's interesting being on the customer service end of it's probably the same for you, Jim, being on the customer service end of of the local government, but they told me to bring it and put it in the bin behind town hall and it's got a slot in it that's maybe a foot by a foot and this is an 8 by10 rug. There's there's no way. And you know, I did have the thought,

which would drive me nuts as a town administrator of I'm like, I'm just going to put it on top of it. They can figure it out. But um but yeah, it was actually kind of interesting watching that program and being like, oh, this program doesn't this doesn't work. And so if we do that, you know, we got to we got to think of that. Anyways, I know that's a digression, but I love the idea. The body that you had rolled up inside the rug, that should be composted and then we handle the rug as textile. See, I'm out in Mson. That's That's pigs. We have We have pigs for those types of things out there.

The um Deadwood joke. Evan, the the stuff that Auburn did um I think is really um good and it's something that maybe at some point in time there's maybe some grant opportunity that the town could um look at to hire someone, a firm or something to put something together because I think that's sometimes that's the hardest part for a lot of people and if we can hopefully drive some message home that you know look this is the costs are going up because we've created this enterprise fund, but you have the power to drive the cost back down for your own family. I think that's a a strong message for people to recycle or you know,

yeah, find other diversion streams, right? So, compost composting is in my opinion, uh, it's huge. The far best way to reduce the amount of waste that is leaving your house on a on a weekly. I know Ann Marie and I both commented that we both compost in our backyards, but you know, I was thinking about it today. We have a um a composting bin that we keep in our kitchen and we empty it. It's full almost every day or every other day. So, it gets emptied once every every other day. And that probably weighs um when it's full. Yeah.

It probably weighs five pounds every time we empty it. And so if you think about that, that's one family diverting 25 to 30 pounds of food waste every single week. That's pretty substantial. And and at the end of the whole game, it ends up being what we don't have to pay to um I'm going to call it wheelraater, but I know it's something else now probably. But yeah, the tipping fee, right?

The tipping fee, you miss out on all that tonnage of of solid waste that you're paying for. Um it was one of the things that when I was in Lexington, we used our ARPA money to subsidize the first year for anybody who wanted to um uh have free we gave them a one year of free curbside um composting through Black Earth

and we just used our ARPA money and we we signed up like a thousand and it was first come first serve and boy did those go quick. We got like a thousand people every year for all three of those years or thousand households. So, we picked up a lot of households doing compost in that way. And our long-term argument was just that was that, you know, you're diverting it from the the waist stream that you're paying tipping fees for.

Yeah. I I uh we have RDP money and we can maybe talk about that as part of this conversation is, you know, do we do another push um for compost? I mean, I think I I think we should regardless, but I think um you know, we've got that RDP money um that you were talking about, Mike. So we've got that built up from years of not spending the full amount. So we do have a little bit of a kitty there. And you know, maybe that's part of this roll out at the same time is we're doing this and we're going to subsidize the first x number of people that come to whatever the math comes out to be um to the Black Earth program or we're going to provide maybe we do free backyard composters um you know because we we do them at $25 which is a $75 reduction in cost. But um you know maybe we look at doing some of those things kind of in tandem to try to bolster that program at the same at the same time.

I mean yeah that was definitely my point with this line item. So I'm happy to again I have a lot of this already going on my sustainable um grafting committee and site. Um so happy to compile that and then I I'll definitely check out what Auburn has come up with. And just FYI, there is a a gentleman in town that's retired who reached out to me and who's happy to actually try to compile this enough to, you know, send it to the town to get it on a website type thing. So, I can even put him in touch with I told him I'm not sure if he's here tonight, but um if not, uh I have a name anyways.

Okay. Yeah, we don't have any attendees in this particular meeting, but um yeah, that's great. I I I will say we're going to we're going to move the sanitation stuff on the website just in the meantime because it's it's housed with DPW because they're the ones that traditionally oversaw the program, but it doesn't really doesn't really work. Um it needs to have its own landing page and just be easier to navigate. Um, Auburn again has a really nice page on their website and um, what we had discussed today was just reaching out to Auburn, getting their blessing and they also use CI Civic Plus as their website vendor and just saying as long as they're fine with it, we'll just have Civic Plus literally copy that template, move it over, graphize it, um, and use that as our as our jump off point. But, which I'm sure they'll be fine with it. Most communities are happy to share. So, um, but we did we did discuss that earlier.

Um, Evan, something that we should consider with our or I guess Larry, you're you're the chair of this. Uh, but something we should consider with the totality of our recommendations is um non-compliance or you know, bad actors in the system. Currently, the guidance is you'll be charged as if it's bulk or hazardous. We we'll call the police. I maybe some sort of small monetary fine. I know that would add to the administrative cost, but that may assist in the general compliance or whether or not we want to or not do that. But I think that we should consider that as part of our recommendation package is, you know, how do we handle bad actors the system

scarlet letters? I'm fine with that. Yeah.

Yeah. Everybody gets a T on their front lawn. I I have sorry one digression that I I my first week here I got a call about trash and and uh you know trash is a big is a big thing but it was it was actually grass clippings and I went up to see what was happening and a gentleman was taking the storm water grate off of the grate in the road dumping all of his grass clippings in there and then putting the grate back on. And we literally had to have somebody like we we had to have the police just up their patrols of the neighborhood cuz we couldn't catch the person doing it. But it was clearly

clearly them. Um but yeah, they had packed that storm the storm water uh or the the manhole out there just filled with grass top to bottom. It was never seen anything like it. It was pretty it was an it was an interesting uh you know first couple weeks in in Grafton. So yeah, anyways, should we roll into the next item? Yes, please.

on the agenda, uh, which is to address research needed for the next meeting. I know that we've already spoken about narrowing it down to these two possible avenues, um, and crunching some numbers over like the three to five year time period for for what each of these would look like. So, I I think our homework is clearly set out that way. Um, Mike also just mentioned, I think it's a good idea. Food for thought. Um, you know, what what appropriate sanctioning or I I don't want to use the term punishment, but what we're going to do to to police this program and and uh to deter bad actors from acting badly.

Positive motivator. That's that's the ticket. Uh

we can definitely include that in our um just final review here of what other communities are using, whether they're using what's called like a 21D finding process or if they've got some kind of another way that they do that. Um yeah, we can we can look at what what other towns do for that. Um and then lastly again more on the food for thought but what Amarie had mentioned about um reduction incentives programs if we all put in the back of our heads uh and maybe poke around a little bit as to as to what other towns are doing in that regard. I think that

gives us a really full docket for the next meeting. Uh maybe maybe more full than it needs to be. Yeah. I I do want to just if anybody has comes across anything website, a page, PDF, whatever that you find that you think is valuable for the group, if you just send it to that MSW at graftymma.gov, of Amber gets that as well as I do and we can throw that up into the folder um and kind of use that as as some of our collected data here to you know and then if anybody you know we get to the next meeting you want me to share that I'm happy to pull it out and put it on the screen if that's helpful and and discuss that. So feel free to send us whatever you come across.

Amber has been busy putting up a lot of uh collateral and content on the uh share drive. So yeah. Yeah. Amber's Amber's the unsung hero of the municipal government here. Seems that way. Yeah. Um okay. If we're if we're satisfied that that adequately addresses item number three on the agenda, the last thing I would do uh if we've all had a chance to review the minutes from our November 12th meeting, um which I have, they look great to me personally, uh I'd move to have those meetings accepted and approved. Second. Do we need to vote on that by by way of roll call? Yes, please. Peric I.

Fully I Malloy I Rock I Brousard I Hey. All right. Are we meeting again in two weeks? Is that what's going on? I have to Okay. Yeah. Two weeks from today. Okay. Is that still okay for everyone? Yeah. No, this is good. This is a very productive committee. I'm I'm uh very much enjoying this group and this piece. I think we're getting a lot of stuff accomplished. Right. Move to adjourn. I think we're mostly following your lead, Evan. Move to adjourn.

Wait, do we need to Oh, no. We We just We just approved the minutes. Never mind. Speaking of pace. All right. You can I I think we're we're good, Mr. Chair. Uh you can adjourn without objection and uh Okay, great. That'll be easy for All right. Thank you, everybody. is journ.