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Town of Eastham
Recycling Committee
MINUTES
Of
March 19, 2013
Members present: Lian Smith, , Andrea Aldana, Fred Guidi, Roz Diamond.
Non-members present: Neil Andres, Nan Balmer, David Quinn
- Action Items:
- Dave Quinn to send DEP list of PAYT towns in MA; 3-year old report on Solid Waste long haul rail use.
- Committee to work on encouraging growth of resident-based composting and feasibility of Transfer Station organic food composting.
- Fred to work with municipality to set up Committee web site. Web site to be used for educational materials on composting, recycling, etc.
- As part of Committee goal to foster education via web site, Lian will investigate options for a Committee logo to increase resident recognition of Committee efforts.
- Committee to consider selling hoime composters during Windmill Weekend in September on the Village Green.
- Key discussion points, decisions:
- Minutes of Feb 6, 2013 meeting were approved as written.
- New SEMAS contract begins 1/1/2015
- Private hauler treatments in neighboring towns:
- Brewster: No private haulers
- Wellfleet: Requires haulers to provide 1 price to customers for both trash and recycling to disincentivize property owner opt-out of recycling. With bundled price, everyone pays the same and recycling is encouraged. Wellfleet must enforce price bundling so all hauler have level playing field. Vacationers want to recycle – complain to town when they can’t.
- Eastham: Charges $85/ton for haulers now. With new SEMAS contract in 2015, cost likely to rise to $135.
- Food waste accounts for about 20% of trash. To decrease trash volume, increase ease of access to recycle ( e.g. hard plastics, textiles). Committee to work on encouraging resident-based composting, and feasibility of Transfer Station organic food composting. Home composters cost $42.50, and about 80-100 are sold each year to Easthamers. Committee to consider selling them Windmill Weekend on the Village Green
- MA is encouraging food waste ban. One avenue to promote composting would be for the Committee to have its own web site. Fred to investigate.
- As part of Committee education role, discussion ensued about writing articles for newspapers, and our own website. Chatham, for example, issues articles bi-weekly in local press.
- To encourage business recycling – Committee to consider how to give good citizen award to restaurants etc for recycling.
- Next Meetings:
- April 9, 2013, 5:30 PM, Town Hall
- April 23, 2013, 5:30 PM, Town Hall
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