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June 8 2010
Recycling Committee meeting minutes
June 1, 2010

Present: Tony, Erin, Liz, Marcia, Penny, Lynn, Jennifer


  • May minutes approved.
  • Updates
  • Green Community Act: Salem listed as a green community in Globe article recently. The city will receive five new Big Bellies.
  • Green Salem Business Challenge and Business Recycling – Liz -  brief overview of the challenge and the survey.    Paul Marquis is working on posting the challenge on a website. Katie brought up  an inquiry she received regarding business composting.  A couple of suggestions were made regarding possible resources for businesses to contact including Mass Recycle and the Salem Chamber.  A compost pick up program was deemed a poor choice at this time for a City like Salem.  Hamilton currently has a small pilot program in place – costly and difficult to manage.
  • NSRF – contract and recycling stats:  Rates are still low, discussion followed on how we can get the message out to the residents to keep paper recycling clean (no plastic bags!). With the upcoming Living Green Fair approaching, we should trim down the booth, make it more streamlined. Jennifer and Erin will meet with Julie to redesign its look. Lynn feels we need to reach out to the neighborhood associations and have a presence at the Farmers market. The plastic bag drop off at the common was highly effective during Clean Salem, Green Salem event.
  • Extended Producer Responsibility (ERP) meeting – Liz: E-waste bill is getting a big push right now to get passed in MA, but the bottle bill is still stalled. Mass Recycle has not been successful in building momentum to get the bottle bill passed and is frustrated by the strong opposition in the business community.
  • DEP grant submission – Lynn: Lynn worked on the narrative, Julie worked on the budget. Funds available go up to $100,000. We hope to get $10,000 which would be used to buy more receptacles, education, and build a website. Events in the city drive millions of people from all over the world to Salem, providing a great need for easy recycling and trash disposal. We will work with departments, such as Parks and Recreation, to  identify the best place for receptacles. Tom O’Shea had containers moved on the  Common and it made a great difference. We should know of our status in October.
  • Upcoming Events: Living Green Fair, June 19, 2010, 10am to 3pm. Volunteers for the first shift, (9:30-12:30) are Julie (broken shift throughout day), Liz, Jennifer and Penny. Second shift will be Katie, Marcia and Erin. Discussion of redesigning the booth brought several ideas to the table including having two walls, one red for items that are not recyclable curbside, (NO), and one green to represent those items that are recycled curbside, (YES). Items could be attached to walls with Velcro, or perhaps just have pictures of the items, to trim down the look. It was also discussed that we should set up the “sorting game” for people to try to create the Perfect Pickup, which we will have the pledge at the table for people to sign up for.
  • Strategic Planning Discussion: Lynn approached the discussion with the suggestion that we need a schedule and action plan for the sub-committees to have a prepared presentation at the next Strategic Planning Meeting. It should be prepared one week in advance (July 6th, as the July meeting has been moved to the following week, July 13th, pending full agreement with members. At the July meeting, each sub-committee will present their draft for feedback and finalization.
  • Chair and Vice Chair selection: As we have had no volunteers coming forward, Liz and Lynn will continue to serve in these positions respectively. Jennifer has volunteered to serve as secretary.
  • To Do’s – website update, articles, etc.:  We will look into getting a volunteer to set up a website as there is no funds at present to build one. Tony has agreed to write articles for the Gazette. Topics suggested are: No plastic bags, Perfect Pickup rewards still in effect, jewel of the North Shore with NSRF, dual stream vs. single stream, Styrofoam, and articles on reuse.
  • August gathering in lieu of meeting. Lynn has graciously offered to host a cookout at her home. We will resume regularly scheduled meetings in September.