Salem Recycles committee meeting
Tuesday, March 6th 2012
Attending: Penny Neal (chair), Robin Faulling, Erin Huggard, Tony Keck, Jennifer Percy, Liz Vago
Old Business
Salem Recycles face book postings:
Nancy Gilberg was not at the meeting, hopefully will have update at next meeting.
Green Salem Business Challenge Update:
Liz Vago spoke about the GSBC. There will be a workshop on March 28th @ 8:00 am to help businesses on the survey. We are considering workshops in the future for business to help with questions of becoming more green and educating business owners. The Enterprise Center wants to work with us on this. Liz distributed a “talking points” hand-out as part of the outreach plan to get business outside on the city center. Liz, Andrea, Julie and Paul will be canvassing the outreach area, Liz asked if there was anyone else who could help out. The survey has been updated so that there are different tracks, including a hospitality track for restaurants which would have different green possibilities from other businesses. Also there is a PDF sample of the survey on the site for businesses to examine/print out to help them with
the survey. Talked about how we can do an assessment for business to see how they improved and/or saved money from previous year/s.
SalemRecycles recommending that the city use the free recycled glass crumbles as aggregate in paving projects:
There was a general discussion regarding glass crumbles as Julie Rose was going to do more research on this issue. Do we need to formally recommend this to the Mayor? Need to do more research, including talking with North Andover regarding why they can’t sell the crumbles and why the highway dept. doesn’t use them. Need to research with other states what they do and what is the real cost of using the crumbles. We decided to put this on the agenda for the next meeting.
New Business
March 10th Book Swap details:
Council on Aging may be putting swap fliers in the Salem News for us. Karen Cady is making chili for everyone working Friday, please RSVP with her. We seem to be all set with shift people. Council on Aging has tables.
May 5th Green Salem details:
Are we going to do a yard-sale swap or just have Goodwill? Goodwill said they would be there the entire time. No rain date for swap, everything will go to Goodwill after the event. We will have designated areas such as: clothing, small appliances/household, housewares, tools etc. Should we have an Ewaste area? Announcement should say “No TVs” and “Items in working order.” This will have to be manned by volunteers. Swap will only take place during the Green Salem event. There was discussion about location of the Goodwill trucks, and the possibility of an extra truck at Riley plaza for just drop-off. The consensus was to have trucks only at the Common. The committee agreed on the name “Green Salem Swap ‘n’ Drop.”
Susan suggested a display of “found” recyclables, which can still be recycled.
Discussed how Green Salem does the street clean ups. Will we be selling recycle/compost bins? Will we have the sorting/quiz table or kiosks etc.? Maybe have a soft introduction for the glass crumble aggregate.
Continuing Business
Gazette Articles & Press Releases – Calendar for remaining year
The committee liked Marcia’s idea of writing an article titled: “Marcia’s Tips.” Tony discussed cleaning out at his home, so he is doing a couple of articles on spring cleaning and the process of recycling including shredding old documents during tax time. He will write two articles: a March article on cleaning out and an early April column on Tax time/shredding paper. Erin will write an article for mid-April on the Green Salem Swap ‘n’ Drop.
Door Hanger Update
Need an update on the distribution plan. Penny will foloow up with details on printing.
Other Business
Living Green Fair
There was discussion about the Living Green Fair and what are plans are. Will we be doing the same as last year?
New Volunteers
There was discussion about finding a volunteer from Salem State University for Salem Recycles.
Mayors Visit in June
For the Mayor’s visit, there will be a June meeting, but it will take place Thursday, not Tuesday. Committee members will present the Mayor with a 10-15 minute overview of significant areas of focus in which SalemRecycle is involved including policy/Initiatives we are exploring. Where we were, where we are and where we want to go.
Committee members willing to speak include:
- Liz – GSBC, Recycling component
- Tony – Process for deciding on Articles
- Lynn – Website?
- Erin – Textiles?
- Susan – Door Hanger project?
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