SalemRecycles committee meeting
Tuesday, April 3rd 2012
Attending: Julie Rose (Chair), Liz Vago, Tony Keck, Penny Neal, Erin Huggard, Nancy Gilberg, Jennifer Percy, Susan Yochelson, Robin Faulling, Janis Breeze (new volunteer), Erin Burke (visitor from Salem State University & 350.org)
Old Business
Green Salem Business Challenge update: Kickoff last Wednesday, With business’ attending including Salem High School, Peabody Essex Museum, Cabot Money Management & several small business, so far 25 businesses. Liz spoke about outreach plan & contacting people. Are there places where we can post flyers? Moving away from competition towards how green a company can grow. This year every business will be recognized with a certificate from the mayor rather than just winners. They can evaluate themselves against themselves. The survey is up & is a PDF. General discussion on the survey & the resource tools available on the survey.
SalemRecycles recommending the city use the free recycled glass crumbles as aggregate in paving projects: Discussed bottle recycling & where does the bottle glass goes? General discussion about what & where glass is recycled. Julie said she had sent an extensive email regarding the issue, but will resend the email. But the bottom line this is a controversial topic statewide, & much broader than just Salem. Issue is more complicated, if someone wants to take the research project on or create a subcommittee that could be discussed.
March 8th Science Fair de-brief: Nancy spoke briefly about the table we had there and that it was a success.
March 10th Book Swap de-brief: Book swap counted over 400 people not including volunteers. The senior center was a smaller space then used in the past but a good location because it was down town & people could walk to it. We can expand to use the entry way for next swap is we wanted. People seemed to like the signage for the tables. It was mentioned the maybe we could have more rectangular tables vs. round tables as they make it easier to stack books. Tony mentioned that a lot of people came, who hadn’t heard of previous swaps. This may be due to better Facebook coverage & we got coverage with Boston Globe. General discussion about what we can do for next swap to increase efficiency. Discussed not calling the location “the Senior Center” on the
flyers to draw in younger people (i.e. Salem State students.)
Next swap will be on September 8th at the Senior Center.
May 5th Clean Salem Green Salem details: Usually 10 am to 1 pm. Discussed Swap & Drop Goodwill/textile. Discussed not having the tables of information, limit what we bring for this event. Still would have the “games” as they are popular. There will be tables for Salem Sound Coast Watch & the water canteen program. We will be promoting the rigid plastics recycling with a drop-off. We could do the plastic bag recycling again. We will not be collecting e-waste this time, just have the info where to dispose of it. For the Swap & Drop we will need tarps for men’s, women’s & kids clothing as well as household items & accessories. Julie send email regarding volunteering and there will be an additional meeting on Monday April 9th @ 7:00 pm to finalize details for the event. Discussed music/DJ for the event. We need to find out more about a duo that plays guitar & sings. The songs are about recycling, going green, etc. The music is supposedly g-rated family in the folk music genre.
There is no rain date for this event.
Erin Burke from Salem State University spoke with us about 350.org being on the Commons with us for a “Climate Change Day” event to go along with Clean Salem Green Salem. There was some discussion regarding what type of event they will be doing.
Public Events Recycling Policy update: The Event licensing committee will request events do public recycling. The Parks & Rec committee will require butt bins & toters.
Composters & Rain Barrels: The city will no longer sell composters, but will continue to sell rain barrels.
There are plenty of composters available on the market for under $100.00 and other communities are continuing to sell them, including Beverly & Lynnfield.
Catalogue Choice: This is a company has developed software that can opt someone out of junk mail, yellow pages etc. If we sign up as a community, they will help us promote the program, will do the opt-out work for everyone who uses the program and will capture statistics about the communities use. It is $2,000.00 a year. The mayor is interested in the concept. The committee will discuss further at the next meeting.
Continuing Business:
Gazette Articles & Press Releases – Calendar for remaining year: Tony will do articles on spring cleaning out & shredding. There was a Discussion on posting articles on Patch & Facebook.
Door Hanger update: Julie mentioned that the mayor loves the door-hangers. we need to get them printed.
Rigid Plastics update: Beverly will be part of our drop-off program. Beverly has a “Hazardous Waste” drop-off on April 21st. Salem can drop off at this event.
June & July meeting schedule: June meeting will be on Thursday the 7th with the mayor. As part of the May meeting we will finalize details regarding who will be speaking at the June meeting. The July meeting would be on the 3rd of the month; instead we will have a pot-luck meeting at Julie’s house on Wednesday June 27th.
Other Business: Susan would like to talk about revisiting the Strategic Plan for SalemRecycles. Julie suggested waiting until the August meeting to discuss.
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