West Boylston Solid Waste Advisory Team
Minutes
September 23, 2011
Town Hall Offices, 127 Hartwell Street
Committee Members Present:
Julianne DeRivera, Chair
Judith Doherty
Elise Wellington
Committee Members Not Present:
Mary Ambrose
Craig Gonyea
Others Present for parts of meeting:
Leon Gaumond, Town Administrator
Nancy Lucier
The meeting began at 1:05 p.m
I. Approval of minutes
The revised minutes of SWAT's May 6, 2011 meeting were approved. Wellington agreed to send them to Town Clerk and Town web site coordinator Karen Pare.
II. PAYT Bag Instructions re Bulky Items
DeRivera noted that the change to the incorrect wording on the instruction sheet that comes with the bags has still not been made. She changed the wording from "bulky items with a PAYT bag attached will be picked up for disposal" to read instead "bulky items in a bag will be picked up for disposal" with the additional note that no more than 40 pounds may be put in a bag. She left this change for the Town Administrator to send to the bag manufacturer. Hopefully, this will make it very clear to residents that bulky items will not be picked up if they exceed the bag size (as is clearly stated on SWAT's and the DPW's website).
III. Free Recycling Bins
Nancy Lucier informed SWAT that the DPW had gotten 1,500 recycling bins from DEP. Only 99 have been given out, so it was decided that SWAT should publicize the availability of these free bins at the October Town Meeting.
IV. Updated Bottle Bill
Wellington gave committee handouts of research she had done on the proposed Updated Bottle Bill. It was moved, seconded and passed to add SWAT's name to the long list of Updated Bottle Bill Supporters and she agreed to call the MA Coalition to Update the Bottle Bill to do this.
V. Wachusett Watershed Recycling Center, Ray Huntington Hwy.
DeRivera and Wellington reported that they had toured this Center on September 16 and met with Colleen Abrams, its leader. Although there is a link to its web site is on the town's web site, DeRivera felt it was not easy to find. She will contact the town's web site coordinator, Karen Pare, to see if this can be corrected. The Center is now focusing on raising the funds to build a permanent building which can hold bulky items, such as furniture which is given to needy people. The Center takes many difficlt-to-dispose-of items, such as styrofoam, textbooks, LED bulbs, and items with mercury. It is open on Wednesday afternoons and every other Saturday. It was agreed that SWAT's report to the October 17th Town Meeting should highlight this new facility and DeRivera agreed to get their
brochures to distribute at this meeting.
VI. DPW Recycling and Trash Collection Brochure - July 2011
Appreciative that this brochure had been sent to all town residents in July, the committee suggested that next year it reference the Wachusett Watershed Recycling Center in West Boylston as this center takes many of the items banned from West Boylston's curbside recycling program, such as styrofoam.
VI. Poster Campaign
Doherty reported that committee member Mary Ambrose had gotten all three third grade classes at Major Edwards to participate in a poster contest urging people not to litter, to pick up their dog's feces when walking on the Rail Trail, and to recycle. Students could choose from any of these three topics and produced some attention-getting posters. Ambrose distributed the winning posters (after laminating them) to some stores, such as the Central Street Market, and Town Hall. DeRivera's husband made a display post for the Rail Trail, where one was posted. DeRivera and Wellington took Colleen Abrams to view it on September 16th since Abrams' organization, Wachusett Greenways, oversees the Rail Trail. Abrams asked that only posters relating to the dog problem be posted at the Rail
Trail. Doherty reported that she had submitted an article and pictures to The Banner recently about the poster project, which she hopes will be published soon. DeRivera will put up another poster in the glass case at the Rail Trail. The committee expressed its thanks for all the work Ambrose did executing this successful project.
VII. FY2011 - Trash and Recycling Tonnages, Costs, and Bag Fee Sales/Income
On May 30th and September 7th, Wellington requested the above information from the Town Administrator. New DPW Director Silvio Baruzzi responded this week with monthly information showing, according to her computations, that the town produced 662.05 tons of recyclables and 1,420.89 tons of trash in FY 2011. This means that the town had a 31.7% recycling rate, i.e. basically no change from last year. Trash tonnage showed a 2% increase in FY11, the first year of commingled recycling. Mr. Baruzzi also sent the committee Pay-As-You-Throw Store Door Delivery Monthly Reports through August 2011 compiled by our trash bag manufacturer, Waste Zero. These very detailed reports showed that Walgreens has been added to the list of stores selling our bags - good news. The
committee was unsure of the bag fee income in FY11 shown by these reports. The Town Administrator said that the FY11 bag fee income was $152,049.80, but he did not know what the town had spent to have the bags manufactured. It was agreed that a spread sheet needs to be developed to get all the information requested in our 5/30/11 and 9/7/11 emails so that one year or month can be easily compared to another. Wellington agreed to develop such a spread sheet, which will make filling out the DEP PAYT Yearly Report much easier than it was this year.
VIII. DEP PAYT Yearly Report - First Year (FY2010)
Wellington reported that she was told that the former DPW Director didn't fill out the DEP PAYT Recycling Report for the past two years, so on May 27th the Town Administrator asked her to help fill it out, which she did on 5/30/11. She asked him for the final copy of the report that he submitted to DEP and he gave copies to the committee.
IX. SWAT's May 19, 2008 Recycling Brochure
The committee agreed that this brochure needs to be updated and Doherty agreed to do so. The Town Administrator noted that the trash disposal fee has dropped from $76/ton to $63/ton. Nancy Lucier asked the DPW for the number of households serviced, and the number of households has gone up from 2,400 to 2,570.
X. SWAT Web Site Revision
DeRivera brought copies of SWAT's website, which needs to be updated, but there was not time to do so at this meeting, so it will be done at a later date.
X. October 17, 2011 Town Meeting Report
The Committee decided to report at the upcoming October Town Meeting on the trash tonnage and recycling numbers (briefly), the availability of free recycling bins at the DPW, the Wachusett Watershed Recycling Center's services, and the poster contest.
XI. Next Meeting
The Committee scheduled its next meeting at 5 PM on October 13th.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 PM.
Submitted by,
Elise Wellington
Secretary
| 
