HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-02-11 Solid Waste Advisory Committee MinutesFebruary 11, 1998. MINUTES
SOLID WASTE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Present: Jackie Chipman, Jennifer Culbert, Bob Brown, Lynda Zarrow, Kay Clark, Jean Krogh. Staff:
Ted McIntire (late due to another commitment)
Kay called the meeting to order at 7:35 p.m. Minutes from the Jan. mtg. were approved as corrected.
Reports and Comments. Lynda saw the cable TV show with Anne and Jackie and said, "It was great."
Lynda will ask the station for a repeat showing and for a copy; Jennifer was not able to tape the program
because it wasn't on when expected.
Discussion of REAPS was tabled until Anne's return.
MRIP. We discussed what the Town needs to do to meet MRIP requirements for the second half of
the year. We have DARP, DACP, parallel access, I-IHW collection, and two educational mailings per
year (including what we put in Reading Notes and in the water bills). If we had a unit-based pricing
system in place in Reading, we would meet requirements for future years as well as this one. Kay will call
Sharon. Kashida re: tracking of buying recycled products, and the lottery.
Award plaque for Mass Recycles Day events: Anne edited Bob's article for the Chronicle. Nothing of
ours appeared in this. month's Reading Notes. The Chronicle did not print the picture of Kay accepting
the award.
Info: The 1teVamp tour has been changed to May 13''; that. tofu- has nothing.cpeciftcally to do with.
Reading. The upcoming EnviroExpo (May 5,6,7) will be interesting, said Bob. Bob mentioned other
upcoming tours: Mar_ 3'd - Geographies; Apr. 8`h - Conigliaro; Apr. 23 d - Goodwill, textile collection.
'What do other communities do about hazardous household products?
Andover has no Hazardous Waste Committee. Their one annual HIM collection is handled by
NESWC.
Burlington has no committee. HHW comes under the Board of Health. They allow small businesses to
participate in their two collections a year. They have a bylaw addressing business disposal of fluorescent
lights. When a business signs a lease, it promises not to put fluorescent lights in the trash. Burlington
uses Global Recycling for fluorescent bulbs and gets a special rate (9-9 VS cents per bulb) because Global
handles their recycling, as well. Burlington's Todd Dresser said that under the new Universal Waste Rule,
all towns will have to promise to get businesses not to throw out fluorescent bulbs.
Lynn}ield has no Hazardous Waste Committee. There is a recycling coordinator on staff. Residents
pay $29 every other year to bring HHW to the collection site. Clean Harbors handles HHW collection.
The town sends out a pamphlet to residents saying what not to throw out. Jeff Griffin, currently Dir_ of
Facilities in Reading, set up this Lynnfield program and may have some ideas for us.
Nee&iam has a drop-off site for trash and recycling. It has an annual Hazardous Waste Day and is
considering increasing HHW collection to twice a year. The person Lynda talked to in Needham thinks
people still throw out tonic items they should save for the HHW collection.
Winchester has no committee; HHW is under the Board of Health. Twice a year a HHW. collection is
held at the DPW garage, costing the town $25,000. (They put it out to bid every year.) At the dump,
there is ongoing used motor oil and battery collection.
Woburn has had no Hazardous Waste Collection Day in 7 years. Hazardous Waste is under the Board
f Health. Woburn does have ongoing collection of car tires, car batteries, residential oil, and propane
arks. Woburn's new mayor used to be on the Bd. Of Health and is sensitive to haz. waste issues. The
town budgeted too much for garbage collection, and the mayor hopes to move the excess to fund a
Hazardous Waste Collection Day.
;Wakefield's HHW falls under the auspices of the Board of Health; there is no town HIM committee.
Once a year collection of household hazardous waste is put out to bid. As far as school hazardous waste
goes, all that was mentioned was that there is a walk-through of the schools with someone from the state
to check air quality.
Chelmsford has a part-time recycling coordinator. The town is trying to hire a consultant to inventory
town hazardous waste.
Carlisle has no HIM collection set up; they're hoping. to use the permanent Lexington facility.
Lexington is trying to set up a permanent HHW site; six communities would be involved.
Middleton has one collection per year.
Melrose may seek MRIP money to educate the public about fluorescent bulbs. It costs 35 cents to
recycle each bulb; if schools or individuals have to pay this, they would need some incentive.
We then had a lot of discussion about fluorescent bulbs and the dilemmas of their disposal. Reading could
recycle fluorescent bulbs if we wanted to pay for it, or maybe there's a way to use our MRIP money.
(Using MRIP money would require that Town Meeting set up an account.) We need to find out more
about how Reading could include fluorescent bulbs in our recycling contract by the year 2000. How
much would this increase cost? Could we get Global involved in hazardous waste collection? Would
Peter Hechenbleikner renegotiate the trash contract? Could we use MRIP money? ACTION ITEM:
Lvnda will call Jeff Griffin to find out more about Lynnfield's fluorescent bulb policy.
The Universal Waste Rule in Massachusetts says, in part, that unbroken fluorescent bulbs can be
transported without a special license but must be in compliance with federal Dept. of Transp. regulations.
-Tf a business produces the hazardous waste, it is liable for problematic disposal, liable even if there is
;ture new knowledge about the hazards of this material.
ACTION ITEMS: Jackie and Lynda will find out how many fluorescent bulbs the town (and schools?)
order. Jennifer will call Burlington again, and Jackie will call Lexington. We'll get some dollar figures of
cost and take the figures to Peter H.
Recommendation: Bob suggests having a Board of Health member or a health dept. staff member
attend our meetings. This person could be a point person and resource person for hazardous waste
issues. If we want a staff liaison, we need to go through Peter H. If we want a BOH member, we can
invite them ACTION ITEM: Bob will attend a BOH meeting and ask what interaction between the
committees would be helpful.
Earth Day. A subcomm. was set up to plan Earth Day events: Jackie (chair), Jennifer, Lynda, and Kay.
Articles for Reading Notes. Jackie will talk to Cheryl Johnson re: how do we get our articles in
Reading Notes? Both Town Meeting and the Select Board told us we need to educate the town more on
solid waste issues. This education needs to be continuous, and one good forum is Reading Notes. Kay
will submit info. to Bruce MacDonald for Reading's Web page. We'll try to get an Earth Day article in
the Notes for April's issue. Bob will take the award article to Cheryl.
Other business: Lynda hasn't vet bought re-refined oil. And Bob mentioned a recent Globe article on
PRINS recycling, now KTI recycling. In Reading, it's the truck driver who separates the recyclables.
Submitted by Jean Krogh