Committee for a Better Environment

Approved: 120716 Pay as you Throw/SMART Committee Meeting August 25, 2016 Present: Councilmember Christine Nagle, Suchitra Balachandran, Gemma Evans, Janis Oppelt, Matt Dernoga Absent: Bob Stumpff Guests: Sheryl DeWalt, contract secretary Ms. Oppelt called the meeting to order at 7:33 pm. Councilmember Nagle stated that the committee is one month into the six-month plan for recommendations and information to City Council. Since Councilmember Nagle is not permitted to take the lead at these meetings, Dr. Balachandran offered be the main coordinator for the committee. Any changes will be communicated by her to everyone including the committee secretary. The committee reviewed the following items from the task list: 1. Contact other communities with a large university who have the SMART program. 2. Engage with consultants who have conducted the program for other communities. Waste Zero, Lisa Skumatz, SCS Engineers, GBB had been suggested. Dr. Balachandran cautioned that GBB may be a problem since its primary focus was on incineration. This company had undermined a state-wide Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) effort, advocated by another vendor, to inform counties on SMART. Ms. Evans stated that we should talk to everyone who has worked on SMART implementation and get all ideas to share. 3. How will we roll out the SMART program to the general public? Several issues were discussed including whether professional help would be required to educate the community or if the Committee for a Better Environment (CBE) had sufficient expertise to do it Presentations would have to be made to civic associations, eye-catching flyers/brochures would be needed How much of a role will College Park city staff need to play? The University may have expertise that could be tapped. 4. Listen to comments, suggestions, and complaints from your neighbors and have responses ready. Ms. Evans volunteered to work on a fact sheet that can be shared with residents. Councilmember Nagle will collate questions from residents. 5. The City’s Department of Public Works (DPW) keeps monthly data on trash and recycling tonnages. It would be useful to scan these numbers to determine if there is a difference between when school is in session and the summer. 6. Is there a waste audit performed for College Park? Can someone reach out to Stacy with Prince George’s County? Dr. Balachandran has waste-audit numbers from an analysis conducted by SCS Engineers for Prince George’s County. There was only one sample taken from College Park. She will see if there is any difference between College Park and County numbers but given the small sample that would be hard to determine. 7. If the City wishes to move into an enterprise fund accounting model, the trash charges of DPW would have to be separated from the rest of the budget. Mr. Stumpff would be responsible for that. The enterprise fund could have both a fixed household fee and a usage fee. 8. Alternatively, as CBE suggested, a bag model could be used, and all the bag money could be maintained in a separate account and refunded back equally to each household. Households that used more the average number of bags would be spending more, while households that used less than average would receive a net positive return. 9. Ms. Evans asked about purchasing bags/bins from local stores rather than coming to City Hall in order to avoid putting the burden of managing the purchase on City Hall staff. Who is going to be responsible for inventory? All of the pros and cons will need to be pointed out in recommendations. Dr. Balachandran noted that Waste Zero, one of the consultants, took responsibility for the supply chain and ensured that all grocery stores typically used by residents maintained supplies of the bags. The City would have to decide how much of the program it wants to administer and how much it wanted to outsource. 10. There was agreement that all pros and cons should be closely reviewed when it comes to the financial part of bringing residents on board to the program. It will be a PR issue/concern to ensure that the educational information, financial information and all questions are researched and answered. Councilmember Nagle emphasized the importance of making the final written report to the Council a useful document. She recommended the following as potential sections: intro, exec summary, current picture of City’s waste and collection including statistics, waste-audit information, costs to the city and costs for the residents, examples of how other towns and counties have implemented the program and what they have learned, options for College Park. Also include financial information for the program, including costs for bags, carts, etc. and the type of program we recommend. Ms. Oppelt agreed with Councilmember Nagle that the Council should know the big picture in terms of options and costs for each. Ms. Balachandran will send out the CBE presentation and share again with everyone. 11. Decide which program to recommend. Councilmember Nagle stated the best approach for the City Council is an Executive Summary with an offer to give them a presentation. We can’t just give them names of consultants, but actual information. Who is the most competent? Do they all provide the same thing? We need to know, based on research, what each consultant provides. 12. Need to find a way to compare “apples to apples.”Dr. Balachandran reported that DC Environmental Network had organized a SMART discussion last April. She will circulate their PowerPoint You Tube presentations. DC is considering a pilot SMART program. 13 Breakdown of tasks:  Contacting other Communities with SMART: Dr. Balachandran and Ms. Oppelt  Finding consultants who have implemented SMART: Ms. Evans, Mr. Stumpff, Dr. Balachandran  Public Education: All Members  Collate resident concerns: Ms. Nagle  Bulk Trash: Ms. Nagle, Mr. Dernoga, Dr. Balachandran  City Statistics: Mr. Stumpff  Finances: Mr. Stumpff The next meeting is scheduled for September 28 at 7:30 pm.