In this session I’ll go back to cover the Town Council meeting on Wednesday, Feb 10. In particular, their decision to reduce the annual curbside solid waste and recycling fee and implement minor increase to fees for Beaver St and to handle specific large items.
Time: 12 minutes, 48 seconds
MP3 File
Session Notes:
This internet radio show or podcast is number 58 in the series for Franklin Matters.
The winter school break is ending, the Olympics are underway, let's just take about ten minutes to keep current with what matters here in Franklin, MA as the week ends February 21, 2010
In this session I’ll go back to cover the Town Council meeting on Wednesday, Feb 10. In particular, their decision to reduce the annual curbside solid waste and recycling fee and implement minor increase to fees for Beaver St and to handle specific large items.
Who would have guessed that reducing the fee to implement a new automated trash and recycling system would generate so much interest?
More than 20 citizens turned out on a snowy evening to participate in the Town Council meeting raising a variety of questions. None of the questions ended up swaying the Council. They voted 5 for – 2 against – 1 abstained (the ninth councilor was absent) to reduce the annual curbside fee from 244 to 233. There is still a proposed action to reduce the fee further to 220 by using some of the solid waste enterprise fund surplus. Per Jeff Nutting, this will come before the Council as part of the regular annual budget discussions.
Franklin Matters contains a number of links around this topic.
The original slide waste presentation of January 20th can be found here:
the questions and answers from the meeting of Feb 10th here:
I summarized my analysis of the pros and cons here:
As I got questions from a couple of Franklin Matters readers, I updated the pros/cons posting to answer those questions (catching a math error of my own in the process):
I also spent time finding information on all the communities referenced in the original DPW presentation on Jan 20th and summarized those links here:
What I'd like to do with the remainder of this update is to walk through the changes that I see my household making when this new system is scheduled to come into effect in July. My household already recycles a good amount. What will need to change is some of the processes around how we currently do our daily activities.
Today's recycling process:
We have a pile for the daily Boston Globe and the weekly Gazette in the family room for ready reference. Sometimes Dolores will see an article that I miss, or I will see one that she'll miss. Having the pile at hand makes it easy to flip back through to keep current. When Saturday morning rolls around, I tie up the bundle with twine and bring it to the garage in preparation for the trash/recycle pick up normally scheduled for Wednesdays.
Dolores also has a box near her desk in her home office for recycling individual sheet paper. I'll add to it with items from the post office delivered mail. A lot of the junk mail and catalogs end up getting recycled. When the box fills, I'll take it to the garage and bundle the papers tying them with some twine.
Cooking tends to generate recyclables. Cereal boxes, 100 Calorie snack boxes, pasta boxes and other cardboard boxes get flattened to go into one of our two recycling containers in the garage. We have the two containers positioned along side the landing for the steps coming from the garage into the house. It has been easy to walk onto the landing, reach over the railing and then drop the boxes into the container below. Yes, you learn to be accurate, otherwise, it is a walk to pick them up.
The same process is used for the yogurt containers, catsup containers, milk jugs, and other plastic or canned goods. For the glass jars and bottles, sometimes I am daring and will attempt a drop (knowing there is something sufficient below to cushion the fall) but most times I do walk down the stairs to deposit them into the container to ensure that the glass does not break.
The kitchen has a trash basket with a plastic bag liner for the remaining trash items. As it fills, the bag is removed, tied up and then deposited into one of two trash barrels in the garage. The barrels are also positioned near the landing. And yes, many times, it is a simple toss of the bag into the barrel with no additional harm or damage done to the contents (or the barrel).
There is an “extra” barrel that we have used for large family parties that currently holds a large black trash bag. It collects the plastic soda bottles that can be refunded for cash. As these bags fill (much less frequently these days as many of us have cut out soda from our diet), they get bound and stacked in the garage waiting for either a bottle drive to contribute to or if the stack gets too large before we find a drive, then one of us will spend some time feeding the bottle refund machines. As the girls were growing up, this was a good thing for them to do and to 'earn' some spending money. Alas, those days are just treasured memories now.
On Wednesday morning, the task of moving the two recycle bins, the bundled newspaper and the trash barrel usually takes at least two trips, sometimes three.
How will the process change with the new automated system?
Not a whole lot fortunately. We'll still pile the papers but I won't have to tie them. Once a week to ensure a good fit into the totter, I'll put the papers in with the other recyclables. Likewise with the box of papers from the home office, we'll save on twine and just add the paper to the totter.
Assuming the totters themselves fit along side the landing in the garage, I'll likely position them there. With the lids up and open (inside the garage there is not much of a risk for wayward animals as the items are already either cleaned or bagged). This will allow for a continuation of the drop over the side process we have for much of the items today. The glass items may still get a walk down to ensure good non-breakable placement.
Come Wednesday morning, it will be two trips, one each with a totter to the edge of the driveway to position them properly. Oh, I”ll also likely need to move one car out of the garage to move the totters themselves. I won't know for sure until I get the real items but given the constraints of the garage as it is, this is likely.
So the Sherlock household will save on some twine purchases (no longer needing to tie the papers together) and will likely have two trips to the roadside instead of three to move the totters down weekly.
I can image those Franklin residents without a garage will need to figure out if the totters will fit in the space their existing trash barrels occupy, or will they require more room?
A recent email also raised the question on how animal proof the totter lids are for those who would be storing them outside, and hence prone to visits from raccoons and other visitors. Maybe the DPW or Recycling Committee has a ready answer for that question.
I think there is still some work to be done to fine tune a “welcome kit” with explanations of each step in the process, there are several good examples from the survey I did of the other the communities.
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Frequently asked questions, -
the procedure for requesting a different size (either smaller for the potential situation of lower usage) or an additional totter for the larger families. -
The local merchants or locations where the additional trash tickers can be purchased will need to be defined and stocked.
There is plenty of time before the new system is implemented in July. Send your suggestions on how to make this change better directly to the Recycling Committee or to me.
Change can be difficult but with proper planning, change can be managed to provide a good experience.
Looking ahead
The School Committee meets on Tuesday
The agenda has presentations scheduled on the ethics laws, and then the Strategic Plan and district improvement plan update on the school year thus far.
The School Committee also continues it review and update standard policy documents with three more scheduled. The details of each policy to be considered are contained in links on Franklin Matters that will be posted Monday morning with the full SchCom agenda.
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As I close this session this week, let me remind you that
If you like what I am doing here, please tell your friends and neighbors
If you don’t like something, please tell me
Thank you for listening!
For additional information, please visit Franklinmatters.blogspot.com/
If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com
The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana" c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission
I hope you enjoy!
