1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,640 All right everyone welcome. Welcome to the Sustainability Framework Advisory 2 00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:15,000 Committee. It is 1 o'clock. We will call our meeting to order Wednesday June 29th. 3 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:20,920 We do have a quorum and we are in the City Council Work Session Room. We will 4 00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:26,280 begin with our first item for individual consideration. Consider approval of the 5 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:34,360 April 22nd, 2022 minutes. Did everybody have a chance to review those? 6 00:00:34,360 --> 00:00:46,920 Yes I did and I just wondered if on the part of the minutes it talks about the 7 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:54,600 presentation of the gas wells. I think it would be appropriate, yeah I think 8 00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:02,000 it would be appropriate if modern geosciences and Dr. Tram were included 9 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:06,920 in that because they actually gave the presentation. It's basically just a 10 00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:12,800 staff now. Oh okay okay can we can we add and make that correction as to who it 11 00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:19,200 was that gave the presentation to coincide with the actual presentation? 12 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:27,360 Yes. Okay. All right. All right so can I have approval with the added 13 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:36,040 correction? I'll move to approve. Second. Second? Okay all those in favor say aye. 14 00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:42,800 All right minutes have been approved. We will go down to B, receive a report, hold 15 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:47,800 a discussion, and receive feedback on integrated pest management program and 16 00:01:47,800 --> 00:02:00,400 pilot projects in Denton Parks. And we have Marshall Ms. Gee from Parks. Oh hello, welcome to the podium here. 17 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:06,560 Thank you. And we the mic above you is the one that is going to capture your 18 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:16,160 voice. Okay so this is just wanted to touch briefly on the integrated pest 19 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:21,320 management program, programs plural that we have ongoing in the city now. The 20 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:25,880 introductory program was at Deenia Park. 21 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:42,160 Say it again. The first program was at Deenia Park courtesy of a plan that was 22 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:49,800 devised for us by Howard Garrett and Associates. We've had some success with 23 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:58,960 that. We've had visual success in that we think that the fields are as green as 24 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:08,320 they were pre-treatment, meaning when we were using chemicals and fertilizers. The 25 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:12,720 weed population has increased though in the common areas. I think there's been 26 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:17,360 residual chemical activity that's still been available in the fields themselves. 27 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:21,200 Soccer fields and softball fields has helped keep some of the weed populations 28 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:31,520 at bay and that will leach out over a period of time. The soil at Deenia is just 29 00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:37,560 miserable to begin with so it's tough to devise a soil program like we have, like 30 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:42,360 we were able to come up with Avondale and Mack Park, but we might be able to 31 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:47,680 transition to that. We have been working with Beyond Pesticides and Osborne 32 00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:52,560 Organics. They work together. They helped us come up with the plan for 33 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:59,600 Avondale Park and Mack, but Mack specifically south of McKinney. 34 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:14,280 I'll back back up to Avondale, but Mack is actually comprised of both sides of 35 00:04:14,280 --> 00:04:17,880 McKinney, north and south. We're just doing the IBM program on the south side, 36 00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:25,360 the one that encompasses the soccer field and the baseball field. We are treating it 37 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:31,800 and Avondale, in the same method, we're using a 38 00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:37,720 humate to feed the soil microbes. We're not applying any organic fertilizers right 39 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:44,520 now. We're just treating the soil with a food source for the microbes to feed off 40 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:51,600 of and produce the nitrogen, some mild fertilizer that way. It's so new, both the 41 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:57,400 program at Avondale and at Mack, that we don't have a comparison yet to 42 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:03,760 determine. In fact, we just put the humate down within the last two months. So, we'll 43 00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:08,560 keep you apprised as when we do soil tests again this time next year, what 44 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:19,960 we're looking at and how they compare to the control samples. So, that's pretty much it. 45 00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:24,400 I wish I had more information for you, but I am excited about the program with 46 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:32,080 Beyond Vesticides. It seems to fit a little more into what we're looking for 47 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:42,360 in the way of organics and what we're able to replicate throughout the city if this pans out. 48 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:51,000 It's a very simple, easy method. So, if anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask. 49 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:57,480 Yeah, I was just curious, is the pilot program for a year so that all 50 00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:02,400 seasons are encompassed? That's our thought, that it'll be for a year. It 51 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:07,080 depends probably on the soil results we get or the visual results that we see as 52 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:12,280 well, but it'll be at least for a year. It may extend into a second year as well. And the 53 00:06:12,280 --> 00:06:17,800 steps after that? That we'll continue consulting with Beyond 54 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:21,520 Vesticides and Osborne Organics. Specifically for Ravendale, is that what you're 55 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:26,920 asking about? Well, any of the pilot programs, I mean, is the point to be able to 56 00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:31,360 continue it? Oh, entirely. To continue and to morph into any other location that we 57 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:38,280 have in the city. Great, thank you. Go ahead. Budget-wise, is there budget we're 58 00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:44,320 operating under and then what are the cost goals or financial goals? Will this organic 59 00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:53,280 material cost us less than pesticides or what's the goal over here? Right now, yes. 60 00:06:53,280 --> 00:07:01,160 Yes, it's costing us less. The fume aid that we apply to Ravendale and Mack is fairly 61 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,560 inexpensive. I'd probably pay more in freight than for the product itself. It's 62 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:13,000 easy to apply, it's granular, but that is just a food source for the soil microbe. 63 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:18,280 So, next we have to have the discussion of do we want to continue putting the 64 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:22,920 pre-emergent out. There is no organic pre-emergent. I mean, there's corn gluten meal, 65 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:34,840 but I'm not sold on efficacy of that. But right now, the program is slightly less than any non-organic control programs. 66 00:07:34,840 --> 00:07:40,480 And budget-wise, we have a budget we are okay with? We do. We are so far with this. 67 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:44,800 I have just a couple, oh, go ahead. I'll let you go and then I'll go. 68 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:50,720 Thanks, Marshall. So, this is just for applications to sports fields. So, there's no, there's, 69 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:55,560 you're not doing any tests on any areas off of, like, you mentioned common areas 70 00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:59,800 and stuff, but this looks like it's just going on actual sports fields? No, this is common, 71 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:04,440 this is everything, common and athletic fields. Okay, so then like, and you remove, like, 72 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:08,600 Roundup spraying and everything else? Correct, correct. Okay. And that, and everything else 73 00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:12,600 about it? That's actually correct. They are entirely organic. Just two different approaches. 74 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:18,320 Okay, so then like the edging and stuff and weeding is taking place for a while? Oh, yes, yes, yes. 75 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:24,400 Or cultural, the cultural methods are still being employed. Okay, thanks. 76 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:29,800 Oh, okay, go ahead. Is that all right? Yeah, sure. Can you give us a sense of the metrics 77 00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:36,520 that you use for comparing the different methods? What counts as success? What are you looking at? 78 00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:41,080 It sounds like you've got a few different factors. Right now, a lot of it is visual. 79 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:46,360 The, the, I have soil samples and I didn't bring them, I'm sorry, the soil samples from Denia, 80 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:56,520 from dating back to 2019 and 2021. We didn't do them in 2020 because of COVID. In fact, 81 00:08:56,520 --> 00:09:05,800 our applications lacked a little bit during COVID, either for resource issues, we couldn't get the 82 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:15,480 product in, or staffing issues. But the metrics would be primarily soil sample results and visual. 83 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:22,440 That's not a scientific method, but it is easy if you've been in the industry to go out and say, 84 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:28,680 this looks a whole lot better than it did last year, or I'm not seeing much of a difference. 85 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:37,960 You kind of just touched on one of my questions, because I remember hearing that Denia was kind of 86 00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:43,240 during COVID, and then there were some budget reductions and less staff that weren't able to 87 00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:51,160 do everything you wanted to do for the organic part of it. So has that been taken into consideration 88 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:58,360 as you call it a pilot? Yes, to the extent that we did resume last year, 89 00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:04,200 or in the middle of last year into now, we're currently back on track. 90 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:13,800 The one weak link in this chain is that I'm having trouble sourcing some of the product 91 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:21,240 from vendors that I can get on contract. So I'm in discussion with our purchasing department now, 92 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:31,000 I forgot how to remedy that, but it'll work out. But we are back on schedule for applications and 93 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:40,600 timing of them. Somebody, I think you mentioned Roundup, but just to confirm, we're not using 94 00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:44,600 Roundup in any of the city parks, not just- I'll own an ounce of Roundup. 95 00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:49,640 Right, yeah. Just for clarification on that, if somebody were to hear, it's not just in these- 96 00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:52,440 It's not just Roundup, I'm sorry, it's any glyphosate product. 97 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:58,280 Any glyphosate, yeah. Yeah, just to remind people out there. Thank you. And 98 00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:07,240 so on the weeds that you said are kind of more prominent, are we mowing more than we expected 99 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:11,000 on that, or is it just kind of- Mowing is about our best cultural method 100 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:17,000 to take care of it, and we added two mowing cycles in the early spring and two in the late fall 101 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:27,240 to help mitigate, to help counter the lack of glyphosate. So we're not mowing weekly 102 00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:31,800 at these locations, it's just through the growing season, we extended it by two cycles before, 103 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:36,840 it used to start in two cycles after. Okay, all right. And my last question is, 104 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:42,520 well just a comment, I want to thank you so much for this, and I know that we've had some 105 00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:50,920 trouble with volunteers and communication, it's just hopefully next time more communication goes 106 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:57,080 out and the residents who are excited about this can show up and help. Sure, sure, and we'll advertise 107 00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:02,440 it more heavily next time, we'll try to get the word out there. Okay, and just the last thing, 108 00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:06,760 you said something earlier when you first started talking, you said "miserable soil," 109 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:12,760 so I'm just kind of wondering what you mean by that. It's a lot of rock out of Denia, 110 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:19,320 there's not a whole lot of organic matter mixed in there, and it's not what you'd call a nice 111 00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:25,000 friable workable soil, you wouldn't want to plant your garden directly into it, it's a lot of rock. 112 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:30,520 Okay, all right, well thank you so much, Marshall. Ed, you have anything to add? 113 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:34,920 Just to clarify something about what happened on the volunteer day, 114 00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:43,480 speaking from my own neighborhood, a lot of people, majority of the people I will say, 115 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:53,080 did not have their own spreaders, and as a result they didn't go, so if there's some way in the 116 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:58,760 future if spreaders are required, I don't know what kind of, if you guys have any, but I don't 117 00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:05,640 think people are willing to go out and buy a spreader just for one time use. Yeah, and I get it, 118 00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:10,120 I guess I thought most people would have spreaders, and apparently not, that's absolutely fine, 119 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:16,520 we'll figure out a different way. You know, your offer was generous, and anything would have worked, 120 00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:23,560 a spoon would have worked, but we'll see what spreaders we have, you might be able to bring. 121 00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:32,280 Great. Everybody? Good, and before you let Marshall get away, I have to ask him to talk about how they 122 00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:40,360 treat weeds with the backpack sprayer. In mulch areas? Playground areas? Oh, in playground areas? 123 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:49,560 How do you treat weeds in the playground areas? Weed. So we don't treat, we steam kill 124 00:13:49,560 --> 00:13:57,720 weeds in the actual footprint of the playground itself. We don't use any pesticides or herbicides 125 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:06,760 in there at all. It's either hand pulling the weeds or weed eating, you know, there's some, 126 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:10,040 unfortunately some of the playgrounds have a little established areas of Bermuda grass, 127 00:14:10,040 --> 00:14:16,120 and that's tough to kill because Bermuda can run its roots nine feet deep. So we weed eat, 128 00:14:16,120 --> 00:14:21,720 but we also have this great machine, it's called the steam weed killer, and it is exactly that, 129 00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:32,040 it just uses water that's heated to 230 degrees. It's not a complete kill, it kills the tops of the 130 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:36,680 weed, whichever it is, so it means we have to go back and continue treating. But it's safe, 131 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:42,120 you can use it in the rain, you can use it in any weather, you can use it with kids around, 132 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:48,200 with animals around, as long as we don't spray them. So it works really well. And I just wanted 133 00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:51,800 Marshall to highlight that, because if somebody sees somebody else spraying, they may not know 134 00:14:51,800 --> 00:14:56,680 that it's steam. Yeah, I would have wondered the same thing, so thank you for that. It's just 135 00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:03,560 straightforward. Now the misconception that I've had is that the entire park is a playground, 136 00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:09,160 and I guess it's semantics, but to us in the Parks Department, the playground is the dedicated 137 00:15:09,160 --> 00:15:16,680 footprint with the engineered wood fiber unit and the plate structure. I have one more thing. 138 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:23,960 Okay. Just a little history for some of the folks who may not know, and a huge thanks to the current 139 00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:31,320 Parks Department. This program was initially started almost 20 years ago, and allowed to 140 00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:41,080 gently disappear. And what's it been? Three years ago? 2019? Yeah, it was brought back and 141 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:50,840 new people, new minds, new ideas, and great committee to work on it. And it's just really 142 00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:58,760 very reassuring to see how important positive things like this are, and how they can be done. 143 00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:05,720 Good. Thank you. It is a good program. We have never used chemicals that are skull and crossbones. 144 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:11,320 We've never used anything to that end. In fact, we have a pretty small arsenal of what we do use 145 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:17,160 on a frequent basis. We try to keep everything to the lowest signal where possible. 146 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:23,400 We try to adhere to the IPM program as much as possible, and it's a good thing. 147 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:29,160 I promised you I'd let you go here in just one second, but I had another question that kind of 148 00:16:29,160 --> 00:16:34,440 popped into my head when we were talking about weeds and ants, because I know that that's kind 149 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:40,760 of an issue in some of our parks. You know, when I'm walking out to the community garden, I see, 150 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:48,520 you know, big kind of anthills is there. What do we use that fits into this program for insects 151 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:54,440 like that? First and foremost, we use an ant bait. It's a broadcast. It's granular. It's an ant bait. 152 00:16:54,440 --> 00:17:01,000 It's labeled for forage. You can put it out in pastures where cattle are grazing. It's relatively 153 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:05,560 benign, and it seems to work. Compared to some of the old ant baits that were out there, 154 00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:13,320 they've come a long way, and surprisingly, it does a good job. Otherwise, we moutreat. 155 00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:20,440 If it's in a sensitive area, if it's in a high-use area, we'll moutreat with aciphate, 156 00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:29,160 which is a good antidote for fire ants. If it's in a, you know, Class B or Class C or Class D park 157 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:35,880 that's not high in use, we'll probably let them go. All right. Well, that's great. Thank you so 158 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:41,880 much. You appreciate it. Sure. And this fits well into our sustainability framework committee. So 159 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:48,040 thank you for coming today. You can always reach me and get any questions. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate 160 00:17:48,040 --> 00:17:57,480 it. All right. So we will move to item C, receive a report, hold a discussion, and receive feedback 161 00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:01,960 on education, outreach, and training efforts for sustainability programs. 162 00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:10,360 We're gonna have Kim and Julissa start this one, and I think I have some slides at the end. 163 00:18:10,360 --> 00:18:27,720 All right. Good afternoon, everyone. So my name is Julissa Yamador. I'm one of the Waste 164 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:32,120 Productions coordinators that works inside of Environmental Services and Sustainability. 165 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:38,520 I will be presenting as well as Kim Jennings, who serves as the other Waste Reductions programs 166 00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:43,160 coordinator. And we're going to be talking to you guys about the education and outreach update. 167 00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:57,800 So this is a little bit of information on today's focus. So a little bit of background. 168 00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:05,720 I specifically focus on the residential and multifamily recycling education. I was hired on 169 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:11,880 in January 2021, and the position was previously vacated for a bit. We also have the Denton 170 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:17,000 Sustainable Schools program, which is a big community favorite. And Kim Jennings came on 171 00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:22,920 in October of 2021, and we're expecting to have a full relaunch of the program this upcoming fall. 172 00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:30,200 We also included in Environmental Services and Sustainability is, of course, Sustainability 173 00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:38,120 Education, which was launched in 2007 with DISD field trips to Clear Creek and has expanded over 174 00:19:38,120 --> 00:19:47,080 the last 15 years. So I'm going to go into a little bit about what I do. So with COVID, 175 00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:54,280 we had a lot of barriers from reaching people in regards to recycling education and in regards to 176 00:19:54,280 --> 00:20:01,720 the contamination that we were seeing at the curb. So what we did is with the help of Solid Waste, 177 00:20:01,720 --> 00:20:08,200 we did a lot of audits and we evaluated our contamination rate. So our audits were divvied 178 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:14,360 up. And the way that we looked at contamination, we took the two highest recycling contaminated 179 00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:19,640 routes for commercial and then for residential. For commercial, we would actually divvy up those 180 00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:26,280 properties by multifamily, by DISD property, and then other or commercial. And then three coordinators 181 00:20:26,280 --> 00:20:31,320 are dedicating to auditing those containers. And what we do is when we're auditing a container, 182 00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:36,040 we're evaluating the signage. We're looking at it. We're making sure that it's very distinguishable 183 00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:42,360 that this is a recycling container and not a trash container. We're also looking at the location of 184 00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:46,920 the container. Is there a lot of illegal dumping? Is it in an area where there is a lot of illegal 185 00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:52,280 dumping? Another thing that we do is we look inside. We look at what's inside of that container. 186 00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:58,680 Is it programmatic material? Is it material that could possibly alter some things at the 187 00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:04,440 recycling facility or Murph Crat Industries? If the container is too contaminated to be collected, 188 00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:10,280 then what we do is we put it on a do not collect list. So the next day when a driver is running 189 00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:14,760 that route, they will not collect that container because it's too contaminated to be collected. 190 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:19,800 And that property owner needs to either clean the container by having a maintenance or grounds 191 00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:25,240 keeper remove the items, or they can empty the container as trash. And that's a $75 fee. 192 00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:30,760 So it does give them the, we do give them the option and it is up to that property owner. 193 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:35,720 And depending on the property type will depend on who runs, I guess, interference for that property. 194 00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:40,280 So if it's multifamily, I'll be talking to them, seeing what they want to decide. Do they want to 195 00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:46,120 clean the container or they want to empty it as trash? If it's a DISD, then it would be Kim, 196 00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:52,920 for example, who would contact the property or the DISD groundskeeper and see what they decide about 197 00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:58,440 that. So audits and contamination are a way that we see, all right, what are we seeing in the field? 198 00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:02,840 What is our recycling facility seeing in the field? Is it coming from just one particular property? Is 199 00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:08,200 it coming from the multifamilies or is it everybody? Are we seeing plastic film? Are we seeing certain 200 00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:13,800 things and where is it all coming from? So it gives us a little bit more information than what is just 201 00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:20,120 coming to prep. We can actually see it in the field. So along with outreach and collaboration, 202 00:22:20,120 --> 00:22:25,080 so of course community events, we table at places like Great American Cleanup. We also table at 203 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:29,800 places, you know, we've had Redbud, we have Green Fling, we're going to be having in August where 204 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:35,240 we'll be tabling and reaching out to more residents about recycling and education. And sometimes it's 205 00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:39,960 us just having, you know, our pamphlets giving everybody the one-liner, you know, don't bag your 206 00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:45,000 recyclables, keep it empty, clean, loose, and dry. But it's also a great time for residents to come 207 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:50,280 up and ask us questions. So if they have questions about some of those particular items that can be 208 00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:54,520 tricky or items that they're a little confused about, they can always come there and ask us 209 00:22:54,520 --> 00:23:00,840 questions about them. Another way that I reach out to residents is through HOA meetings and community 210 00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:07,800 organizations. So there's some HOAs that because of the pandemic they weren't meeting. So some have 211 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:13,880 actually been able to, if I give them some education, for example, there was one HOA that they 212 00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:19,720 don't meet anymore, but she was willing to work with me and they posted one of our flyers that 213 00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:24,440 had some recycling education in their Facebook group, which of course I don't have access to 214 00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:29,080 would just be that HOA. So just to remind the residents, you know, if we're seeing a lot of 215 00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:33,480 plastic film from that area, it might be education directed towards, you know, removing flexible 216 00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:39,320 plastic and not placing it in your curbside container. And then also print media. So recently 217 00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:44,520 we started doing targeted mailers to the highest contaminated residential routes. So if you're 218 00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:49,720 receiving a mailer anytime soon, you know why. But it's going to be a lot of the big heavy hitters, 219 00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:55,800 you know, no styrofoam, no plastic film. We've seen a lot of textiles, clothing, things like that. So 220 00:23:55,800 --> 00:24:00,360 that's what it's going to bring you, bring some awareness to. As well with print media, we also 221 00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:05,320 include information about diversion or recycling education in the citizen connections, and then 222 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:11,160 also resident updates as well. So we're including information in print media also. Social media and 223 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:16,920 targeted messaging. So for social media, we're on all platforms, so our majority. We're on Facebook, 224 00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:23,000 Twitter, Instagram, and then next door. So for social media, we take all of the information that 225 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:27,160 we get from our drivers. What are the drivers seeing in the field? We're seeing a lot of 226 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:32,120 styrofoam, or we're seeing a lot of wood, for example. And then we'll take that, we'll take 227 00:24:32,120 --> 00:24:38,200 what we're seeing in the field, and then we'll also take what Pratt is seeing at their floor and be 228 00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:43,160 able to craft a message according to that. So we're not just creating social media posts for the 229 00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:48,200 willy-nilly of just creating them and generating posts. We're actually tailoring it to what we're 230 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:53,160 seeing at the Merck and what our Merck is having issues with, or a recycling facility. So for 231 00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:59,800 example, batteries was a big thing. Sharps and needles have become a little bit more recent. 232 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:05,080 So it's where we're able to talk a little bit and craft a message on social media to be able to post 233 00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:09,560 that. Just kind of remind residents what they can and can't put in for excitement. There are 234 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:14,040 other alternatives to diverting material. You don't just have to recycle it. You can donate it. You 235 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:19,560 can take it to home chemical collections and things like that. And then for targeted messaging, 236 00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:25,000 we're also on next door. So I'll take the highest contaminated residential routes. We'll break them 237 00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:29,640 up by neighborhood and next door, and then we'll post directly weekly on them, just reminding 238 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:34,040 residents what they can and can't put in their curbside part. If we're particularly seeing an 239 00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:39,480 item, for example, bag recyclables, then we'll go ahead and post a message, and it'll be regarding 240 00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:45,000 bag recyclables. If we start seeing wood, if the interns start seeing brush, then we can start 241 00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:53,640 tailoring a message to that as well. And of course, UNT, or definitely wouldn't be the same 242 00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:58,280 without UNT and TWA, which are the big universities that we have. I graduated from UNT, so it's really 243 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:03,000 cool to kind of do a close circle of going back there and tabling, which is really awesome. 244 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:08,520 So that's a picture of us at the UNT Recycle Resource Fair. We have a great relationship 245 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,200 with the We Mean Green Fund and the people that are involved in sustainability over there. 246 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:19,640 So we were even able to, on the far right, is a picture of their updated Big Belly signage on 247 00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:27,080 campus. So the UNT We Mean Green Fund actually reached out to me and talked about, we got to 248 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,880 talking about some of the verbiage and the language that they wanted to use in their big bellies that 249 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:36,440 they have on campus so that they could keep it consistent within Denton and then also within the 250 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,600 region. So there are phrases like, "Do you know what to throw?" There's phrases like, "Empty, 251 00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:45,800 clean, loose, and dry." Those are phrases that we use in our language and in our educational material, 252 00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:50,600 so they were able to implement it as well on campus also. So you may see some of these 253 00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:57,960 on UNT's campus. And then that middle picture is an example of our HCC battery drop-off collection, 254 00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:03,000 where we were able to divert batteries from the landfill. Our Murph has been seeing a lot of 255 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,880 batteries, and batteries are a big issue because they can spark every night, specifically lithium 256 00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,040 ion batteries. So we wanted to raise awareness that residents don't need to put them in their 257 00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:16,760 curbside cart because batteries can be recycled just not in your curbside cart. You want to make 258 00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,760 sure you take them to the HCC Home Chemical Collection, or if you're not a resident, there are 259 00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:33,640 even some home improvement stores that can take it. So during that time, while we were looking at 260 00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:40,680 audits and contamination, there were two commercial recycling routes that were on the highest 261 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:46,120 contaminated list for a while. And when Solid Waste looked at them, they found that they were 262 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:52,360 predominantly multi-family. So they were very multi-family heavy. And what they did was, 263 00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:57,560 they ran a route with just multi-family properties on there for one week, and they found that the 264 00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:04,680 contamination rate for just multi-families on those routes was 64%. So 64% of the material 265 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:09,080 wasn't able to be recycled because it had to be diverted to the landfill because it was basically 266 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:16,680 trash. So what they did was, for about two months, we ran a pilot where we had a chute lid and a 267 00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:22,200 locking bar placed on these multi-family containers. That picture on the left is a picture of the old 268 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:27,720 model. So if you see more of an old or outdated container, it may look like the one on the left. 269 00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,680 The one on the right is the updated one. So it has a place for you to place a lock right in the center. 270 00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:37,560 And we have no issues collecting this container because it's a gravity-fed lock, 271 00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,400 so you don't have to go out, property owners don't have to go out and unlock them before we 272 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:48,040 collect it. It can be collected as is. And what we saw was, it helped a lot with keeping a lot 273 00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:54,040 of unnecessary material, debris, illegal dumping out of the containers. So we wanted to see if this 274 00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:59,640 would help increase the quality of the recycling that was being entered into this stream versus the 275 00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:08,680 quantity. And this is an example of the multi-family before and after. So of course, during the time 276 00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:15,480 when we had these locks and chute lids on these containers, we wanted to make sure that the 277 00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:21,320 properties were locking them down so that they could stay in place. I can go back to the picture 278 00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:25,400 so you guys can see. We wanted to make sure that the lock stayed in place. We wanted to make sure 279 00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:29,960 that they weren't touching them. They were having their residents actually empty their recycling 280 00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:35,560 directly into the slots and not placing it right next to the container. So I was able to communicate, 281 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,320 you know, letting them know that they need to let their maintenance, their residents, 282 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:43,960 and Trash Ballet. So Trash Ballet also needs to know that they need to empty the recycling 283 00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:48,920 directly into the container so it can be properly used. So during those two months, we were able to 284 00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:57,320 see a change of it going from 64% contaminated to 39%, which is a really big change. And you can kind 285 00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:02,280 of see that in these pictures. So this is a multi-family property that is actually near the 286 00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:07,640 university, and for some reason, a lot of people like to donate things to it. It was filled to the 287 00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:13,000 brim with clothing. I used to see a lot of people bringing canned food, like fully canned food, 288 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:19,320 thinking it was like a drop-off donation center. I even used to see like household items all the time 289 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:24,520 and people scavenging. So then we put the chute lid and the locking bar on it, and then that's what it 290 00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:29,320 looks like on the right. So it looked a lot better. The product is a lot cleaner. You can see a lot of 291 00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:35,000 it is loose. It's not perfect, of course, but it is a big improvement, especially for a container 292 00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:41,160 that I've always seen was just filled to the top with basically trash. And all that material can be 293 00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:47,080 diverted. You know, clothing can be diverted to a donation center. It can be diverted to, you know, 294 00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:52,200 like any places on campus. I know that campus has some drop-off locations as well, but it doesn't 295 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:58,600 need to go into a recycling container where it contaminates or is not programmatic. All right, 296 00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:02,360 so I'm going to turn this over to Kim Jennings. 297 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:17,240 Committee members, my name is Kim Jennings, and as Jelisa said, I am the second Waste Reductions 298 00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:22,760 Program Coordinator with the Environmental Services and Sustainability Department, and I work primarily 299 00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:28,840 with the Denton Independent School District and the Denton Sustainable Schools Program. Today we're 300 00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:33,640 going to talk a little bit about the background of Denton Sustainable Schools. We're going to touch 301 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:39,160 on some of the audits, the contamination that we were seeing on the campuses, the outreach 302 00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:45,720 collaboration, and some of the exciting details about the program's relaunch coming this fall. 303 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:52,040 So initially, the program has been around for quite some time. It was launched in 2004 304 00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:57,880 in collaboration with the City of Denton Solid Waste Department, Keep Denton Beautiful, and UNT. 305 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:04,520 This has been 18 years of a very strong partnership that we're looking forward to growing 306 00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:10,600 in the future. The mission of the Denton Sustainable Schools Program is to encourage students, 307 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:15,400 families, faculty, and staff to improve our environment and support the Denton community 308 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:22,360 by implementing a comprehensive sustainability education program. So what this means is that 309 00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:30,280 we use environmental education that is mirroring the sustainability framework, and we do this 310 00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:36,920 through classroom programs. This is an example of one, and this is at the Dean of the Wright Center 311 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:43,080 after school program. We did some recycling relays with the kids. Who would have thought that dumping 312 00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:48,840 a big pile of recyclable trash and non-recyclable items in the middle of the room and having them 313 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:55,880 go through them would have created so much excitement, but it did. You can also see here's a picture 314 00:32:55,880 --> 00:33:03,880 of our careers on wheels where we come and visit the schools and we bring out our solid waste 315 00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:09,560 vehicle and talk to the kids about recycling and about the different jobs that are available to them. 316 00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:19,480 We also have education that helps explain by having people come out, schools do visits for 317 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:26,680 field trips to Pratt, the landfill, water treatment plants, some of the additional programs that we 318 00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:33,800 also do on wheels. And this is like something that is with multi-city departments. It's not just solid 319 00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:40,040 waste. The fire department comes out, the police department comes out, the library comes out, 320 00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:45,640 everyone. It's a very much a team-oriented effort where people come out and the kids just 321 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:51,720 just love it. A lot of the times since COVID, the schools have been restricted on having visitors, 322 00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:56,920 so being able to come back into the school system has been very rewarding and very welcome for the 323 00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:04,680 teachers and the students alike. We've also do continue education credits. We had a Denton 324 00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:08,760 Sustainable Schools teacher training earlier this month. We went with the teachers and talked about 325 00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:15,480 the program. And we also have STEM kids that we loan out to the school district. Originally, 326 00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:21,560 the program was tracked using recycling weights at each school campus and awards were given based on 327 00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:29,800 these recycling weights. But now, and there's a tracking, a points tracking system. So there's a 328 00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:35,400 teacher involved as the point of contact for each campus and they kept track of all the points and 329 00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:40,600 they submitted at the end of the year different activities that they did in order to earn points. 330 00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:49,400 So moving forward though, we're going to move away from monetary awards. Basically the points 331 00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:56,600 were used and points were awarded for primary, secondary, and private. And they had money that 332 00:34:56,600 --> 00:35:00,200 were given to them, but we're moving away from that since COVID. And now we're going to be 333 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:05,720 awarding schools with different items such as garden supplies, STEM kits, recycling bins, 334 00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:11,240 pizza parties, really anything that's going to encourage participation and be motivating 335 00:35:11,240 --> 00:35:17,080 for those students. So like we said, you know, the COVID shutdown and different school restrictions 336 00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:22,280 has limited the program's implementation, but we're excited to say we're back in the education 337 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:31,080 game once more. So I came into the position in October of 2021. Prior to that, I worked for the 338 00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:36,040 city of Waco. I was a park ranger for 20 years. I came back here to be with my family and finally 339 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,520 get back to recycling with the city of Denton. And it's been, it's been quite the ride. I've really 340 00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:45,080 enjoyed all of my co-workers. And I'm just saying that because my boss is sitting right here, but 341 00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:50,520 this is a fantastic group of people. I've really enjoyed coming back to Denton and working with 342 00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:56,920 everybody here. So, but during this whole time of COVID, it's sort of been like a sort of a free 343 00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:02,360 for all. The schools were recycling containers, didn't have much monitoring. To be honest, there 344 00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:08,040 wasn't a whole lot of education that was going on. There wasn't much enforcement from contamination 345 00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:13,960 that was happening on the school campuses either. So my first week here, I'm on board, kind of 346 00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:19,960 excited. I'm sitting in a meeting with Brian Warren, director of Solid Ways, and he was doing a 347 00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:24,760 presentation on contamination. All right. And he comes to the slide where he's talking about 348 00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,760 Denton ISD. I said, okay, all right, these are my people. Let's see what he has to say. 349 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:35,720 And basically they did a route for one week and they collected nine times. Normally Denton ISD is 350 00:36:35,720 --> 00:36:42,360 not on its own specific route. It's normally dispersed with other commercial routes. So it's 351 00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:48,040 very hard to tell kind of who's doing what, but they did one week of nothing but the ISD and they 352 00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:55,000 came back and they said, drum roll please. And we're at 90%. And I jumped up and I was like 90%, 353 00:36:55,000 --> 00:37:01,400 we're winning. And I thought about it for a minute. I was like, no, 90%, that's 90% contamination. 354 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,800 So what we were seeing, unfortunately, is that there's extremely high levels of contamination 355 00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:13,960 in the DISD campuses. So what now? Well, I'm heading back to Wakefield. Thanks guys. It's been 356 00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:20,120 fun. Not really. This is a challenge. I love a challenge and trying to figure out why is this 357 00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:25,080 happening? How is this happening? Who's doing it? And how can we make this better? Because obviously 358 00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:30,760 we definitely, we can do better. There's room for improvement. So we try to find patterns for high 359 00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:37,880 contamination schools. So this starts with with audits. So since I started, I've done, I think, 360 00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:44,280 964 audits. So what that means is I roll up in a super sweet minivan, it says solid waste 361 00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:50,200 recycling on the side. I hop out and I'll go over and I'll look in the container. I'll open the lid, 362 00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:55,240 I'll look inside and I'll document what sort of things are we seeing on your campus? Are we seeing 363 00:37:55,240 --> 00:38:02,840 a lot of plastic film? Are we seeing a lot of books? Are we seeing a lot of illegal dumping? 364 00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:09,160 Is there community dumping going on? What is causing these high contamination rates? So basically 365 00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:15,800 I did a lot of research to come up with some metrics to figure out who we need to try to fix 366 00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:23,000 first. So I met with some of the schools that were doing it right to find out why is your contamination 367 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:28,520 so low? It wasn't like they were all at 90%. Some were very, very low while others were obviously 368 00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:33,560 they had some struggles. So I met with principals, I met with kitchen staff, janitorial staff, 369 00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:38,200 individually, basically learning how their system works. Who takes the recycling? Who's responsible 370 00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:43,160 for it? Is it contracted staff? Is it staff that you have on board for many years? What are the 371 00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:49,320 consistencies that we're seeing to make them successful? We also offered solutions and suggestions 372 00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:54,680 like some of them they have revetments but they weren't blocking them. So one of the ways I 373 00:38:54,680 --> 00:39:00,920 really wanted to know was like who's doing this? So there was one campus in particular during the 374 00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,600 holiday break, I went and hit them hot and heavy. I went to almost every single one of them multiple 375 00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:08,360 times and I wanted to see who's making the mess because there was no students, there was no staff, 376 00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:12,120 there's no one there to make the mess, right? So I should be cleaning. Oh my goodness, it was not. 377 00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:17,640 Some of the worst contamination that we saw was during that holiday break. It was like everybody 378 00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:22,200 was making room for all the new toys and all the new furniture that they were going to get over 379 00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:28,600 the holiday break and it was a massive amount. If you need a steam cleaner, a couch, a washer dryer, 380 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:33,640 great, come to DISD, take your pick. There's all kinds of things that were left there for wishful 381 00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:39,000 recycling. So some of the solutions that we offer, you know, let's maybe move the donation bins. Some 382 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:44,280 of these donation bins were right next to where the recycling bins and the trash bins are and so 383 00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:49,160 people that just can't seem to part with some of their items that they hope could be recycled, 384 00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:54,440 like this bed frame is made out of wood, right? You can recycle wood. They, it might be broken, 385 00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,680 but it's recyclable so you would find these things kind of pushed up against the recycling 386 00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:05,400 container, you know, which makes it unfortunately contamination. Other things that were also 387 00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:12,840 motivated, motivating that we were doing, that we consistently do with properties that have high 388 00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:21,000 levels of contamination is a $75 do not collect charge. So basically if a campus had, it was 389 00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:26,520 either be by an audit that I performed or if the drivers come out and they see that the can is 390 00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:33,240 unserviceable due to high levels of contamination, you know, there's a $75 charge fee. So, you know, 391 00:40:33,240 --> 00:40:38,280 we give, we always give the customer the ability to, hey, would you like to clean it up? Just like 392 00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:43,640 everywhere else, DSD, especially with their maintenance, is shortstop. For them to jump in 393 00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:49,640 the container and take out a mattress with the amount of stuff that they have is, is quite a 394 00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:56,120 stretch. So here's an example of one of the campus businesses that we've grown and this is mostly, 395 00:40:56,120 --> 00:41:03,560 you know, this is stuff that isn't being generated, one with the duct, from the school. This is a lot 396 00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:10,360 of, a lot of construction you have, a lot of plywood, you have pieces of pallets, you know, 397 00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:17,480 ceiling tiles, all kinds of things that are non-programmatic for, for the program. So following 398 00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:23,400 on the success of the multi-family program, we decided, hey, let's lock them up. Let's, you know, 399 00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:28,040 let's, let's save by the lid. Let's put some locking sheet lids on and let's see what happens. 400 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:35,480 So we installed, our solid waste installed locking sheet lids on 20 different campuses 401 00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:41,400 and same campus, this is a locking sheet lid on there. So it's a huge difference. Those lids 402 00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,880 that are on there, there's a hole this big. If it doesn't fit through that hole, it's not going 403 00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:51,000 open and what's great is that there's, I call it the key to the city. I usually have it around my 404 00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:56,840 neck, but each DISD campus has the same lock and so it's not like there's this, this key that everyone 405 00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,920 has. So you can just leave it open. If it's not locked, it doesn't do any good. People will just 406 00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:05,480 flip open the lid and they'll throw their mattress in there. So having these, having these locked has 407 00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:11,240 made a huge, huge difference on contamination and you're not able to put in items that aren't 408 00:42:11,240 --> 00:42:19,080 recyclable. So what we've seen since, since last year, the city has done overall contamination 409 00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:25,960 rate, it's much, it's much more under control. In 2021, they're averaging 59% contamination rate 410 00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:34,360 and so far for year 2022, our current year, we're averaging around 47. So, you know, another reason 411 00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:42,120 for the success is our outreach and collaboration. We talk about recycling until the cows come home. 412 00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:47,720 We talk about recycling and contamination every single, every single week. We have contamination 413 00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:53,720 meetings with Solid Waste. We have meetings amongst ourselves. We even have monthly outreach 414 00:42:53,720 --> 00:42:59,320 meetings. We're in constant communication with Solid Waste and the drivers have the opportunity 415 00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:04,840 to provide pictures and feedback on certain, certain areas, different campuses. If I see the 416 00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:09,080 driver and say, hey, they've tagged a certain campus and they take a picture, they're sort of 417 00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:13,160 seeing these campuses at like four, like early earlier. They're some of their first stops that 418 00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,440 they make. They might be there five, six in the morning. It might be dark. So the picture might 419 00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:22,120 not be that clear. So I'll go out and I'll take a look and I'll see what it is and I contact DIC 420 00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:26,360 directly. I send them a picture and I'll let them know, hey, this is what we found. You know, this 421 00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:30,520 is where this should go. This should go to a whole chemical collection, you know, a bunch of light 422 00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:35,240 bulbs or batteries, whatever it is that we're seeing, fire extinguishers, certain things like 423 00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:41,160 that. So there's an education component and that's one of the reasons why we have seen, 424 00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:47,240 you know, a drop in contamination is because of these outreach and collaboration efforts. 425 00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,520 So like I said, like when I'm going out and driving around the minivan, I try not to be too 426 00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:57,800 intimidating. I usually pop out and wear my safety vest and, you know, I really try to, I'll help 427 00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:01,400 them. Like if, you know, you've got kitchen staffer out there, they have a little cart and they usually 428 00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:05,320 have cardboards and cans. Those are the two most popular items that are recyclable from the kitchen. 429 00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:09,240 Yeah, I'll just talk with them. Hey, how's it going? How's your day? Can I help you with this? 430 00:44:09,240 --> 00:44:12,920 You know, we learn real fast, like those cans, you got to put them in one way, try and put them 431 00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:17,160 in sideways. No, not that. So running home square peg is kind of figuring out the new system. Hey, 432 00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:21,560 how do you like these? How do you like the chute lutes? Or just saying, hey, did you see this is 433 00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:26,200 in here? And they'll take a peek. Oh, no, that wasn't us. I got you. I know it's not y'all, 434 00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:30,600 but just, just so that you're aware, like when somebody knows that you're being watched, your 435 00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:36,440 actions will, will change. As a park ranger, I can guarantee that because we had staff when we 436 00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,960 visit places and talk with people and the fact that people knew that we were there, we were making 437 00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:45,320 contact makes all the difference in the world. And I'm seeing the same thing happen, happen here. 438 00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:52,360 Going into, going to the schools and teaching the students. This is one of the best ways to teach 439 00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:58,600 recycling. I'm really encouraged the way Denton has been handling all their sustainability goals. 440 00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:02,840 When I grew up, we didn't talk about recycling. No one really sat us down and said, 441 00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:06,840 hey, this is how you do recycling. Recycling really wasn't a thing until we came a little bit 442 00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:11,400 older. I want to tell you how old I am. But the fact that these kids are being introduced to this 443 00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:17,480 at such a young age is, is phenomenal and a great opportunity to teach them how we do recycling. 444 00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,560 Just because you can recycle something doesn't mean that that's the way that Denton recycles. 445 00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:26,120 So that's why it gets so confusing sometimes when people say, well, I don't know what to recycle. 446 00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:31,960 I thought you could do this and now it's this. Well, it's based off of what items that our, 447 00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:37,720 our recovery, our materials recovery facility can handle. So that's why it gets, it gets confusing. 448 00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:43,080 But you know, going in into the schools, these are pictures of, of Geyer High Schools, 449 00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:48,120 their advanced placement, environmental sciences and statistics class, believe it or not, 450 00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:55,480 did a full-blown like week-long recycling initiative. And these students, I didn't tell 451 00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,760 them to jump in there, but they went in and they went to one of the, they have two different 452 00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:02,760 containers, one that's behind the school where you see everyone standing and then one that's more 453 00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:07,400 closer to the front. And that one usually has more of the illegal dumping. A lot of times that's 454 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:11,320 with access. If you can go in and out really quick and you can do a quick dump, that's where you're 455 00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,560 going to see a lot of the illegal dumping and higher contamination numbers. But these students, 456 00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,560 they went in, they pulled everything out, they did a grid and they, they made it, they made it, 457 00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:24,600 you know, a science, mathematic exercise. So it's, it's great. You know, the students are excited 458 00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:29,480 about it. You know, they want to make a difference and they want to see it done right. Here's another, 459 00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:34,200 you know, after school kids. I didn't make these kids like be happy. They were just like happy that 460 00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,880 someone was there to talk to them. Someone was there to play with them. You know, we jumped all 461 00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:43,160 that in the middle of the room and their first inclination is, hey, can I jump and climb in the 462 00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:47,880 pile? And my first thought is, well, yeah, but wait, you can't. But, you know, just meeting with these 463 00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:53,400 kids and having them sort through these items. So basically what we did is this huge pile of trash, 464 00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:58,120 we break them up into teams and then they come one in, one in, one at a time and they pick up one piece 465 00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:05,000 of, of, of a piece of trash and they either put it in their recycling or their, or their trash. 466 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:11,320 And then afterwards we take their recycling and we go through each team literally item by item and 467 00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:17,400 whoever has the least amount helps. So we'll go through literally hundreds of items and by the time 468 00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:23,400 we're finished, the kids get it. Like they may not be great to start with, but they see the pattern 469 00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:28,200 and the fact that they have physically touched an item, it makes a huge, huge difference in that repetition 470 00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:33,160 and that connection is just making it lasting. And these kids like, they'll go home like, oh yeah, 471 00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,600 I tell my mom all the time, you can't just talk about that or you should be doing this. So they're 472 00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:42,440 great ambassadors for the message that we're trying to send out. You know, this is a picture 473 00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:49,560 from Denton's Explorium and we've also gone to the libraries. These kids all getting in these trucks. 474 00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:56,280 Not gonna be biased, but usually the trash truck is like the kids' favorite time, especially during 475 00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:00,600 COVID. It was kind of like one of the highlights of their days to come see the big truck come and 476 00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,640 pick up their trash and their recycling every day. Our drivers do a great job. They connect with the 477 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:11,480 community well and the joy in these kids' faces to see trash truck is really, really satisfying. 478 00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:19,640 This is a, one of the career days that we went to at Rivera Elementary. So another thing, you know, 479 00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,040 people think, oh gosh, you know, trash, no one wants to be the trash guy, right? 480 00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:30,200 There's so much more to this profession than just trash. There's science behind this and there's 481 00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:36,440 technology and these kids need to understand that this is a service that is far, it's not simple. 482 00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:42,840 It gets actually quite, you know, quite complex. So we have a smart routing system called Rubicon 483 00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:47,800 and, you know, when the kids go inside the cab, they get to see we have an iPad. We use technology. 484 00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:53,080 We have active trackers, routers that have notes. So our drivers show these kids like, you know, 485 00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:59,800 these are the reasons why you need to, you know, to learn this stuff in school. This is actually 486 00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:05,320 applicable in real life. And then too, if you could see in that picture, like they're holding like 487 00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:10,360 this little green sheet. This is like a list of questions that they ask. Like some of these 488 00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:15,880 questions, like they make you blush. Like, so they're wanting to know, a lot of these kids, 489 00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:20,280 they're already civic minded. They already like, their number one thing is, I want to make a 490 00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:26,680 difference in my community. I want to help. What can I do? In these career days, you know, 491 00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:32,120 they're quite helpful in making these connections and letting these kids know, yeah, hey, there is 492 00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:37,480 a job in sustainability. Moving forward, this generation will have ample opportunities to use 493 00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:45,080 metrics, science, everything that can be useful to help you regarding sustainability. 494 00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:55,480 Okay. So we've also, we've also started up, I did a teacher survey. I wanted to know, 495 00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:59,640 it's been a while since we've had the Dentist Center for Schools program, it's been inactive. 496 00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:06,120 And I wanted to know, teachers, since COVID, what does your life look like now? And how can this 497 00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:11,160 program be useful for you? And what can we do for the city of Dent to make this program something 498 00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:16,120 that you're excited about and you want to participate in? So we got a lot of great feedback 499 00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:21,640 from these teachers. We saw a lot of, a lot of similar themes, like they want, you know, their 500 00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:26,520 students to make, to have personal accountability. They want them to make responsible choices. 501 00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:31,000 They're heavily involved with wanting to make a difference in the community and the environment. 502 00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:37,000 Basically involvement, which is, which is what this program was designed to do. You know, we 503 00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:41,560 met one-on-one with these teachers just so I could, you know, get their reactions. I wanted to know 504 00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:46,920 that what we're going to be doing is going to be useful and helpful for them. And here's a picture 505 00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:51,400 that we had from our teacher training earlier this month. So this is like circle trust, I'm 506 00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:57,480 just kidding. It's actually like an electricity circle. So it's not just, the program isn't just 507 00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,960 about recycling. It is recycling focused, but it touches on different areas of the framework, 508 00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:08,520 of the framework, so that these kids will get a well-rounded vision of what they can do for 509 00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:15,160 environmental stewardship and sustainability in their life. Our tours are back online. We're able 510 00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:21,960 to go into Pratt. We're going to be doing one of our first landfill tours here next month. So this 511 00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:28,200 is, this is exciting. It's a good, it's a good time. One of the things, you all have to use your 512 00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:35,960 imagination here, because there's no sound. But when, as part of that week-long recycling initiative 513 00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:40,360 that Guyer High School students did, their teachers required them to come up with a 514 00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:46,520 recycle PSA. Now there's no sound on this. This is one of the top ones. They submitted, it was close 515 00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:52,040 to a little over 40 different videos that these groups did. And we selected some of our favorite 516 00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:56,920 ones. And this is one of the favorite ones. It has a real dramatic theme to it. But these students, 517 00:51:56,920 --> 00:52:02,280 they did this themselves. And what's really, really, really interesting and really cool is that these 518 00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:07,960 kids listened. They didn't just like Google some of these statistics. They pulled these from the 519 00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:14,920 presentation. These came from things that we're learning, you know, from our, from our management 520 00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:22,440 plan, from our department, from the city. These are real metrics. And for these kids to understand 521 00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:28,440 and grasp the severity of their actions, and to know like, this is what we're doing as students, 522 00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:33,400 here's what we can do to make it better, was really, really cool. So I just wanted to share 523 00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:39,160 this with you guys to show you that this program is useful. It makes a difference. And we're super 524 00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:46,600 excited to have it come back online. And that, that's what I've got. But without further ado, 525 00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:54,360 let me introduce our special guest, long time listener, first time caller. I have one question. 526 00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:59,960 Well, before you go, does anybody have a question about the sustainable schools? 527 00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:09,160 Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, a couple questions. The headline would be, I believe that there's a 528 00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:14,680 great opportunity to continue educating our children. First, let me commend you and your team 529 00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:21,320 for working with me as you are to get this message out there. However, I still believe there's great 530 00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:29,240 opportunity to continue the education and expand the education to our children. So one of my 531 00:53:29,240 --> 00:53:36,920 questions would be, are we visiting every elementary school? And are we doing it on a consistent 532 00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:45,400 basis? As I process this in my mind, obviously turnover, second grade to become third grade. Are 533 00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:51,720 we revisiting the second grade each year, each school to continue to set up those high school 534 00:53:51,720 --> 00:53:57,720 students to be as effective as they are? I also believe that the greatest 535 00:53:57,720 --> 00:54:04,520 influencer in the household as it relates to behaviors are children. And so we want to change 536 00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:10,360 the behaviors of the adults. We might want to put a lot of emphasis in the children. So that would be 537 00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:17,320 number one, if you could speak to that, how consistently are we impacting the schools? 538 00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:24,200 And then number two, from a partnership perspective, I see you and T as a partner, if you would, 539 00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:30,760 but I think I mentioned this in April. I do know, I have some experience and worked with the 540 00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:37,640 St. Louis County School Board and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers implementing a program very 541 00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:43,560 similar to this and did it in the form of a six-week summer boot camp where they brought even 542 00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:48,520 models of a community and they poured oil at the top of the hill and so that the kids could see 543 00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:54,440 where that motor oil was dumped on the street or on the curb can end up in the lakes and the streams. 544 00:54:54,440 --> 00:55:01,240 When I look at information such as the trash pile in our oceans, it's twice the size of the 545 00:55:01,240 --> 00:55:07,800 state of Texas, of which we're contributing to that. Certainly we can't control what's 546 00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:13,560 going on in the ocean, but we can impact it by educating and getting behavior change in 547 00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:18,600 our local communities. So from a partnership perspective, we consider the Army Corps of Engineers 548 00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:27,480 to have a tremendous program available to help educate, I believe it's third grade through high 549 00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:34,200 school with regards to impact on, with regards to recycling and contamination and so forth. So 550 00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:40,120 that would be the two areas I'd like to get some more information or address if you would. 551 00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:47,560 Absolutely. So in terms of how often we're visiting all of the schools, so for the audits 552 00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:53,240 each month Solid Waste comes up and they pull a record of the highest contamination routes. 553 00:55:53,240 --> 00:56:00,600 So there might be, let's say one route, like 436 has 29% DISD campuses. I'll make note of 554 00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:06,440 which campuses are involved in contamination for that route and for that month we'll concentrate 555 00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:12,200 on that to find out is it the DISD customers on these campuses, is it the students, is it the 556 00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:18,040 teachers, is it the campuses here that are contributing to this higher contamination rate. 557 00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:23,560 Now the Denton Sustainable Schools program, it has not been officially launched. So these programs 558 00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:28,520 and things that you've been seeing, if someone has reached out to us, we've made contact and we've 559 00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:36,360 gone out to do those types of programs. Once the program launches again in the fall, they'll have 560 00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:41,960 access to basically almost every city service. So I'll serve as a liaison. So if they want to talk 561 00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:48,440 about forestry, I'm going to go with Parks and Rec and see what they need. One of the things that 562 00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:53,080 is that's great about this program, we want it to be programs and topics that are of interest for 563 00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:58,280 the teachers and students. We don't want it to be so broad or just use broad strokes. They don't 564 00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:04,360 really get a lot out of it. The teachers can request programs that are specific for different 565 00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:11,160 teats that they might be needing for a specific topic or certain things that they want to focus on 566 00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:15,800 that their kids have shown an interest in. So we want it to be able to build programs that are for 567 00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:22,280 these teachers. So once they have signed up and are part of this program, they have access to us 568 00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:28,280 to provide for them the education components that we need. And having these partnerships to be able 569 00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:33,320 to access these our coordinators, that is not something currently that I'm aware of that we 570 00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,880 have done yet, but absolutely that sounds like that's a resource that we should definitely 571 00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:41,160 be looking into, to form some additional partnerships. 572 00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:43,480 What, what? Absolutely. 573 00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:48,360 Well, okay, I'll talk about something. 574 00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:55,160 No, it's, it's, I'm good. I get my answer. I'll follow up. 575 00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:56,460 Yes. 576 00:57:56,460 --> 00:57:58,680 Anybody else? 577 00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:03,240 Okay. All right, thank you. 578 00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:11,960 And I'll just add, pre-COVID, we probably had about 75% of the schools participating. 579 00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:17,640 It was higher on the elementary side than middle and high school. So it's interesting that the 580 00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:23,000 high schools are the ones who've reached out now and are interested in participating. But with the 581 00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:31,800 relaunch, Kim has been able to go in pre, kind of get the tail end of COVID and pre-relaunching 582 00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:36,120 the program and build these relationships with the principals, with the janitorial staff. And 583 00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:39,800 that was something that we were missing before. We had good relationships with the teachers, 584 00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:43,800 but we didn't have the relationship on the back end, which is what was really going in the container 585 00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:52,120 at the end of the day. So we're able to cover both sides of the house now. And I think that as the 586 00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:56,680 schools, it may take a little bit of time to recover and get each school built back up with 587 00:58:56,680 --> 00:59:03,720 a green team. They didn't have green teams this year. Just the capacity wasn't there. So I think 588 00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:10,680 as they reintroduce green teams and the teachers feel like they can take that on without being 589 00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:17,320 overwhelmed and you have a teacher sponsor for the green team, I think that we'll be building back. 590 00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:22,200 And it's just going to generate buzz. The more schools that are participating and the other 591 00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:26,440 teachers are hearing about great programs that are coming into the schools and helping 592 00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:33,720 teach their TEKS lessons, then it's just going to start to grow organically again. We do have a 593 00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:38,040 watershed model that we take out and we have one that we can loan out to the school if they want 594 00:59:38,040 --> 00:59:41,960 to keep it for a few weeks. Very similar to what you're talking about with the oil, so they can see 595 00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:47,880 how that looks and how it all goes down into our watershed. I have a question about the green team. 596 00:59:47,880 --> 00:59:54,200 You brought that up. I remember when my son was in elementary way back when, and they did have a 597 00:59:54,200 --> 01:00:01,800 green team and they would go and monitor all the recycling and you know each grade level had one kid 598 01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:06,440 that would go in and like take the recycling or look in it and there were other things that they did 599 01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:14,040 in the school. But do we have a budget or is there a way once this gets started back up to 600 01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:19,880 have like t-shirts for those kids so that they are recognizable and people can and other kids can be 601 01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:25,560 like whoa you know what are you how do you get to do that kind of thing. And that's what we're moving 602 01:00:25,560 --> 01:00:31,320 to with the survey that Kim did. You know they found out that the gardens were just so neglected 603 01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:34,840 during COVID and didn't really need a lot of help so they asked for garden help so we're going to 604 01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:41,080 work with that the first year. But yeah green team t-shirts that could be a great prize as they work 605 01:00:41,080 --> 01:00:47,400 forward and and they earn points for sustainable schools. So I think that's a completely doable 606 01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:55,560 option and i think that you know that's something to work towards. Hello I'm sorry. Yeah go ahead. 607 01:00:55,560 --> 01:01:02,360 In addition to that the AHAs that I heard her mention before the schools that are doing a great 608 01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:10,200 job, can that be published to other schools, teachers even, to include you know recognition 609 01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:17,640 reward for children are those AHAs if you were that's what we call them. Are those is that 610 01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:22,840 information available because somebody might look at I know my behavior has changed since the April 611 01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:29,480 meeting even and really talking about this and my household has changed as a result of how we treat 612 01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:34,040 recyclables at this point. I'm even having conversations with some people in the neighborhood 613 01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:41,560 you know the point when you go on your walk you see exactly so so the point I'm making you can 614 01:01:41,560 --> 01:01:46,200 give that good information out there you know here's some simple things you can do that's going to 615 01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:54,840 encourage our children that we can implement at the at the home level and primarily my big focus 616 01:01:54,840 --> 01:02:01,240 is educating children that they are our future. So that's what those AHAs are available and more. 617 01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:08,360 And we're sharing some of the school AHA moments on our sustainable schools page so in that and we 618 01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:13,960 have a newsletter that we'll be launching so they'll share all of that between all of the schools so 619 01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:17,880 it's like hey this school's doing a great job and this is how they're doing it and Kim has been able 620 01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:25,080 to have those conversations out in the field just with cafeteria staff or with the contract staff 621 01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:29,640 saying hey this is how they're doing it at this other school and it's working out really well. 622 01:02:29,640 --> 01:02:34,280 Maybe that's a way that you could think about doing it and then even talking to Denton ISD 623 01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:39,720 facilities about what bags if they have to bag something what bag can be accepted at Pratt and 624 01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:46,280 still be opened up with recyclables in it and so they've changed purchasing practices you know the 625 01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:53,960 operational changes are a step that you know we wouldn't have thought of before because we were 626 01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:59,400 in the classroom so it it was a unique opportunity to let us take that deeper dive into the 627 01:02:59,400 --> 01:03:09,160 operational side of it. Not one that we wished for. So just sustainability education in general. 628 01:03:09,160 --> 01:03:16,040 It's all right go ahead with your presentation. I know my question will probably make more sense 629 01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:23,400 after this. Okay all right so we're excited this past fall we got to return to the in-person 630 01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:30,600 education. We have a little heat map here it kind of shows where all we were around Denton. We have 631 01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:37,320 learned to conserve water and energy education, air quality, we had some food classes and some 632 01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:49,960 nature-based classes that took place. Through all of our events we reached 6802 people 633 01:03:50,920 --> 01:03:58,840 if the clickers and the sign-ups are correct. So that covers you know meetings, presentations, 634 01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:07,000 tabling events, activities and then the tours. So not bad for for getting started again with our 635 01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:14,520 education and outreach efforts and some of the things that that we were participating in during 636 01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:19,720 that time frame national night out stream clean we did a senior lunch and learn the after school 637 01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:27,560 programs. Some of the usual suspects Red Bud Day, Great American Cleanup, String Clean, a movie in 638 01:04:27,560 --> 01:04:35,000 the park which was fun and then you know back to Explorium. That was that was great in the career 639 01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:46,920 days. So just look to see more of that coming up. We have some classes coming up soon reducing 640 01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:54,120 kitchen waste, bulletproof plants, composting and all bargaining. Those will be on the website 641 01:04:54,120 --> 01:05:00,840 and Facebook event soon. We're finalizing those with the rooted in group right now. 642 01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:11,080 So just some pictures of the fun times that we had with stamps and stickers. 643 01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:21,080 The kids love Arlo the armadillo when we talk about air quality 644 01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:29,880 our air armadillo excuse me. We'll be at Twilight Toons tomorrow night, is that correct? 645 01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:34,920 Yes thumbs up. Twilight Toons tomorrow night will have recycling and sustainability air quality 646 01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:40,760 education there. We have the Denton Police summer youth program tumor of the landfall and crack 647 01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:46,040 coming up, library programs and then the composting, gardening and clean waste classes. 648 01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:56,040 And then we are all available for questions. Yes. Well I think it's wonderful that 649 01:05:56,040 --> 01:06:02,200 departments like Solid Waste are partnering with the sustainability 650 01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:09,320 area because it's that's been in the past a problem that everybody's been in their 651 01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:15,720 individual silos. Things are now really starting to work people starting to work together and along 652 01:06:15,720 --> 01:06:22,680 that line a lot of the schools or many of the schools like new schools like Nettie Schultz 653 01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:32,520 have considerable renewable energy installations and just thinking out of the box a little bit I 654 01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:40,920 don't know if DME has any outreach programs of the scale that Solid Waste does but perhaps at 655 01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:47,720 some point in the future there could be discussion with DME about presenting programs on renewable 656 01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:53,000 energy and tying that in with the actual installations on the schools in which the kids are 657 01:06:53,000 --> 01:07:01,240 which kids are attending. And JT who's heading back in the corner over there he does our 658 01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:06,360 conservation programs and he does the energy education at the school so that's something that 659 01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:12,280 he could plug in and there is a new person at DME and I'm not sure what her scope is but we can 660 01:07:12,280 --> 01:07:17,240 find out if that's something that we can partner on. Oh that'd be great. Yeah we work closely with 661 01:07:17,240 --> 01:07:25,400 DME too. Good thank you. Katherine I have a question. Parks is here. Do we have a environmental 662 01:07:25,400 --> 01:07:33,560 services person or sustainability who monitors contamination in parks trash? I mean we talked 663 01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:37,800 about it here a little bit before but they have like a blue bin and agreement but generally it's 664 01:07:37,800 --> 01:07:46,280 all just trash. I mean do we have anyone that monitors that? Parks staff does some monitoring 665 01:07:46,280 --> 01:07:53,000 of just what they're pulling from the containers and making sure that it's going to the appropriate 666 01:07:53,000 --> 01:08:00,440 location so if it's so highly contaminated that it shouldn't go to crap then it's going to go to 667 01:08:00,440 --> 01:08:07,720 the landfill but with the new containers that Parks has on order I believe through the grant 668 01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:16,120 200 units of side-by-side trash and recycling we're working with them for signage if they're 669 01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:21,480 going to be along the paved sidewalk and looking at some of the sidewalk stickers that can provide 670 01:08:21,480 --> 01:08:26,040 some education about what's going to go in the different containers so there's going to be an 671 01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:30,840 education campaign that goes along with those new containers so hopefully we won't just have the 672 01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:36,120 open top thrums in all of our parks and we can start getting away from that. Like the containers 673 01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:41,720 at Avondale? Yes. Okay exactly like those are fantastic. I'm sure they probably help you guys 674 01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:50,680 too and solid waste. So there's 200 of those coming did you say? 200 sets coming. Yeah that's 675 01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:59,080 good thank you. Yeah that's their grant. Okay yeah thank you. So you guys have a couple different 676 01:08:59,080 --> 01:09:04,360 presentations about the percentage of contamination and it sounds like there's that high number and 677 01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:11,320 I've heard it around 40 percent being kind of what we're starting to achieve like how does that 678 01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:17,240 compare to other cities is one question I mean you guys know what if they're running and then 679 01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:23,960 like is that normal and then two like do we expect to hover around 40 contamination rates 680 01:09:23,960 --> 01:09:31,960 or is the goal to actually try to get below that? How do you do that? Can I ask Matt are you talking 681 01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:38,360 about specifically DISD or multi-family? With both because DISD got down to 39 percent and then we 682 01:09:38,360 --> 01:09:46,920 heard two months ago it was the city had dropped to like 40 40-ish percent. If you want to come 683 01:09:46,920 --> 01:09:53,880 back up and answer the question if you know and I can kind of jump in on that. Okay okay. As we've 684 01:09:53,880 --> 01:10:01,720 audited the different sectors so the schools and multi-family it's narrowed down where contamination 685 01:10:01,720 --> 01:10:09,480 might be so while we may be making great gains at the school and at the multi-family sites 686 01:10:09,480 --> 01:10:16,040 they're still combined with a route that picks up at other locations so that's where another 687 01:10:16,040 --> 01:10:21,800 one of our auditors comes in and she's with the solid waste team so looking at those sites so it's 688 01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:27,960 starting to make deeper dives now into those and Pratt has gotten more proactive with trying to 689 01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:35,160 give us route numbers and the day that contamination comes in for example sharps we're kind of having 690 01:10:35,160 --> 01:10:40,680 to be detectives right now and looking at all of the stops on the routes and you know we've got 691 01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:48,200 multi-family but we also have assisted living and we have one business that may use sharps so where 692 01:10:48,200 --> 01:10:55,960 could that be coming from so it's a lot they all have to feed together to try to get that contamination 693 01:10:55,960 --> 01:11:04,120 down below where we are now but we're still working. But is that like a stamp it's like 40 694 01:11:04,120 --> 01:11:08,280 like have you heard of other cities has anybody else talked about like contamination rates have 695 01:11:08,280 --> 01:11:15,640 been like we've reached zero percent contaminants? I've never heard zero um was there isn't there a 696 01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:20,440 I don't know like a graph or something of other cities comparable to 697 01:11:20,440 --> 01:11:27,560 Denton at some point but I don't think it's schools it's it's not specific to multi-family 698 01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:33,080 or school it's just no it's just overall and that is in the comprehensive solid waste management 699 01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:40,840 strategy and I would have to go back and pull that um but I will say not all recycling programs are 700 01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:45,800 equal so what's problematic material here may not be the same some of them may have gone to all 701 01:11:45,800 --> 01:11:51,320 paper and cardboard and then they have a much lower contamination rate. Isn't it at one point 702 01:11:51,320 --> 01:11:59,720 I remember hearing like 30 percent or is like kind of general I remember hearing 30 something 703 01:11:59,720 --> 01:12:09,720 between the yeah 30-ish but we're still high. Go ahead Ed. 704 01:12:09,720 --> 01:12:21,560 Where does where does is the solid waste does the solid waste have an end zero program yet? 705 01:12:21,560 --> 01:12:25,480 Is this or is that coming with the uh 706 01:12:27,560 --> 01:12:34,200 will that be part of the that is a comprehensive solid waste management strategy and that may be 707 01:12:34,200 --> 01:12:38,920 something in concluding items we can ask for him to come back and talk to us about because I think 708 01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:49,960 we have a lot of solid wastey questions yeah good thank you all right good thank you so much 709 01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:59,800 we will move on to D staff reports anybody have any questions on on the staff reports 710 01:12:59,800 --> 01:13:05,320 there were some really good ones in there lots of information I just wanted to 711 01:13:05,320 --> 01:13:12,760 I had a couple of questions about if you have anyone else yeah I have some questions 712 01:13:14,120 --> 01:13:22,040 Adam go ahead okay so on the climate action plan I see that scheduled to come before council on 713 01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:31,080 july 26 yes and I'm wondering if it's appropriate for this committee as a body or individual members 714 01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:39,320 to reach out to city council members or the public at large in an effort to help with this 715 01:13:39,320 --> 01:13:45,720 or is that not appropriate if it is appropriate do we have like talking points that I have the same 716 01:13:45,720 --> 01:13:49,960 I have the same question and I'm wondering if we needed to like come up with some kind of like 717 01:13:49,960 --> 01:13:55,640 letter signed by the committee like asking them to approve I don't I don't know maybe that's a 718 01:13:55,640 --> 01:14:01,240 city attorney question if we're allowed to do that or if if you think it's even needed at this point 719 01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:08,600 is there something we can do I'll take that a little bit okay to summarize Michael Gagne, 720 01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:14,600 director of environmental services sustainability since the work plan went before council and council 721 01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:18,840 recommended we go forward with the climate action plan as part of that work plan there's probably 722 01:14:18,840 --> 01:14:23,640 nothing additional you need to do at this point they're very clear and aware of y'all support for 723 01:14:23,640 --> 01:14:28,120 that but if you wanted to reach out or let people know that's coming up for action that would not be 724 01:14:28,120 --> 01:14:33,720 a bad thing but that's just the first step to award that contract then once we start doing the 725 01:14:33,720 --> 01:14:39,000 work and getting into that overall climate action plan where we'll need more and more community input 726 01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:46,200 and support to build that plan to then bring it back to council next year for adoption of the actual 727 01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:51,160 plan just to get the contract in place is just one step that's all it's going to happen in July 728 01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:56,680 just actually get a vendor on board they will be voting at this meeting they will they will take 729 01:14:56,680 --> 01:15:03,240 action to possibly award that contract to that vendor to start that process okay 730 01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:11,240 are you at liberty to tell us who the person the company will not yet we're still finalizing all 731 01:15:11,240 --> 01:15:16,440 contract negotiations to make that happen once that can be public we'll make sure you're aware 732 01:15:16,440 --> 01:15:22,280 of who that will be that'd be great thank you did anyone else have questions on any of these 733 01:15:22,280 --> 01:15:27,240 three stop reports before we talk about the matrix 734 01:15:34,200 --> 01:15:38,440 yes i had a question about the gas well unplugging okay and go ahead 735 01:15:38,440 --> 01:15:46,200 i was just curious the last time when we had the presentation from modern geosciences 736 01:15:46,200 --> 01:15:54,120 at the end of it dr tram said that he would take the numbers leak numbers to his engineers 737 01:15:54,120 --> 01:16:02,440 saying that they could give us a ballpark figure of the amount of methane that was leaking 738 01:16:02,440 --> 01:16:08,680 or it had leaked out of out of the out of the wells and i just wondered if there's been any 739 01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:12,680 development from dr tramp in regards to that 740 01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:21,880 michael again no there has not been any development that from talking with modern 741 01:16:21,880 --> 01:16:27,480 geosciences they do have information on what the leaks are right that leak information says 742 01:16:27,480 --> 01:16:31,800 what was happening then it doesn't actually have a rate associated with it so one of the 743 01:16:31,800 --> 01:16:36,920 challenges to build that as far as how much methane is they might not have the flow 744 01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:42,600 of the leak they know where it was so they said they would look at that that's one thing they're 745 01:16:42,600 --> 01:16:47,080 interested in doing trying to follow back up with dr tram as well to see where they stand on that 746 01:16:47,080 --> 01:16:54,120 information provided to us okay that'd be great follow-up thank you just on this i wanted to thank 747 01:16:54,120 --> 01:17:02,600 you for this uh data and seeing that 32 wells have been plugged since 2015 um that that's pretty 748 01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:09,640 significant i mean not i mean in relation to the total amount but that's it's pretty good amount 749 01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:14,920 that has been plugged so thank you for that could could you just remind us again what what are the 750 01:17:14,920 --> 01:17:22,600 current regulations about what happens above ground or around those plug wells is there 751 01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:28,120 i mean is there any restrictions or is it just like we can now put a house on top of it i'm 752 01:17:28,120 --> 01:17:34,760 gonna say here just with this was just the amount of wells that it's not an item for discussion it's 753 01:17:34,760 --> 01:17:44,760 just a staff report that in the items coming up you can ask for a gas well presentation okay like 754 01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:56,520 the well presentation or just another staff report on that issue i think is that can i ask a couple 755 01:17:56,520 --> 01:18:02,520 of them yeah let's go see what adam adam and then we'll come back to you ed all right uh a comment it 756 01:18:02,520 --> 01:18:07,320 was interesting on the map that a lot of those look like they're not bar net shale wells i would 757 01:18:07,320 --> 01:18:13,080 guess they may be really old wells off the shale but i'm not sure but my question is on the solar 758 01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:18,920 generation that was interesting but there's it's interesting how literally they took the uh the 759 01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:24,520 quest they gave us two numbers that i don't have any context to understand those numbers so i don't 760 01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:33,800 know so 3.8 million kilowatt hours sounds like a lot but do we have any sense of percentage wise 761 01:18:33,800 --> 01:18:39,480 what is that like you know the average person might look at this and say oh our city is entirely run 762 01:18:39,480 --> 01:18:45,720 by people's rooftops but maybe it's like three trillion kilowatt hours and this is like a drop 763 01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:51,000 in the bucket i just don't know if it does anybody know yeah how to read these numbers i thought that 764 01:18:51,000 --> 01:18:56,280 was interesting too especially compared to the amount of generation that was installed how much 765 01:18:56,280 --> 01:19:03,720 more percentage we're getting off of those well the installed is kilowatts and this is kilowatt 766 01:19:03,720 --> 01:19:10,040 hours so that's like so that much i think i can kind of understand but i don't know i just i guess 767 01:19:10,040 --> 01:19:19,080 i wonder how many kilowatt hours total in that time period did we there's no context so if we 768 01:19:19,080 --> 01:19:30,520 could just have more clarification yeah just to help us understand what that data is me okay 769 01:19:34,120 --> 01:19:41,480 and then i guess ed go ahead i'd like to know what the status of the greenhouse gas inventory is 770 01:19:41,480 --> 01:19:47,480 so is that on our matrix i don't i don't think so i 771 01:19:47,480 --> 01:19:55,320 at last i heard they it was said it was coming out in june or july that was just a 772 01:19:56,920 --> 01:20:04,040 communication and i just wondered how close we are now did you have anything on the stack reports 773 01:20:04,040 --> 01:20:09,960 are you going to move to the matrix matrix okay all right so we'll move on to the matrix and ask 774 01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:20,520 do you have anything about the greenhouse gas the 20 2020 you want to come on up yeah 775 01:20:24,920 --> 01:20:27,080 because i think it's listed in the matrix but 776 01:20:27,080 --> 01:20:33,320 community members james divas conservation programs coordinator so we got an updated 777 01:20:33,320 --> 01:20:39,400 timeline on the regional greenhouse gas inventory and so they will be having all of the final data 778 01:20:39,400 --> 01:20:44,520 to us in july what we are waiting for is the off-road transportation data specifically 779 01:20:44,520 --> 01:20:49,000 once we get that we will start pulling all of those numbers together and get the report 780 01:20:49,880 --> 01:20:56,920 completed for the 2019 updated version as soon as possible for the regional inventory they are 781 01:20:56,920 --> 01:21:03,160 looking at a timeline of december for that for collecting all of the data right december december 782 01:21:03,160 --> 01:21:10,120 for the for the regional publication so that is what i have on that and then you plan to bring that 783 01:21:10,120 --> 01:21:20,760 back to to this body yes okay thank you i have something else okay go ahead uh in the dallas 784 01:21:20,760 --> 01:21:26,920 morning news on june 26 there was a really interesting article about the current drought 785 01:21:26,920 --> 01:21:36,520 in the state and if i may read a short paragraph here it says the most recent plan of the texas 786 01:21:36,520 --> 01:21:42,280 water development board is simply laughable despite all the evidence to the contrary the agency is 787 01:21:42,280 --> 01:21:48,920 planning for a 1950s precedent to be the worst case and it doesn't mention two words that are 788 01:21:48,920 --> 01:21:59,400 verboten in austin which is climate change the agency says publicly it doesn't even model 789 01:21:59,400 --> 01:22:08,120 climate change and then though some municipal water authorities quietly do so i would like to know if 790 01:22:08,120 --> 01:22:11,800 our water folks 791 01:22:11,800 --> 01:22:21,240 are taking climate change and of course growth into consideration and what sort of plan they have 792 01:22:23,480 --> 01:22:30,120 else out to 2050 or whatever whatever the time frame is just to know how how dentin is going to 793 01:22:30,120 --> 01:22:41,320 deal with water issues in the next decades okay let me make sure that i have this correct for the 794 01:22:41,320 --> 01:22:46,920 matrix so we're going to ask the water department if they're factoring climate change and growth 795 01:22:46,920 --> 01:22:54,360 into any of their modeling um out to 2050 yeah i guess i can't hear you that clearly 796 01:22:54,360 --> 01:23:00,680 uh modeling the for climate change climate change out did they basically have their own 797 01:23:00,680 --> 01:23:09,560 climate action plan for dealing with with the impacts of drought and growth within up you know 798 01:23:09,560 --> 01:23:16,120 within 2050 i remember dr banks giving a presentation on that but it's probably 799 01:23:16,120 --> 01:23:19,800 changed so maybe we can have that good back today in a different presentation 800 01:23:19,800 --> 01:23:28,840 all right yeah so i guess we will close the matrix and go to concluding items does anybody 801 01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:35,080 have any concluding items you want to add here i mean i see that on the matrix it says 802 01:23:35,080 --> 01:23:41,160 policies and procedures post-production for pad sites and well heads okay so it just seems like 803 01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:48,360 adding you know well heads and plug well heads could we get that added to that section would be 804 01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:53,960 great thank you thanks anybody else 805 01:23:53,960 --> 01:23:57,720 you're good 806 01:24:03,960 --> 01:24:13,160 everybody okay all right we will conclude the meeting at 2 24 today thank you everyone 807 01:24:13,160 --> 01:24:15,880 for your time i appreciate it