Jan 26, 2024 Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee on 2024-01-26 1:00 PM

Welcome to the City of Denton Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee. It is Friday January 26th and it is 1 o' 3. We are in the City Council work session room. We do have a quorum and we also have a new member, welcome Kamilia Mayer. All right and we will go ahead and get started for items for individual consideration with our first item consider approval of October 27th 2023 minutes. Is anybody Adam? All in favor? Aye. All right so then we will move on to item B. Receive a report. Hold a discussion regarding North Central Texas Council of Governments efforts surrounding air quality in the region and our presenter does need to catch a plane at one they need to leave here at 1 30 to catch a plane. So we will move through the presentation. You could write your questions down and then at the end we will go over them so that we can get through. Okay go ahead. Thank you. All right so I guess I don't need to really talk into this. No we are using the mics. All right well my name is Jenny and I work at NCT Cog. I've been there about 19 years and I know Chris was supposed to come out and talk to you a few months back. He's my supervisor. He's on vacation so here I am. Okay so just a little snapshot. These are the criteria pollutants that the EPA follows and these are the different pollutants that there are certain standards for. So we are of course in non-attainment for ozone as everyone knows and we are in attainment in attainment for the other five so far. We are probably going to be dipping into non-attainment for particulate matter here soon but I'll talk a little bit more about that and we're also monitoring greenhouse gas emissions and we have a really big project that we are working on right now for the region. So just a little bit of background. So starting out back in 1990 there was a one-hour standard and that was 125 parts per billion. That was the limit and the the non-attainment counties for that were the four core counties. Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant. We did attain that standard in 2006 of course it was revoked and replaced by a more stringent standard which was the eight hour 1990 standard 1997 standard and the limit for that was 85 parts per billion and so other counties got added to that. We had of course Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant and then they added Ellis, Johnson, Kauffman, Parker, Rockwall. This standard was eventually revoked and replaced of course with the more stringent standard the eight hour 2008 standard which is less than or equal to 75 parts per billion. We were classified as as moderate and we did not attain the standard in the time frame that was required so we were bumped up to serious and now we are severe because we did not commit into attainment and right now for this particular standard we are we have ten counties in non-attainment for that standard and because the EPA no longer revoke standards anymore they just keep adding them we are now under two standards so we're under 2008 and 2015 standard which is less than or equal to 70 parts per billion. We did not attain this standard either we started off as marginal and got bumped up to moderate and now we are getting bumped up to serious. Governor Abbott made a request to voluntarily reclassify our area to serious and as of yesterday the EPA administrator did sign it and for that particular standard it's only nine counties so all the ten minus Rockwall. Okay so this is a snapshot of our 2023 ozone season which runs from March 1st to November 30th we unfortunately did end at 81 parts per billion again this is a three-year average of the fourth highest design value at anyone monitor and so you know we have been trending down since the 90s unfortunately now we are starting to tip back up and now you can see the blue line that is the 2008 standard since we've been reclassified to severe we have till 2027 to reach this standard and we were supposed to reach the 2015 by this ozone season that just ended obviously we didn't and so we're getting bumped up. So these are the monitor locations and along with their design value so you see the highest highest monitor up there is 81 part per billion that is the driving monitor and on this map it shows that during ozone season the prevailing wind comes from the south and so we get a lot of background ozone before you even go out and start your car in the morning. Okay so we're looking into that trying to figure out what's going on and this is our exceedance trends that goes back to the 90s so what you can see here for 2023 this past ozone season we had 50 exceedance days 8 of those were red so wasn't a really good ozone season okay so like I said both we are being reclassified for both standards the 2015 standard like I said is going we're being bumped up too serious and you're for the so we will have until 2027 to attain that standard so they add about like three years every time you you don't attain a standard and so you know there's a few things that we want to look at because we have these state in the limitation plans out there that TCEQ develops and they publish and you know showing that we are going to attain and we don't and so we had pointed out that well you know our highest monitor pilot point along with some others were way over 70 and you know even way over 75 but the SIP seems to be modeling at 73 which you know there's something going on I know models aren't perfect we understand that but real world is way off from from what is being modeled and now for the 2008 standard like I said we were reclassified to severe and we have until 2027 to attain that standard so yay thank you for both I guess but yeah so there's a lot of there's a few things that go into severe because we have never been classified as severe before again comparing real world to the monitor same thing that I showed you earlier except for this set for the 2008 they are modeling frisco at 72 so we have a ways to go granted this is a value that's supposed to be in the year 2026 so a few things about the severe classification is that if we do not attain in time for this then there's going to be some section 185 these that will kick in and now it probably happened around 2028 or so and basically these are going to be additional fees to the large-scale emitters who are throughout our region and they can get pretty expensive if we do not reach it so and also the bottoms were there TCQ did submit the SIP for the 2008 standard we did comment on it we provided comments on in January and so I think I think I'm a slide on those but anyway so that's where we are with that and so this is like as you all know or don't know ozone is not emitted from any one source we have NOx we have VOC those two primary pollutants mixed together in sunlight from ozone and so you know we're trying to figure out why why why are we at 81 and so you know we went back looked at because I mean we're transportation we focus on on-road and non-road but we're trying to you know kind of like put our feelers out to the other sources because there's a lot of other sources that emit NOx and VOC and just trying to figure out what what the change has been since 2006 to 2023 and you know there has been a significant decrease in on-road mobile for both NOx and for both VOC our cars are getting cleaner they are and there's a lot of hybrids and electric and there's other sources or other other alternative fuel vehicles now that are coming to the market non-road has gotten cleaner as well and so you know taking that and trying to investigate further and then looking at what the anticipated percent change may be you know we do we do still see an increase or I'm sorry a decrease in emissions by a certain percentage but it is starting to slow down so a little bit more about the 185 fee program that I did tell you about because we're in severe so we do not attain then the TCQ will submit a plan to the EPA basically stating how they are going to put this fee program in place so this program is a per ton penalty penalty fee like I said it can kick in as early as 2008 so and then the fees are collected annually until we reach attainment so that's you know where we're at ready one and then you know we're trying to get to 75 so yeah and this will be implemented by the TCQ we are working as closely as we can with them sometimes they're a little tight-lipped and you know just they're only able to share certain things we have held meetings invited them out to our offices to meet with the public and the industry as well we have a big industry meeting last week but unfortunately if this does kick into play then our anticipated fee could be upwards of 45 million dollars for the region okay so the major point sources are like cement kilns electric generation units crude petroleum natural gas and there are there are some other ones as well and so we basically did you know as or the TCQ did an apportionment based all of our counties to see where a lot of these facilities are we're right right now it's we're kind of we're going off of 2022 data it's not the latest and so we're just trying to you know basically get ready for the future and we're meeting with them with with the high inventors now trying to figure out what we can do to keep ourselves out of this and so this is broken up by County okay so that was ozone and now I'm going to talk to you a little bit about particular matter just over writing questions down the end that's right so so we are EPA is proposing to lower the particulate matter primarily the the fine particulate matter currently it's at 12 micrograms per meter cubed and that's an annual mean that's averaged over three years so the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee they they meet every five years on all of the standards and they're like okay how is it hurting plant life animal life and what can we what should we do they either lower it or they keep it the same so they are proposing to lower it to anywhere between not nine to ten microgram per meter cube okay so unfortunately that is going to affect our region there they're keeping the PM 2.5 the 24-hour standard and then the PM 10 standard the same so we're really looking at the PM 2.5 the annual standard so this is where we're at so in our region we only have like a handful of these PM monitors which can be good and can be bad we do have two that are tipping over the nine microgram per meter cubed one in Tarrin one in Dallas and one in Fort Worth and one in the city of Dallas so we have gone out we have met with these cities we have met with TCEQ trying to figure out what can we do to help keep us in attainment under that standard we're not really sure exactly what years they're going to base whether we're attainment or non-attainment we're assuming 22 or 2020 to 2022 three years not a hundred percent sure about on that but at any rate we are a little bit over and unfortunately once you get in on attainment it's hard to get out of it but we like I said we have been meeting with both the counties both the cities trying to figure out what we can do okay so we have a program that we are working on which is it's called the climate pollution reduction grants and it does hone in on on reducing greenhouse gas emissions but what we were able to do with this particular program is throw all the other emissions you know in with it so all the projects that we are thinking of and it's some pretty big projects this is we could apply for upwards of 500 billion for the region which is a lot of money sorry 500 million which is a lot and so we are you know looking at we have we've gone out now with the cities we have partners going into this we're asking what you guys want to do with this money what can we do to help you it's a huge undertaking but it's it's well worth it so we received 1 million to basically develop a regional plan so we're using the 1 million to write up a big plan this plan is due the first the first priority climate action plan is due March 1st which is right around the corner so we're working very very hard trying to get that all you know going and ready and we're having to put all of the projects or the reduction measures into this plan so that's what we have been busy doing and the projects we're putting in there not only help reduce greenhouse gases but we're also going to focus on particulate matter and ozone what you know we're like throwing everything in there and so this will then lead to what's called a comprehensive climate action plan that is due summer of 2025 and then we have status report that's due in 2027 yeah can we go ahead and since we only have about 10 minutes left yes start questions yes and then it's the next one I think it's just process and measures and if you have any questions over those can we still go over them even though she hasn't discussed it in the presentation since they're in the agenda okay all right so we want to go ahead and Adam will start with Adam and then work around yeah thank you for this presentation it sounds like a mystery but I got to ask how can it be that the VOCs and NOCs are going down but we had this uptick in ozone so there's that's a good question there's other factors at play meteorology is a huge one and our area is just like the perfect nesting ground for ozone so it's you know and a lot of it also doesn't you know doesn't our transportation our cars and trucks have gotten a lot cleaner over the years but you know we still have our point sources which have decreased over the years and lots of VOC but because of you know the climate and you know also what's flowing into our region that we don't know about you know that's that's a pretty big deal in fact the TCEQ didn't put it into the the SIP that oh only 30% of the emissions in our region come from our region yeah so they wrote that out but they can't do anything about it and so we still get penalized for that yeah yeah well thank you for the presentation I knew and I I will not have many questions but I was wondering about the particulate matter monitors yes so that we have only two in the region we have about six or seven total but two of them are over the nine micro oh I see yeah those are the potential problem children yeah yeah I was just gonna ask kind of along Camilla's line given we only have six is there an interest in getting more granular eyes data say like you can just more evenly distributed monitors in the way that you could perhaps more uniformly capture where some of these emissions are coming from or identify problems so those are those are the regulatory monitors that are put out by EPA TCEQ okay and so we do have a lot of monitors that are going around the region in fact we are currently trying to ramp up a program where where we do have you know where we don't put more regulatory monitors in but we put monitors in trying to figure out where is this coming from and so it's an annual standard that we're going to bus which is trying to figure out why we're going over that like other certain you know data is there certain points in time like the Sahara dust when that rolls in it's like is that you know just trying to figure out what what it could be and so yes now I don't know if they're gonna put more regulatory monitors out there I don't know that we would necessarily want them to but you know yeah we are we have and we also work with a lot of universities that are they have monitors and they put they push them out into the area as well so it's kind of behind the scenes I was also gonna ask whenever say these these do kick in and 45 million dollars is quite a lot does TCEQ take those fees and then allocate them out to programs to help improve do you know what types of funds this get used for does it kind of just get so I'm not sure they that's something that we did comment on in the letter is that hey these fees do you kick in they need to go back into air quality projects in our region you know so yeah yeah I have just to kind of piggyback off the monitors and the face okay the same thing that stuck out to me one I know that be and didn't only have to how are the monitors determined like how many go in each county because some have one some have two three is it by population or none yeah some have none and then you know if it's like by population are they constantly evaluating that to see if we need more monitors or is it just ran like just ran I don't well I I think that I mean I would I don't know how comfortable I say I feel saying it's random however looking at the monitor placement it sure looks like it is yeah and it's not based on population obviously and there's some you know we have some counties that like we there's a monitor on the cusp of it it's not even like in the county so how how that is evaluated I'm not 100% sure really yeah okay and that kind of goes back into the fee so our counties that don't have monitors are they responsible for paying into the the fee if we're if they're in our beer if they're in our not attainment area for severe if they're you know the whatever point source is the heavy emitter then that point yes they're gonna have to pay but if there's not monitors matter it's all region okay so it's just the region yes and it's divided equally yes okay yeah so even if we do reach our goals if someone else doesn't we still pay if the individual goals yes if if you have a point source here that is over a certain like a certain time or whatever yeah yeah yeah thanks for the presentation in looking over the all the of these potential strategies the 12 page under energy I just wondered I didn't see I see utilizing more battery storage but is will there be any discussion for virtual power plants and that that sort of technology that is now being piloted in Dallas with encore I think I had not seen that you know I mean we did we did meet with the different cities and counties and I think I'm pretty sure you guys are in this with us I think you've joined on to this program with us so I have not seen that yet but a lot of these projects unfortunately are things that we need to hit the ground running like we need to do it now and so I don't know how close that particular strategy to beat sounds great you know but it's like if you can't if they can't go in now then it's not it's not gonna work okay well it might be early but I was just curious if it was on your radar yet another question on the priority climate action plan then the comprehensive climate action plan and then the third one which I write down how it what's the planet is is done what what is done with it I mean what are there mandates that have to be fulfilled or is it just a wish list or suggestions or well the priority climate action plan is like it's like the first draft dish plan but at the same time we have to include all of the measures that we are planning on putting in place and so once they get that a second grant comes along and we would like to ask for 500 million on behalf of the region our directors not so sure that we can do that because it's a huge undertaking so maybe 300 of them but so once that happens and they approve our plan then the different cities and are you know whoever is interested in this can submit we will submit on their behalf for these projects so you know we're already meeting with the different cities we have a general idea of what everybody wants and so if we get awarded that funding if our plan goes through then we will yeah we will submit okay we want these projects you know Denton wants this so you're basically like a clearing house for all these yeah and unfortunately didn't this wasn't how it's supposed to go this is what house told we were told that you know we would apply for you know just a million to basically to handle the grant and then the cities would be able to come along and they would work with EPA on their own and the way they the way that they finalized you know the different parts of the grant it's it's just not like you can't have multiple multiple projects of the same project so like say you want to do a bunch of signals then Dallas couldn't you know what I mean so it's like yeah and one more of the 45 million fees for not a paint non-attainment they anticipated that for DFW who pays that that's a good question it depends if it's like a private company if it's a private like a power plant what have you then they'll pay it but some of our power plants and other high meaning point sources are owned by cities and so the city would pay yeah okay thank you yeah just last question I know you got to go but thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today I'm on the climate action plan for the cities to be eligible do we do the city councils or committees like this be to approve that plan and then like be involved in it is there some sort of like process where we need to to be able to use those funds and get those programs do we need to buy in and councils approve that climate action plan I I think you guys are already a partner I just know I didn't know plan specific oh well so we're taking what like the different cities are wanting you know in terms of you know we've been going out meeting with everybody and then we are going we put it into the plan from there so whatever projects it is you know and then then hopefully we get awarded to start pushing out these projects and yeah that's that's what we know right now a bit it changes all the time so sorry to quit are you saying that we would need to request assistance through these grants through you if we were going for a particular program I don't I mean it would come it would go through us but I mean it's right now right now we just have to include the projects and measures and they're not specific they're very high level and then if we're awarded if we're approved and then we get funding then we go back out to everybody saying okay we got we got approved to do a region-wide signal program hydrogen program and then you know what do you all want to do with that do you want to do that in your area yeah does that make sense yes and it changes all the time like we're learning new things all the time this grant is a beat down okay thank you so much appreciate it yeah thank you all right so we will move on to item C receiver port all the discussion regarding annual summary of education and outreach efforts for sustainability programs for fiscal year 2022 and 2023 all right good afternoon members my name is Julie say amador I serve as an engagement coordinator in environmental services and sustainability we're going to be doing an education and outreach update for the previous fiscal year 2022 and 2023 and this is going to be a little bit of our focus today but we're going to be going into some of the sustainable programming that we do of course which includes a residential recycling education includes the dense sustainable schools program and then sustainability education like local food air quality a little bit of background about the sustainability department and some of the education we expanded the recycling education in 2021 and then we established the dense sustainable schools program in 2004 with a full relaunch of it in 2022 with Kim Jennings coming on board and we've been having doing sustainability education since 2007 and that's of all since then we'll dive first into the residential and multifamily recycling education that I do and so here's a good picture that we had of our finished mural if you guys haven't been out to prac or haven't seen the mural of the mural was done by one of our interns that we have and it was through the dense sustainable schools program that they were able to get submissions for the mural and prac was a really good partner in that the person that is in the high-res shirt that's Ricky he's the plan supervisor over there is heavily involved with a lot of education that we do as well but going into the first bullet it's going to be audits and contamination so I focus on the multifamily recycling containers and we also have two other coordinators who we have someone like him for the dense sustainable schools program that audits the containers and then we have someone a business account coordinator that is over the other commercial businesses and when we're auditing a recycling container we're looking inside the container itself what items are inside there you know is the it can you tell that it's a recycling container in comparison to what's next to it you know what are the items that are in there and so through that we were able to get a full-time full-time auditor and he is responsible for part of the cart tagging program that we have out in the residential field and he also supports me in the multifamily side of it as well and so outreach and education through some of our tours prac industries was closed for a little bit due to COVID and so coming out of COVID is a really great opportunity for us to bring people back into the Murph itself which is our materials recovery facility and it's a great opportunity to remind people you know where their material is getting processed bailed and sent out social media has been something that we've used consistently to educate people we manage the sustainability page and then we also manage the solid waste recycling page just educating people about what are the common items that we're seeing you know back recyclables plastic film clothing those items and you know we don't accept in our curbside program or in the dumpsters but you can take them to different places take them to a grocery store at clothing we can donate etc and so through some of the audits that we have and then obviously the operators that we have out in the field we have targeted messaging so operators out in the field will let us know you know we're seeing a lot of plastic film we're seeing a lot of hangers in this area so we're able to do targeted education for that on social media and then also things like next door as well and I'll talk in a bit about the market strategy that we have here's that some pictures of our education that we did and that first picture on the left that is one of the apartment complexes we provide those reusable totes and they have a little handle on the bottom so it makes it easier for residents to take their recycling to and from their dorm or their apartment wherever they live we expanded some of that education through some events that we offer so I do recycling bingo with apartment complexes to kind of get them out I also provide free pizza so it's a big hit with with the college students who haven't had a meal in a couple of days we've had over 250 people come out to my multi-family events just for the previous fiscal year and it's something that we continue to do as well that second picture is a picture of scrappy getting the lowdown on what is and isn't accepted in the recycling program so we offer we try our best to go to as many tabling events as we can you'll see through our attendance that it's where we do a lot of good outreach and we're able to educate people on the do's and don'ts of their recycling at home and then obviously of course you know reducing and reusing not just recycling and then that last picture is a picture of over at the senior center of the Denton high new lines clubs and so we do outreach and education to HOAs community organizations if you have a HOA meeting that's coming up and you'd like for any of us to have a presentation whether it be recycling or sustainability education we provide that so that's something that we can do and so now moving on to our market strategy this was a really great opportunity for us to get creative and trying to reach out to people that don't typically just subscribe to our platform so you know maybe we are reaching people to not bag their recyclables because they don't follow us on social media so how can we reach out to them and so one of those things was through targeted mailers so we sent out mailers which are little postcards that just reminded people not to bag their recyclables and then some of those top contaminants we sent those out to the highest contaminated residential routes the two highest contaminated residential routes every month to just remind them and see that they get that reminder in that education at their mailbox we also did billboards and so we had two billboards we have this one this picture was for the one that was located at Dallas and Teasley and that was there for about 12 weeks so it says recycle smart no bags in your cart that's what you'll see the tagline for a lot of our education to be just because that's really one of the top contaminants that we're seeing in the recycling stream and then we also had another billboard that was located off of McCormick near UNT and it said Eagles keep it green plastic bags are mean so it was another way to just remind people to take their plastic bags to a drop-off like a grocery store and to stop bagging their recyclables we also use movie ads other departments have used movie ads before we had two movie ads throughout the previous year both that were going to be shown at the two local movie theaters Cinemark and then movie Tavern within Denton and during that time we had them for we had the first movie ad for four weeks and then the second movie ad for 15 weeks and the second movie ad that we had was during Barbenheimer and so it was a really great opportunity for everyone to be able to be in the movie theaters already they're already in there for nine hours so they see the those advertisements before they get to watch the movie and that was a great opportunity to do some outreach if you guys go past Locust and Parkway heading out of the square we have had a Locust banner there before calling out Texas Recycles Day which is November 15th we'll most likely have something around Earth Day to remind people to recycle right and keep bags out of their carts and through a vendor we went through the Dent Render Chronicle and we're able to do a lot of different education so we kind of tried these different tactics that they offer one of that one of those was a new article and so this picture right here is a little screenshot of a Facebook ad and it's from the Dent Render Chronicle so it reads just like any you know news article that you would see and says hey Denton Recycle Smart keep plastic bags out of your cart and then people can click on the link and it'll send them an article that we wrote and it's also pictures behind the scenes of the recycling facility the workers that are working back there and it was a really great opportunity for us to be able to highlight what Pratt does so where all of our recycling goes and what happens there and so you'll see pictures of you know workers that are out in the field that are up you know sorting bottles and so it's really great to be able to remind people that real people are sorting your material and so needles you know diapers plastic bags those are really big issues and there's real people handling that material and you know we don't have optical sorters we don't have robotics just yet in that plant so you know until we get those things real people are still sorting the material and so it's just a good reminder to to keep your recyclables empty clean loose and dry and when in doubt throw it out is what we always say yeah a question before we move on to the next item I'm on this with the market strategy and containment is it too early to see how all of these strategies are playing out in the reduction of contamination or like did we get a baseline and we're gonna do this for a year and then we'll check again or do we automatically see a difference well we definitely did see a difference in the reduction in recycling contamination we're analyzing that information right now to try and see what strategy fit us best so that is something that we are going to be doing there's so many things going on all at once so we have obviously the card tagging program out in the field we have these movie ads we have a market strategy and so trying to pinpoint specifically what it is that is was the biggest thing for our but for our market strategy something that we're still looking at and we'll continue to do and so just because of that I'll talk about it in the future initiatives but we're also doing other other cool things on the horizon as well and so for as part of the DRC package that we had they also offered banner advertisements which means that if you were just scrolling on the web and any website that you had that offered an advertisement both mobile or desktop it would give you a reminder to recycle smart and keep plastic bags out of your cart and then people would actually click on those and it would lead us lead them to the den recycles website and so we were able to track how many people are actually coming from those banner advertisements and audio and video ads we were also able to offer ads on Spotify and Apple podcasts as well and it gives the same stick of recycle smart keep plastic bags out of your cart you know all of that and then we also had video ads and so the video ads and a lot of these tactics were able to be geo fenced so we could geo fence them to Denton and then we could even target specific households and so we could educate people that were on the highest contaminated residential routes and we were able to see if they clicked on it or something like that so it was really it was really cool opportunity for us to be able to get to educate people differently some of those future initiatives that we have are include truck wraps so if you guys are in the square you may see it it's one of our ballet trucks we have two that got wrapped and so they have a little plastic bags keep the plastic bags out of your cart logo on them we also worked at this past football season with Denton High School for some of their broadcasting so we were able to sponsor four games and with that we were able to give out the message again of just recycle smart no bags in your cart and then we currently have a billboard in Shady Shores so if you guys can it's going to be there for about 12 weeks but you can stop by. Moving on, I'll talk about Kim's bread and butter, the Denton Sustainable Schools program so of course when she came on board and we did a full relaunch of it in 2022 she was out in the field auditing containers and auditing them for contamination. The Denton Sustainable, the DISD or Denton Independent School District is a really great partner and that they're very receptive and so are the students to the outreach and education that's done through the Denton Sustainable Schools program. Through the program it also offers tours and so Kim doesn't just bring them out to the recycling facility they can go to a home chemical collection they can go to the composting operations at Dino Dirt and we also offer tours of the drinking water plants and Kim is able to coordinate all that so it gets them you know out of this out of the school room but it gets them out in educated and getting a little bit more knowledge about different city operations as well and they also do the Denton Sustainable Schools program there's the school challenges so they offer a recycling audit challenge and then a sustainability challenge and basically this school right here this is Cohen School and they were the winner for both the recycling audit challenge and then also the sustainability activity challenge and so they were awarded not with money or anything like that we gave them the option of doing pizza parties, popcorn parties, raised beds, stem kits and so they chose to do another raised bed and also they chose stem kits and something about Cohen School this one specifically Kim wanted me to mention that the stem kits were requested by other teachers so they heard that you know that they had won this challenge and they you know other teachers reached out to the other teachers to see what they needed and they were like can we please get some stem kits so I think that's a great opportunity for the Denton Sustainable Schools program to be able to fill providing that education not just for recycling but other other forms of sustainability and here's some cool pictures of them at work so right over here on the left is Hodge and this is a picture of them doing their own recycling audits so they're actually going out to their recycling dumpsters they're looking inside they're looking at what's in there and they're making sure the signage is updated and they're tracking the contamination that's in there and for them also it's plastic film so there's a lot of confusion about plastic film that second picture is Cohen School one of their sustainable activities that they did and then on the far right we have I believe that's Hodge as well where Kim did a presentation there and went over a reuse activity so this reuse activity is where kids can make dog toys out of old t-shirts and so we don't just talk about recycling we talked about reducing, reusing and different parts of sustainability as well I'm sure you guys see some familiar faces there so in the center was JT before he left which makes me sad but tabling out in the field and doing that education what's really good with some of the tabling right over here on the far left this is Karen that's us out in the field at a apartment complex and so with me building some of those relationships with the apartment complexes through the multifamily education we're able to also tag team and bring her into some of those things where we do like sustainability 101 at apartment complexes and they've been really receptive to that while I give them pizza so and then of course JT at UNT I think that was at the earth it was it was a sustainability event and then on the far right we have Dan who was doing a program at one of the libraries so using libraries using what we have is really important so that we can educate everybody wherever wherever they are some of the highlights for the previous fiscal year include some awards that we received so we received an award from Tila which is Texas environmental leadership awards we received the exceptional recycling partnership award due to our relationship with our recycling facility practical industries and then we got an honorable mention for outstanding public outreach and then there JT is with his Arlo and Aaron North Texas where we received an outstanding outreach award and we got the award for an Arlo ambassador as well one of the bigger awards that we won was the resource recycling conference program of the year award for a small community which highlights some of the education that we were doing through the cart tagging program and many other things like the dense sustainable schools program but how it all kind of comes together to have a really good program that's making a lot of different strides some of the presentations that we did we spoke at Tex wanna and then also star as well when it comes to sustainability education some of the topics that we cover our water gene water and energy conservation but it also includes some of the workshops that we do to be able to educate different people and so you know we have workshops on water conservation tomorrow we're going to be having a home weatherization class at North Branch Library air quality you know we have classes like air quality 101 for local food and we recently hosted a preserving the harvest class over at the MLK Center for some nature-based classes we have birding basics that we've done gardening on the go you know those fun classes that we get to do will also be at Clear Creek this Saturday for the outdoor expo if you guys see us something that we've tried recently was some of the pop-up events and so those have been you know popping up or doing a table pop-up at libraries the senior center rec centers where we kind of set up around lunchtime and do handouts or answer any questions and kind of see engage the engagement that's that's there for the fiscal year 22 2023 we performed outreach to over 11,000 people a lot of that was that tabling events through presentations do tours and activities and meetings we ended the year with 9,140 social media followers and again we managed the social media for the sustainability page but also the solid waste and recycling page as well here's some of the locations for where we had some outreach and so you guys can see that there's some some dense sustainable schools right over there down in Lantana and then also in Paloma Creek where those schools may be part of the dense sustainable schools program due to the fact that they have a recycling container there we may not service them residentially but we service them commercially so that education is being done at the schools you can kind of see that you know we're not favoring just one location for education we're trying to serve on all of them equally here's some upcoming events that we have so like I said before the outdoor expo will be there tomorrow home weatherization class will be tomorrow at 3 p.m. at North Branch Library I have a recycling tour with a retired community the Good Samaritan Society some other events as well and then there is a link down there for the city event calendar and then we'll do a quick recap of the outreach that we performed from October to December 2023 where we had 1600 over 1600 people in attendance a lot of that education and outreach was done at tabling events and then presentation and then we've had some tours and activities as well. Any questions? Yes, I have a question. Thank you. Very thorough presentation. So, the plastic bags, grocery plastic bags, are still a problem. Yes. Is there a possibility to discuss this with the grocery stores and see what we can do to reduce the contamination? Everybody knows that we have a microplastic problem. Yeah. So I know for me that when I've had people come to the recycling facility they had no idea you know that plastic bags were an issue because they have a recycling symbol on them and so they see a recycling symbol and automatically place it in their recycling cart and so that leads to a lot of confusion and so I know that there are some you know states that are trying to move forward with labeling and what we always remind people is whenever we're educating them is you know on the little label I should say to please take back to a store always check with your local municipality on when they what they accept because just because we don't accept it doesn't mean you know another place doesn't. Plastic film is one of those that a lot of people don't don't accept curbside and you have to take it to a store and then I do get a lot of questions during my tours is also where where is it located so where is the drop-offs located and so many people don't know that they can take it to a store and that it's located sometimes near the shopping cart area and so people are still learning and we're still trying to educate them on that that's something that we definitely have to be consistent about it's consistent education and then I'm sure in the future we'll look at opportunities for us to start you know possibly collecting it at a drop-off location. So maybe if you use some visuals on microplastics I mean I know they're everywhere they're on TV they're even in the printed media but maybe when you do your outreach your education is good to start with that and make people aware the consequences of this and then something else I would like to mention I've noticed that Kroger does not have those pins anymore I checked last week so I don't know if they put them out from time to time or they gave up on recycling the bags that people bring back. They may have moved them because I know some during COVID they pulled the containers all together where they collect them but they may have moved them in or they may be emptying them out. Both stores that we have in town, they do not have them as you said by the entrance where the carts are. I didn't see them. And I have one more thing about the sustainability challenge activity that you bring schools. Is it up to them what they want to do or do you have a list for them? Yeah it's a little bit of both so there is a resource guide that's available to the schools and they're able to choose and submit based off what they what they would like to do. That can include things like if they do a presentation or if they ask for us to for a presentation that could count as a sustainability activity challenge. Another thing could be if they want to do any kind of garden workday or volunteering that can also serve as like points for that challenge as well. There are resources for them. Yeah thank you Julie. So I think the work you guys, your team does is really important and I appreciate you always doing a good job. I've kind of asked this before but not very well so I'm gonna try again. I understand a big part is meeting people just to put the right stuff in the right bins and to reduce the contamination rate and that's really important. Once it's at the Murph and it's let's say it's a clear bin, no contamination in it, with our plastics are we confident those are going and actually being recycled somewhere and being turned into something else and not just landfill right? Yeah so Pratt Recycling is the one who's in charge of sorting, processing, and baling that material. They are the ones who are gonna find those end markets but they are baling that material and sending it out and that's that's information that we have as well. Yeah do they track it and can you get you know kind of where it goes like where does a powerade bottle go next on its life cycle or that's maybe too granular but you know what I'm saying like yeah you so you see the pallet go away but it is going and being recycled somewhere. Okay. Yes. Now where they like me myself I may not know the exact location but for example our I know our glass goes down to Houston I know our plastic gets made into new bottles things like that solid waste may have more information regarding the tonnage but they do have tonnage in regards to how much is actually leaving the plant in a bale on a truck to a destination to be recycled. Okay I asked sorry to keep it going but I asked because I'm trying to learn about this and it seems like the the US overall recycling rate for plastics is low. I've seen figures five to nine percent at best and I'm trying to figure out and I know this is beyond the scope of demand. Is it just because everybody struggles with getting people to put stuff in the right bins or is it because even if they put it in the right bins sometimes there's just not a market or both. I myself so I think what I've seen a lot of it is just making sure that like you said putting in the right material so bagging your recyclables like placing it in a black bag or a kitchen bag that makes it very difficult for the staff at the recycling facility to be able to know what that item is and so to keep their staff safe they're not going to open those bags and so we want to make sure of is that you know you're keeping it empty clean loose and dry and then you're only putting items that are accepted in the program so plastic bottles and plastic jugs that's what's accepted and that's what's being sorted at the recycling facility and so that's what we want to make sure of and you know reducing your you know use of plastic as well also helps but yeah there's there's a lot of different things that go into it. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate it. No questions, just congratulations. It's clear from your award-winning programs you're really driving them to be ahead of the game and so congratulations again for all of your achievements this past year. It really seems like you guys are doing really great work. I just had one question. I was just wondering if there are any aspects of the sustainable education program that deal exclusively with climate change. Yeah, there are. We've had Girl Scouts that reach out in regards to doing climate change presentations and we've definitely taken the help on that. Okay, is there any way that we could get us in depth report on that as we get on the recycling? Oh, yeah. Like, bring that up to you. I'm going to. Yeah, in the next item. Thank you. Can I, can I just. Oh, go ahead. Just piggybacking on your question. So I think for the outreach with kids in schools we probably need to do more on the conservation and restoration and especially of native pollinators and their importance for our food. I don't know how many kids in school know about that, but at the DW we have two gardens, two pollinator gardens and we do outreach, but I would really like to see more in terms of schools. Once upon a time I was trying to give them, have a little bit of a garden. So maybe, maybe educating kids on conservation that is part of sustainability and answer some of the questions about climate change as well. Back to her question or your presentation about the bags and yesterday we don't take them, but you can take them here to the grocery store or Walmart or whatever. So, do we know where they go? So, I feel good, right? I've got my bags in this box. Are they just taking them into the back and throwing them in the trash? I hope. Like, have we, before we recommend that that's what they do, like, do we know exactly what they're doing with them? It will depend on the location that they're taking them to. So, I know that specific grocery stores partner through, I believe it's Trex and Keep That Beautiful last year or two years ago, they did a plastic film collection where they took that plastic film, provided it to Trex and they made it into a park bench. And so, it depends and it varies depending on who, like, what business it is and who their hauler is for that. So, it may be a hauler like Trex, for example, and they may be making them into park benches, but it's going to be dependent on the location. And I know, I know that our main goal is reduced, right? Reduction, not using these plastic bags. That's going to make the most difference. But if we can't, we're trying to get them into the right place. But to Adam's point, I also hear and see people even commenting, some random comment, like, it doesn't matter if I recycle. It's not getting recycled. It's going to the trash. And so, for you to know and when we have, you know, we'll know this goes here, I think it might be useful when we're doing these outreaches to have, like, a little, like, map. So, okay, here's where it starts and then here's where it goes with a little picture of, like, what it turns into, just to kind of have that visual, like, it really is going somewhere and doing something, maybe, you know, on our end, what we can't control and what we do know. I mean, I know as far as the grocery stores, we don't, but it just might be helpful in that outreach. Or, you know, for us to have that knowledge in hand, so when somebody comes up to us and says that, we can say, well, no, this is actually, that's not true. This is, this is true. >> Thank you so much. That was very helpful. And congratulations. I see that your numbers have increased really good. And also, I see visually out in the community everywhere now where, you know, a few years back didn't, so it's very good. That's good to hear. Yeah. Thank you. >> I'm going to leave. Is it the schedule? >> Okay. Let me go ahead and open the item D, receive and discuss proposed meeting calendar for 2024 calendar year. It's open. I know you need to go. Are you good? >> I'm good with one that was listed. >> Okay. >> It's already in my calendar. >> Yes. >> Maybe just let me know if you need this while you discuss it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you all. >> Anyone else have comments about the proposed dates? >> I'm fine with it. >> Good. Are you new? >> It's summer. I'm not here, so I don't know if there is a possibility for Zoom. >> Okay. >> But May, June, July may not be here. >> Okay. We'll bring that up with Catherine. I know we've been able to do that before, so. And we've done that with Mr. Stevens before, so. >> Okay. >> It should be okay. But everything else is. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. So do we need to take a vote or is it just consensus that everything is good? It didn't say. >> It's just a discussion. >> Yeah, just a discussion. >> Okay, so yeah, we're good with the things going forward. >> Okay. And then our last item, the staff reports, green sense updates, EV charging, and the matrix. Does anyone have any questions on those that were in our backup? >> Hi. >> So I was gonna, I know this was supposed to be Catherine's item to discuss, and so I don't want to put any undue pressure on you, Julie. I just wanted to note, I think we had initially budgeted about 50K in our original plan for the sustainability fund for the EVEC program and we're inching up to about 37K. And I just wanted to double check that there's an ability to put in additional funding programs should they reach their max or I know that process probably worked. We would recommend an increase and then council or see if we would approve it. I just wanted to get a feel for that process. >> Sorry, what program? >> So the staff report was about the green sense updates, the rebates. Some of them were inching up to the green cap that we had allocated. So I was curious about the process, if there was an avenue for additional funds to reach some of those. >> Thank you. >> And if you don't have an answer, I totally understand. >> That's a good question. We'll make sure that capping doesn't. >> Okay, thank you. >> My question on the green sense was that I saw that 54 applications were rejected. Was there a common theme among those or were they just all different reasons or? >> I am going to be typing away your answer. >> Okay, yes, all right, thank you. I guess, is that it for, does anybody have anything on the matrix? >> I do. >> Okay, good. >> Almost a year ago, as of February 4th I think, I requested an update on the Denton renewable resource plan. Which is being updated. And I've heard nothing. And I wondered if we could at least get a progress report. Also, I'd like to add to the matrix the discussion of a climate change education program. A market strategy, such as we have with the very successful sustainability program or recycling program. And basically just have an opportunity to discuss various avenues of getting the message out. I think that's it for now. Thank you. >> Do you have anything for the matrix? >> Similar to Ed's, just sort of a status update. The chair and I have both requested information about, or a discussion from development services regarding on street parking and some other transportation code developments. So far as they relate to our climate action plan. And I knew that was scheduled for, the parking plan got pushed maybe twice over the last year. And so I just wanted to make a comment that that is an item that I'd like to keep progress on. If that can be scheduled, if there's any update on when we can hear about it and help council maybe reach some decision making about that parking plan. >> Do you have anything to add? So at this point in our meeting, if you had something that came up or something that you wanted to get a presentation on, is when you would bring it up now and then she would write it and it would come back to us at a later date. All right, Ed. >> Yeah, I have one more thing. Also, under to be scheduled on the matrix, I brought up on February 24th of last year a presentation on current city green building codes. And I would like to get that presentation. Thanks. >> Okay. I think we are good. Any concluding items? No? All right. We will close the meeting at 2 10. Thank you everybody for your presence today. I appreciate it.