All right. We are connected, and I will call to order this regular meeting of the citizens of the advisory
committee of the Waste Production District of Monroe County. Today, it's Thursday, October 16th,
at 5.31 p.m. We'll be vice-chair, please hold roll. John Harlow. Present. Joseph Bonilla. Here. Matthew
Austin. Present. Bill Gowans. Present. Daniel Dukes. Here.
All right, thank you. All right, thank you very much. It would be possible for TSD to provide screen
sharing, or sorry, Accounting Tech Services to provide screen sharing for Joseph Winnian.
If not, I'll just note that the agenda was distributed by email on Monday the 13th. Are there any objections?
Oh, is it enabled? Yeah, you should be able to share now. Got it. Thanks. There we go. There's our agenda.
So is there any objection to adopting the agenda as shown on screen share?
Seeing none, that's adopted. Thank you. So we will actually, let me see, I'll check the attendance.
I'll stop sharing. And then, so the first item of business on our agenda, we're gonna put this up at
the front because we have a guest speaker. It is, thank you, it's Daniel Duncan. There it is, I lost
my notes from Richland Farms. Daniel, are you able to enable your audio and video?
If not, TSD, would it be possible to enable it? You'd be able to share now. Should be good to go. So
I don't know if chat is enabled, but I don't know. Is there any way to confirm if Daniel from Richland
Farms has video and audio access?
How about now? Can you hear me now? Success. Thank you, Daniel. Awesome. Hi, everybody. Try and also
try to share here. Am I sharing anything? Yes. OK. Well, hello.
And I imagine that looks really tiny, doesn't it? OK, let me see if I can zoom it in. Let's see.
Hello, and thanks for having me. As introduced, we offer a bespoke composting service for organic collection,
and we've recently decided to expand our service area. We've been in West Central Indiana and Marion
County. We've recently expanded into Johnson County, Morgan, and Monroe County. So just wanted to take
a little time and give you a quick
overview of what we do and how we do. I thought maybe the easiest thing to do is just be to use some,
you know, I just realized that our website, you know, really summarizes it about as best as we can.
So I'm going to use that as my tool here. We're at richlandfarms.net. We're based out of, we're near
Crawfordsville. Actually, if you want to be real specific, we're
about a mile south of Newtown, we're in New Fountain County. So that's where we're based out of. And
really there's three services run off the same truck. So we do have the composting or the curbside compost
collection or organics collection. We have refillery service, which is really high quality organic soaps,
household products, pet products,
and the like. We also offer dry goods for restaurants and food service organizations that are interested
in offering compostable serviceware, like plates, bowls, knives, forks, and spoons, and to-go types
of things. We've even been looking at some compostable rings for breweries who can their products.
And we also have a robotic service as well, too. So robotics is in addition to some automated mowers.
We also, really the robotics is how things come full circle in the sense of taking compost once it's
finished, extracting the nutrient dense materials from it and the biota, the good biota, the funguses,
the bacteria, and
putting into a liquid form that can then be reapplied either to lawns, athletic fields, golf courses,
pastures, and any type of crops that are growing or even
gardens or truck farms. And the great thing about that is that we can do that any time of year. We use
drones to do the spray. If it's a foliar application, or we can also root inject that good extract right
into the soil and get it right into the root area as well too. So all of those services run off of the
same truck. Try to be a little revolutionary in our approach.
We're always looking for ways to make it more simple, more elegant, and really just as successful as
possible for our customers as possible in a way so they really don't have to worry about anything other
than just setting out the waste just like they would their trash or their recycling.
and we take care of everything else from there. Even return, every year we return finished compost back
to our customers up to six cubic yards at no cost to our members. So with Zoom, it really makes it difficult
to try changing the Zooming in here. Here we go.
Some of our key differentiators. This is going to auto play for me. Let me see here. Try to get here
to the beginning here. I think it's the next one. Yeah, weekly service. So we provide weekly service,
weekly pickup all throughout the year.
Clean cleanliness is really incredibly important to us. We think that's one of the hallmarks of success
is ensuring that the totes are clean and no one's ever coming out to find a tote that's been serviced
and finding that it still smells bad or has anything that's potentially offensive. So we rinse and wash
the totes with each service on a weekly basis, weather permitting, of course.
Let's see what the next slide is here is around our totes are sized for real life. We've got two sizes,
the 12 gallon, which is really ideal for residential, a family of four or five typically will can fill
a 12 gallon tote once a week.
21 gallon can also be used to residential, but we see it primarily used in the restaurants, cafes, bakeries,
hotels, who are using our service. And as you can see through the picture there, is it
scans by. The 21 gallon is sized, so it fits really well into the industrial kitchen type of setting.
They fit right underneath the prep tables in the service areas, and they just integrate really nicely
into sort of their existing infrastructure that's there. And the last slide that's up there is really
around reporting. We keep real diligent records and report back to our customers.
the impact that they're making in terms of how much CO2 emissions have been delayed, I guess you could
say, and how much landfill waste in pounds has been eliminated as well, too, through freezing service.
So I'm a bit of a process engineer. So this kind of just walks through things in a real stepwise fashion.
thing that anyone who's interested in using our service would do would be to purchase a plan. We've
got different ways that you can really create, customize a solution that works really well for you,
either at the 12-gallon size or the 21-gallon size. We try to keep things as affordable as possible.
We're really using the New England model of organics. And I think that New England's done a really nice
job of figuring out that point that folks are comfortable with. And that's really around the $90 to
$100 a year mark. Start going above that, and folks generally would say no thanks. But in that range
of $8 or $9 a month, folks are generally very happy.
you know, using the service and they're also very happy with the $350 value that they're going to see
in terms of finished compost that's coming back to them. So on the monthly side, you can just go right
into our service plan area, pick a plan, and everything is automated in terms of billing and charging
through our website. We can also do annual plans as well too, which many of our
Restaurants and cafes and bakeries prefer and we do offer a 15% annual prepayment discount using an
annual plan. Then after everyone signed up and we've gotten all the information we need, we would deliver the tote.
And you can see here the sort of the difference between the 12 and the 21 gallon size. I often hear
that the 12 gallon size is is cute and I actually think that's kind of flattering for you know flattering
thing to say for for an organic waste tote. So it's very complimentary thing. These are really nice
totes. They're on wheels. They're live locking lids and they we use a lifter or a
a waste, a hydraulic lifter on our trailer, our truck and trailer, and these integrate real nicely right
into that. We come by, the lifter lifts it right up and dumps it right into the trailer, we wash it,
set it back down, put in some pellets into the bottom of the tote, which helps absorb moisture
and condensation, and
It also contains some inoculate, some bacterial inoculate that helps sort of start the composting process
even before, even while it's still in the tote. And in some cases, like with Johnson County, our customers
are able to pick up their tote at the local recycling center. Love to be able to have that
type of relationship with Morgan and Moreau counties as well, too, where if you're interested, folks who
just come by and get that immediate gratification of getting started right away with their home composting.
Then it's just, you know, you go about your daily routine, you're collecting your organics, putting
it into the tote, and then setting it out on a weekly basis, typically running roots on Monday or Tuesday,
and set it out just like your trash or recycling or your yard waste.
I should also mention that our service does include unlimited yard waste composting, as long as they're
in brown paper bags. So folks can set out as much as they need to on a weekly basis. Then we have collection
day, as we said, some Monday or Tuesday. There's a sort of fixture of the rig, 14 yard gooseneck trailer
and pickup truck.
We designed it really so we could get into to be fuel efficient and also to be more nimble in some of
the more narrow residential areas that we may have service areas in. We could give rewards. So every
time you put your toad out for collection, you earn 100 points and those points can then be redeemed
in our marketplace for some of the refillery products, dog treats, refuse bags, things along those lines.
Then we process the waste. We use three methods at our compostery. We use ASP, which is static aerated
piles. We have turned windrows, and we also use Johnson-Sue bioreactors. We're actually the second facility
in the nation to be licensed or permitted to use Johnson-Sue on a commercial scale.
We're first in the first in the state as well on a commercial scale. We're also exploring ways that
we can use the Johnson Sue bioreactors to create sort of a kiosk approach for some communities that
may where we may not have a lot of high volume of customers, but you may have demand for where folks
want to compost so they could come to a central point. And we do use the bioreact. We then collect the
bioreactor on a regular basis.
and take it back and finish the compost. We love the bioreactors because there's no odor associated
with them, and we can also process a pretty large quantity of organic material on a small footprint.
And obviously, then we've got the redelivery service, which is bringing the finished compost back up
to six yards a year for each customer. They can also donate it. So if you've got a cause in your community,
schools, athletic fields, or a church, or a 4-H, or an FFA program, or a nature area. We're happy to
partner with them on that too. Or Habitat for Humanity is a good one that we've seen quite a bit of
donation with too. We also do, as I mentioned, we apply to the crop fields and organic corn fields in
West Central Indiana.
And we're always looking at or really creating high quality product that's certified by the U.S. Composting
Council. So we're looking at those key performance indicators just to make sure that we are making a
positive impact and that we're in the end producing a high quality output on the end. So a couple other
things I can go through here is we're local. I grew up in Indiana.
Um, and, uh, we're, we're in it to, to help our communities and our neighbors to make an impact. There's
a map of our service areas, um, Warren County, uh, typically County, uh, on the North and the West,
um, and then, uh, Northern Monroe, Northern Johnson and Morgan counties, um, on the South and the East.
So, um, I did mention the, um, uh, zero waste. So we're very, uh,
We take a very caring and thoughtful approach to working with our customers. Pots and pans, pie companies,
sort of one of our success stories as they just opened a few weeks ago in Broad Ripple, this little
snack shop or concession stand, however you want to call it. It's on the Monon Trail. It's a really
cute little location. And they're using our products, our plates, our cups, our forks, our spoons,
So essentially all of the waste that's coming from the little restaurant they call the clubhouse is
going to our facility to be composted. Packs and figures on solid waste, which you're probably familiar
with. I like to think that about 50% of everything we throw away could be composted. And there's sort
of a photo of,
this is, to me, this is where the magic really is, is that in a 20-minute span of time, I can take a
truckload of material that looks like this, and 20 minutes later, it looks like this, almost like a
mulch-like product. It's not finished yet, but I think in the back of my mind, I'm like, gosh, I'd just
love to just take that out and put it in my
put it in the garden or put it in some flower pots and start using it. But it's got a little bit of
processing and cooking to do yet before it's ready. But it's really neat to watch that transformation
as you process it and grind it and get it into those stages. We're really, as I mentioned, we're following
sort of the New England model.
I secretly want my goal would be for urban composting to be as popular in Indiana cities as it is in
New England. I like to show this picture of the subterranean receptacles that used to be installed in
the front yards of almost every home in the Boston area. And that was just a collection point where
folks would take their food waste and their scraps.
put it into the spit which had a bucket in it. Then weekly, a truck would come around, they'd empty
out the pails, and then material was typically taken to hog farms to be fed to hogs. But I think that
because of this technique that was popular in the 1940s and 50s that stuck around to this day and while
I thought I had a picture of the totes. That must be in my PowerPoint. You know, to this day, when you
walk around in New England town, you see the trash can, you see the recycling can, and you see the composting
tote lined up next to each other. And yeah, you get a little judgy at times, and you think, oh, there's
a house that doesn't compost. I wonder why. But it is definitely the expectation versus
not the norm. So that's what I have. Happy to answer any questions or go from there. Yeah, thank you
very much, Daniel. Really appreciate that. Does anybody have any questions? Yeah, so Daniel, this is
Matthew Austin. Hey, Matt. Hey, bud.
For, let's say, there was some restaurants that would be interested in signing up. What does that process
look like? I guess, what is the price point? I saw $8,999 a month, something in. What is the process
of integrating this into their staff and their staff starting to switch over to this type of action
instead of throwing it into the trash can? What does that look like? Really pretty simple. I would encourage
the owner or the manager or whoever's essentially making those decisions to reach out to me. Typically
what we do is sort of an upfront analysis just to get a sense of what's the potential volume there.
I generally see that like for a coffee shop or a cafe, they're usually using four or five 21 gallon
totes on a weekly basis.
If you're looking at someone who's doing maybe like some breakfast service or lunch service or bakery,
then it typically goes up to like six to eight 21 gallon totes on a weekly basis. The little shop there,
the pots and pans shop, it's hard to believe this is 350 square feet, but because they're doing a zero
waste approach,
where it's like I said, it's the cups, the bowls and everything else. They are using 200 and their volume
is 260 gallons a week, which is pretty cool, I think. That comes out to about a quart of waste for every
transaction. We really aren't counting customers, but we're counting transactions and it's about a quart
for every time someone runs a ticket.
or places in order there at their shop. So once we get a sense of that, we know how many totes they
need. I could work up a proposal, include the just, you know, like the 15% discount. And, you know,
once the proposal is accepted, then we deliver the totes to them. Happy to provide any
training or education or consultation that's needed for the staff, like you mentioned, because sometimes
change is hard. And sometimes, you know, folks need a little, a little assistance or, you know, guidance
along the way. And we're happy to provide that. I'm also working on some, in my real life, I'm not,
Composter sort of on a by passion, my real life job is, I'm an instructional instructional designer
so I do create a lot of training materials for folks I'm also working on some e learning for for staff
who want to do something more.
sophisticated, I guess you'd say, and even potentially looking for the certification that we can offer
for folks sort of like a save surf. I think that's the right name for it, or for your sanitation basically,
but instead it would be for how to handle organics and how to compost, effectively compost kitchen waste.
And then from there, it's really just
you know, taking an approach of taking care of our customers. And, you know, I just, you know, an hour
ago I had a call with actually this customer, you know, for one of their other locations was saying,
hey, it's, you know, it's holiday time where we currently have six totes at that location. She's like,
let's ramp it up to nine. So, you know, based on that on the next service round, I'll bring more totes
out to her. I would work up a, you know, a level up
proposal for and take it from there. So that's sort of what it would look like. Gotcha. Any other questions?
I guess with that, what is she paying for the six and what would she be paying for the nine? I'm just
trying to, if I'm going to
Talked to any restaurants in town that were 15 or so restaurants in a program called compost up downtown
Bloomington. Yeah, so I've got that. I've got that list. And so if I were to contact them, I guess,
what would the range be for a typical restaurant? The $90 to $150 or. Let me bring that list up as a
general. Probably I should rather.
The list is a little overwhelming to put on the screen, but I'd say generally as a general rule of thumb,
it's based on your number of totes. So if you're looking at two totes, it's generally 29, three totes
is 39, four totes is 49 a month. And then you'd have the option then to do that on a month to month
basis where it's charged your credit card or whatnot, or it can be done on an, like I said, an annual
invoice, an annual plan.
with a 15% discount on that. That's a better idea. I appreciate that. I actually have one if I may.
I'm curious, so you said you're entering into the Monroe County market. Is there a particular client
type or region that you're entering in, or is it just the whole area all at once?
whole area all at once and yeah I would say it's anyone who has organic waste and either well there's
there's different scenarios you could look out there it's either you know I have organic waste and I
want to save money because some of the haulers for for trash and waste charged by the pound
And organic waste is very heavy. It can be 8 to 10 pounds per gallon. So I think folks would find that
our rates are significantly more affordable than a typical trash hauler. So that's one scenario is I
want to save money. Another scenario might be I have organic waste and I want to be better about it.
I want to do the right thing with it. I want to reduce
methane gas emissions coming from landfills or I know I want to or just I want to reduce the amount
of stuff that's going into the landfill and I want it to turn turn back into good healthy soil.
You know, so that's another scenario. And. So you know, and or it could be I I have organic waste and
it's a problem for me. Our very first customer actually was was
a hotel chain and they have, you know, the great big breakfast buffet every morning and it's Indiana.
So, you know, what two things are going to serve and one of them is going to be waffles. So they're
going to have waffle batter or it's going to be biscuits and gravy. So they've got the, you know, the
white gravy, the sticky white sausage gravy. And that's really why this this chain contacted us. In
addition to the fact that the franchise that they belong to has
incentives and they have goals around sustainability. So you know they were they were concerned about
the fact that it's like well we what handling this stuff is really difficult. You know we don't know
what to do with it and it's you know we put it in our trash bins. We get rodents, we get you know we
have all kinds of problems that way and we were really able to come in then and give them a complete
solution where
they have a cleaner, more sanitary way to handle that type of waste. And ultimately that waste is being
used in a way that also helps their sustainability goals too. Thank you. Jeremy, just a question with
IU. I just had a question talking about the weight reduction based off of the
the waterway and everything that's associated with food. I was going to say, we got a pilot that we're
doing in one of the dining halls where we're getting a food dehydrator that's for food waste. It's a
company called Gaia. Anyways, in the longer term, my goal is to figure out a way to mix this into some
kind of soil amendment
But in the short term, I don't really have time to mess with it. Once the thing is up and running, I
want that whole back-end part to kind of just like, you know, be on autopilot and we can figure out
what we're going to do on the side. And it's a, you know, it's a pretty good size, you know, dining
hall for students. And like I said, it's back of the house. Also, it's like a buffet style up front,
so you're going to get that too. Yeah, I'd just be interested in seeing if you wanted
come down and take a look at it at some point, maybe figure out if this is a good application or not.
Oh, I would certainly love to check it out. And for sure, would love to be able to haul your output
and to be able to use it as a feedstock in our process as well, too. Awesome. So I'll be in touch. OK.
questions. Yeah. Hey, Daniel, this is Tom McClasson. I'm the director down here in Monroe County. I've
talked with Jesse a little bit, so I have a basic idea of what you're getting involved in up there in
Johnson County. But I did want to ask, particularly for residential customers, is there, as far as food
typeways specifically, I mean, I'm thinking meats and stuff, are there any restrictions on what you'll take?
There are some state restrictions on that. And essentially, it amounts to the meat. And by meats, I'm
also referring to like fishes and shellfishes and seafoods and things along those lines. They have to
be cooked. So basically, it's no uncooked.
And we generally try to steer away from liquids. Yes, they're compostable. But at the end of the day,
what's going to happen to a liquid as it's being processed is it's just going to drain out of the equipment.
And it's just sort of a safety hazard.
One of the nice things about our rig for hauling is that it is water tight, I guess you'd say. So we're
not really going to be spilling anything onto the roads or the highways. But once it gets to the farm,
the liquids are kind of a pain. So we would generally recommend drain disposal or a disposal type of
scenario for that. And then looking on your website,
The event services, cafe services, makes a reference to a partnership with responsible products. And
I get all of that, but then coming back to the residential customer, if they go out to Walmart and buy
compostable flatware, is that something you take or does it have to be responsible products? It has
to be responsible products the way
The way the state structured the permits and the licenses for composting facilities is that essentially
we have a defined list of products that we will accept or can accept. And if you go out and start shopping
for these things, there's millions of them. Many of them, it's very easy for a company to say that something
is compostable, although they may have never tested it.
for that. I'm not going to say anybody's being dishonest, but everybody's looking to game the system
somehow. So we essentially looked at this and said, OK, well, the easiest thing for us to do is to have
a direct partnership with the manufacturer. We can offer the direct to manufacturer pricing, which for
a restaurant accounts to about $20 savings per case.
versus buying it off of what someone might call like a wholesale site or something along those lines.
So we're generally about $20 per case under wholesale. And what I've found in just learning about all
this over the months has been that a lot of this stuff is made in the same place, in the same factory.
And then it just generally goes through multiple hands of folks
you know, adding their markup to it, um, to, to call it a different product than, you know, even though
they're all the same product. Do you provide information to the rest of the customers? I can't, I have
a family reunion and I want you to, you let the customers know that they want to use the possible flatware
at a party or something that has to be this brand in order to put it in your, your tote.
Yeah, sure. We can consult in that way or we can make it real easy and we just provide a full service
event service where essentially we show up with everything you need. The totes, the flatware, everything
that you need and then haul it away at the end of the day and it's a done deal. Okay, yeah, so I'm thinking of
family reunion, fourth of July party for you. That's just an event and you'd service it just like you
would taste the Bloomington or anything like that. Right. Correct. Yep. Okay. Great. All right. Well,
um, I think it's worth investigating more. So I will get your contact info from Matt and we'll,
we'll talk. Yeah, that sounds great. There's a, it's just a world of opportunity. So we're, we're real
excited to, uh, to be in it. Awesome.
Daniel, thank you very much for the presentation. Any other questions? Yeah, I have two for you, Daniel.
First question was, in counties where you're partnered with the Solid Waste Management District to have
totes at their regional recycling facilities, how does that work? Does a customer call in and sign up
with you and get like a ticket number and then take it to... Yeah, they would just socially sign up
through the website and then
Part of the side up process, there's a form that they'd fill out with all their info. If it's like Johnson
County, for example, Carla, I just took Carla eight totes, eight 12 gallon totes last week, last Monday.
And so the customer then will, in their email, they'll essentially say, if you reside in this county,
you can go here and you can pick up your tote and
then they would just coordinate that based on the office hours for the center. Or if they want it delivered,
we're happy to deliver it too. OK, then my second question is kind of piggybacking on what Mr.
Austin said. So let's say he goes somewhere like downtown Bloomington, which is about a one square mile
radius of heavily concentrated restaurants. Yeah. Would there be some way for the restaurant organization
to kind of partner up
to get a lower price point, since your efficiencies would be so improved being in such a dense area?
For sure. Yeah, we actually in the very early days of setting this up, we were really centered around
a co-op model. And I guess in my mind, I'm always wondering, it's like, well, what Carmel's really trying
to do this a little bit, but really not as successfully as we'd hoped, where it's essentially
Like you said, there's a real dense spot of 20, 30 restaurants in one area. And just providing a centralized
service where everybody co-ops the cost, in my mind, that's the dream. That's what I would do as a business
owner. So we're all for that.
And even to a point where if we needed to do like we offer, there's a third size I didn't really get
into in my presentation, but there's a 275 gallon size tote, you know, where, you know, it's really
for that, for that, you know, either that institutional, like an IU food hall type of type of situation,
or where you've got a dense set of food service,
institutions that are, you know, essentially just co-opping the cost. So, yeah. And I would love to
even get to a point where we're using bioreactors, but we're touching into some, you know, registrate
or some permitting type of stuff at that point. So that's a down the road type of goal. But yeah, we've
got the 275-gallon totes available immediately.
And those are picked up on a weekly basis as well. Yep. Yep. Yep. Picked up or dumped, tipped, and rinsed.
Gotcha. And that question was from Brad Lucas. Yep. What is the love of the school corporation is limited.
So definitely something we would love to be part of. It's just,
finding the right partnership that's able to handle the amount of food waste that we have. I'll definitely
reach out to you about maybe setting up a pilot school. I don't know that we'd want to tackle 24 schools
at one time. I would like to tackle 24 schools at one time. That would be great. Put an order in for
some totes.
Yeah, I want to reach out to you about maybe getting down here at some point and taking a look at what
we've got. Yeah, that'd be great. A statistic you can use in the back of your, you know, if you're doing
napkin calculations or whatever would be for every 400 students, you're going to produce 50 gallons
of organic waste a day. Thank you for that.
I think we've heard from everybody. Any other thoughts or questions? Anyone else come to the door and
ask questions? Oh, that's great. These are some of the best questions I've ever had, so appreciate it.
Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time to present and field all of our questions. And it
sounds like if you don't already
have it, there will be contact information exchanges. That'd be great. I look forward to it. Perfect.
Thank you again. Have a good meeting. Sounds good. Very good presentation. Yeah.
Just to verify it, the website's for excellent farm stock. Yeah, yeah, it's Daniel at. I can just send
that out to them. Perfect. Yeah, I got. It's it's it's on the website. Let's say you're looking to the
website. Well, it's talking his emails on there. OK, that's good. All right, well, that that picks up
our first order of business. Fortunately, all the rest of much shorter are next is just the approval
of the meeting minutes from the
August, August 21st, regular CAC email sent out by email leave on say the 14th. Are there any corrections
to the minutes as distributed? All right, seeing none other approved. And then you go to reports, starting
with the district. If you're ready, Tom. You got it. Well, I'll go to the conference because that's
later on in the agenda.
So, uh, uh, county council adopted our budget as presented Tuesday night. So that's all, that's all
set and done. Now we transition to year end stuff. Um, but one thing I do have for the CAC is what's
in the budget. It's a $20,000 appropriation for community grant program.
So that program has to be written and adopted by a board. And I pretty much have a program drafted.
What I've been using, Boone County and Hendricks County have had these programs in place for a long
time. I know those directors well, so they sent me all their stuff. They understand. One thing that
they have in there is a role for the CAC in reviewing grant applications.
So that is in what I've drafted. I do plan to present a first draft, I guess, to the board at the November
meeting. I doubt that they will vote on it and adopt it at that meeting. I'm sure they're gonna want
it to have some input and go through revisions, but it's also $2026. So I would like to have it approved
by the board
at the December meeting at the latest so that we can turn around and advertise open grant applications
and get those in reviewed and awarded early in the year for the people have time to actually do what
they've asked for. So. So I guess. And I don't know if now it is time to think about
what role you might want or would be comfortable having in that grant process of making recommendations
to the board. I mean, obviously, when I get it finished, I can get ahead of time. I can get you guys
copies of the draft. I'm going to give it to the board. But obviously, there's criteria in there about
how to get into those proposals that align well with the district's mission.
you know, criteria. I mean, we're not paying for somebody's recycling fees or disposal service. We'll
buy a toast to implement your program. We'll help you, you know, if you're putting a employee break
area outside and want to buy recycled content furniture. And those are the types of things that, that,
that, and at least that the Boone and Henderson County do and in my mind would be appropriate for, for
district funds to be used up.
So that's coming, and we're going to push to have that happen fast, because we need to give people time
to spend the money next year. That's what we have. Let's see, the board did approve. Thank you, everybody.
We had the Superfund cashed out settlement agreement that was approved. That's all been completed, and
the check sent.
don't have a certified receipt back, but as far as I'm concerned, that's all done. We did get a placement
truck for the one that was wrecked. It's just got that last week, Friday. It's a foot shorter than the
one that was wrecked.
staff said that, I mean, they went and measured their gay lords and their toads and said, it'll work.
We can still work with this. And that was, we got them a lot faster than if we'd had them build exactly
what was right from scratch. We'd still be waiting. We're starting to transition over the year and stuff. Oh,
One other thing that is on the board's agenda for November that was introduced at the F-Tower meeting
is we're proposing what looks like really substantial revisions to our fee resolution. A lot of it is
just reorganizing. In the fee resolution, if our fee is attributed to South Walnut, we can collect it
in the House of Representatives Waste Department. That's South Walnut, we don't transact money to recycling centers.
So we moved, we reorganized it a lot. The only residential fees that are going up are latex paint, at
least proposed to go up are latex paint. But we encourage people to try it out. It's not like we're
not actually listening to this and throw it out. So I'm not really concerned about those going up. I
think it's an alternative
So the majority of the changes are for commercial and small body generators, for hazmat, small businesses
that don't meet the immediate threshold to produce hazardous waste, and out-of-county residents. Those
are the pieces that are changing. Some are actually going down.
We can get our costs and it's not about making money. It's about trying to have it be a wash when those
customers come in. And we've had to add some new categories on their damage with the ion batteries.
A big deal right now. They're expensive.
We split those out cost-wise from undamaged lithium batteries. So there's things like that in there.
In my mind, nothing should be sticker shopped to anybody. Many of them were just, we don't do pennies
next door, so I'm not charging $3.08 for something. It's $3.10.
We don't do a lot of cash transactions anymore. Nobody likes pennies. What happens to that? America
Recycles Day, November 15th. As we've done in the past few years, we did have a musician planned.
Unfortunately, he's had to cancel on us, so we are trying to do Plan B on the fly.
We will try to do something at all the recycling centers to acknowledge America Recycling Day on the
15th. Not November 15th is America Recycling Day. Every year? Back to the 17th. It's not Labor Day.
I think that's, I guess, all I can think of. Questions? We want to ask for the other counties who have
the grant programs, the role that the CAC plays, is it to make a recommendation? To make a recommendation
to the board, because it's district funds, the board, and that's, I guess, I guess, I guess,
The board could establish the program in such a way that they delegate, you know, the award of those
funds to the CDC. The CDC would, you know, they could do it to staff. But those districts haven't done
it. They just, they want the CDC to review them and make the recommendations for grants they feel
post in line. Okay. That's a good agenda item for a subsequent meeting to discuss more completely. I
just want to have an idea of the reference one's work. So that makes sense. Thank you. All right. So
that is it for reports from the district. I do have one note for a report from the chair. As Tom mentioned,
we're nearing year end and we have one year of terms.
So I think it's probably a good time to indicate via email, I think directly to Tom, if you would like
to renew your CDC membership for next year, I'll send an email out after this meeting. So the members
who are absent can also see that. And then that could maybe be one convenient thread for everybody to
use to respond to Tom. And I just, if I could, I guess have those before Thanksgiving, because we would
try to do the appointments at the December meeting, the reappointments at the December meetings.
Yes, that would be also between now and our next meeting. I'm not mistaken. Maybe after your next meeting.
Okay. Yep. All right. So there's that on that note. I will also let you know if you don't already that
I am planning on moving on Bloomington next year. So that be a member of this case. After separate.
So, yeah, we have to go back to me because I'm sorry. Yeah.
Just give you some notice. So I have to think about that because in January, you guys got an elect officer.
Yes. That's all I have for the chair report. Any questions? All right.
Technically, probably it's possible. I don't know if it's going to be possible or accessible.
On the sheet. Yeah. So, okay, that's it for reports. We don't have any special committee reports, special
orders, or unfinished business. The only new business item that we have on the agenda is just an item
for AISWMD retreat discussion that was last week. Okay.
So any thoughts in particular? I know Tom, Matt, and I, and I think John were able to attend. Yeah,
I like the Indiana Compost Council. I think it makes sense to join that with the Waste Reduction District,
and I know they're trying to raise funds for that. I don't know, Tom, that's something that we'll do
with the Board of Directors. We get to look at it and what the students are and how that fits in their
budget. I think it was 150 or 250 for nonprofits
What did that entail? It entailed being a part of it, having two of your organization's members attend
ICC things for free, being able to guide, provide guidance as to where they're moving goals,
things like that, but handling the direction.
I didn't hear about that. I found it really interesting to find out that Coca-Cola hasn't been using
recycled bottles until two years ago. It was interesting to see the process that the Republic does with
them and whatnot. So I found that interesting. And they are interested, Coca-Cola is interested
in potentially doing something in Monroe County with
some sort of sustainability stuff, maybe with IU, with tailgates. So I know IU is meeting with them
at some point in time, this month or next month. So hopefully there'll be something that they have done,
something with IU's Indianapolis campus last year. And they have done something previously with Clemson
University and that tailgate. So hopefully something can come out of that. That could consolidate, would
be trying to fund that.
So there might be more opportunities. Yeah, that's good. Thanks for that. Do you have anything in particular?
I really enjoyed the land trust. The meditation was on Tuesday and I found that really informative.
There's a lot more types of land trust out there than I was expecting. There's a lot more of them that
are active.
And as a director, the attorney from the coordinating group, who was basically the association's lobbyist
arm, spoke on Wednesday afternoon and talked about some of the legislative changes that occurred and
the impacts that those are going to have. Things I wasn't aware of at ATRL.
subject to them until sometime in 26 or 27. But once I got asked what happened this year, I guess I
didn't read far enough into the film to see, oh, there's another requirement a year later. So that's
not what I was doing. That was important. But I enjoyed it, but I needed to hear it. I'll add that I
also thought it was informative. And I would say I did enjoy it.
but I also don't have to deal with the consequences of it as directly. And I was saying, I didn't understand
all of it. Well, thank you for attending as well and for hearing our summary for those who already knew.
I always get a lot of value out of it. I really enjoyed it a good bit. I thought all the sessions were
really good to share, man, if not a bit.
if somebody directed it, if somebody like me, but I think that all the sessions, somebody got something.
That's it. Yeah. All right. So that's it for our one item of new business. I do have one more item that
I want to note that just came to mind when talking about the board meeting and end of year stuff. We
should have a second joint meeting
We talked about, we have done one around the budget. We're gonna do one around the end of the year.
Yeah. Good try. Okay. So I will say, you know, in recent years, we've actually been pretty good about
that, but that's not always been the case. And that is certainly not the case for every district. Sure.
But again, we can't put it out there. I know we're running short on time, but I will also
Uh, I guess I got that cause should, could or should have said to him, I just report that with one of
the things we talked about the later year or joint meeting being what your plan, which would be up for
update this year. However, item is working on a new statewide materials management plan, which is going
to replace the state's current solid waste management plan. So,
I'm not sure that it makes sense for us to put the time and effort into updating our plan. If a year
from now, it's going to be moved because of what the state, new directions the state's trying to go.
So, doesn't necessarily excuse us from having a required joint meeting, but that was the topic that
as I recall that was discussed for that joint meeting. I'm not sure that's the best use of time right now.
Yeah, I saw that email on Tuesday, I think, and that contains that article that changed. I personally
didn't have a chance to read it yet, but unfortunately all of our time is already well spent on other
things, but I thought that may be a good item for our next meeting agenda. The state is nowhere near
adopting a plan.
Any thoughts on timing for, if we were to do a joint meeting, is just the usual target, our CAC or board
meetings to do sort of back to back. Is that generally where it comes from? I'd say the December board
meeting, I mean, the CAC meeting starts to butt up against Christmas break. I don't know the plans for
that. Right, okay. Okay. Monday's more sensitive in December, is what you're saying, because. Well,
at this point, yeah, I think it's been hard to. Okay.
It is a first step to see with the board. It's a lot easier to get the board to commit to something
face to face email about that. Okay, that's all I had on that. Any other thoughts or any items that
weren't previously mentioned? Alright, well, that brings us to public comment. I don't see anyone in
the room or see.
Nope. Okay. It's nobody else on the meeting either. Okay. So no members of the public present. So just
make a reminder that our next scheduled regular meeting would be November 20th, 530. That's not Thanksgiving,
right? Uh, no, I think it's the week before. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We should have checked that during
our meeting. Beginning of the year review of calendar. So, okay. Thank you. So, yes, that is when our meeting
The schedule. And it will be in this room. If there are no objections, we will mature.