I will call to order this regular meeting of the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County Citizens
Advisory Committee. This is the fourth Thursday of October, the 22nd, 2026 at 5.31 PM. Will the Vice
Chair please call roll? Yes. Matt Austin? Present. Liz Carter? Allison Sears? Present. Jacob Youngblood? Present.
Joe Sears, present. Bradley Lucas, present. All right. We have quorum. Thank you, Vice Chair. Today's
agenda was distributed on Tuesday, October 20th, 2026, as seen on the screen chair. Are there any objections
to adopting agenda as distributed and shown in the current screen chair?
Hearing none, the agenda is approved. All right, now on to meeting minutes. We have the approval of
meeting minutes from a joint meeting, July 9th, 2026. Let me get those up on the screen share. Let me
get that on the share. It's not sharing.
Now, if I cannot get up on the screen.
Are there any corrections that anybody noticed when leading through the minutes? There we go. Not a
short amount of minutes either.
So this is looking at the joint meeting and went through the budget and all of that. Okay. So I take
it there are no corrections to be made. If there are no questions, then the minutes are approved as
correct. I mean, as seen here and distributed last week. All right. Moving on, reports from the district.
Send your time.
Tuesday, the County Council formally adopted all of the budget, including our budget for next year.
It was adopted as presented. It gets us set to move into next year. I think that I
A few months ago, I mentioned, you know, we had a bunch of roll-off containers that needed repair or
replacement actually prepares it for getting approaching replacement costs. I think we'd have 10. So
we have 10 new boxes that have been purchased and delivered. Rumpke is storing us to those at their
facility and getting them into rotation at the sites. And
We have 10 or maybe 12 boxes. We're going to pull out a service at either auction off or scrap. Then
we have money budgeted next year, I think, to get eight more boxes. So hopefully that will solve some
of our issues with maintenance on boxes and residents should start to see some shiny new boxes showing
up at our facilities.
And I think other than that, things are going pretty good right now. Winding the year down and getting
ready to get all of our year end stuff in order. At the board meeting in November, we'll present to
them the proposed holiday schedule for next year for the raise in salary workings for next year. Try
to get this year wrapped up and move into next year.
Do you have any questions? Congratulations on getting through another year's budget. Any other questions,
comments? What's the increase in your salary ordinance? 3.5%. How long do those bosses typically last?
The ones that we're taking out of service are anywhere from 20 to 30 years old. Nice.
That's, that's, that's yeah. Uh, we should have done this sooner than we did, but we'll get into that.
And then they're replacing because they're rusting because. Yeah, they rust. Um, that's predominantly
what it is. And then of course, you know, depending on where the rust is, when they get loaded and unloaded,
that can create other damage and just, uh, with costs of metal and labor.
paying six plus thousand dollars to repair a box of a new place for eight. So that makes sense.
All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Tom. Moving on. I do not have a report. So moving on.
We said for the last meeting was pink. Yeah, the last executive committee meeting it was pink. Nobody's
playing with the color theme on the computer. So there are no special reports from special committees,
no special orders, no unfinished business. So we are on to new business.
And we have Meredith Katz with RetroCycle joining us. And could you please give her sharing capabilities
in case she has anything to share? Meredith, she's with RetroCycle.
co-founder and CEO. She is from Indianapolis, as well as a graduate of IU. She shared this innovative
idea with Beecauser and something they're doing out in Colorado. I think it's a good idea to consider
for the future. So, Meredith? She may not have a mic. She may not have any.
Can you please give Meredith audio and video and sharing capabilities? I guess I could do that.
There you are. Hey, can you hear me?
We can hear you. Awesome. Pleasure to be here. Pleasure to meet you all. Justin, thank you for having
me. I'm excited to talk to you about what I'm working on in Colorado. And yes, proud to be a Huger,
and with Justin Bloomington, and it was great to be back. I'm going to go ahead and share screen. If
I am able, would I be able to share a presentation and get sharing capabilities? I don't know why you
can't be able to share capabilities. What was that?
I don't know why you don't have the option to get with a share capability. We are trying to. We're trying
to give you share capabilities, let's see. All right. Can you all see my screen? There we go.
We got it. Awesome, I'll jump in. Well, how do y'all?
I'm Meredith and I am the CEO of RetroCycle. We are a nonprofit that is focused on building circular
systems to replace disposable ones in the space of to-go wear. So what I'm holding here without the
lid is the Colorado Go Cup, where you can see this is a reusable to-go cup that is shared by cafes across
the state of Colorado. And our mission in five words, like I said, is to build circular systems to replace
disposable ones
little bit over five words. And our vision is a future single use is obsolete, that that's an old way
of doing things. And the new way of doing things is a borrow and return network. Now, why we started
this in the first place is we were hired by the town of Breckenridge to come and build out what is the
pilot of the Colorado CUT program. Because in Breckenridge, they have a specific single issue with a
landfill capacity
And on Main Street in Breckenridge, where there's 15,000 residents and 2 million visitors, coffee cups
make up 37% of trash, and they also make up 27% of recycling. And so then they're not able to recycle.
those bins and it's causing an issue. And so the town has tried to do different reasonable cut programs,
but ultimately they went with ours, which I'll share with why in a little bit over. So why not compostable?
Well, compostable is still single use.
It needs the right composting infrastructure, which just isn't available out here in Summit County.
And you still need a cup for every new sip, as we know. And unfortunately, most people just don't bring
their own cup. We actually collected data from this for a cafe over a year, and 2% of their transactions
of to-go cups were transactions where people brought their own cup. And so we were attempting
asks with question of how do we enable a visitor to enjoy Colorado without the single use. And more
importantly, how do we make it cool? How do we make it a moment where people actually want to engage
with it? And so thus we, with the town of Brecken Ranch and other municipalities around the state created
what's called Colorado Cup program. So one, like I said, one to go reusable cup shared by cafes across
the state that you can
borrow and return. And as you can see on that cup is a QR code. And that leads to a map where you can
look up all the different cafes that you can return it to. So as I mentioned, we are a barn, a borrow
and return network. And we're not the first barn in the world. In fact, they exist all over the world.
You might be familiar with these. In Germany, where we did our research,
There is a barn that is 20,000 establishments deep across two different countries. It's not uncommon
for you to go on an airplane in Germany and see people even with these cups, taking them to a different
city with them and able to return them. They're across Ireland, they're across Australia, they're across
parts of Asia. And what we realized is really what's important to build behavior change is really building
the infrastructure to support it, AKA for Reeves to become
of least resistance. And so there are three things that we identified that allowed these systems to
scale so widely. They're tech free. There's no app to download. There's no account. It's like an old,
it's basically a modernized milk bottle system that my parents used. And so, and they all rely
on polypropylene, which is plastic number five, as we all know for the durability and the cost. They're
affordable. So most people can pay between two to $5
cup and refundable. And there's an element of public partnership as well with local single use policy.
And so when we built out the first statewide network, we take these different ingredients and make sure
they were embedded Colorado cup. So our system is tech free. All of the washing is decentralized. So
whenever I return a cup to, so the way it works is if I want to borrow Colorado cup, I go to a cafe,
I ask for my coffee and a Colorado cup.
I paid 250 deposit. When I'm done with that cup, I return it to a cafe in the network and I get my 250
back as a discount on a purchase. And then they wash that cup, restock it and the whole cycle starts
again. And so we also made our cost 250.
And we also partner with different municipalities as well on this across the state. And so some of them
provide subsidies. So some of them are providing the cups for free or the first case of cups for free
so that different businesses can try the program. So a little bit about the queue is we artwork on these
cups. We really want to tie a sense of place to it.
We found a local artist here to design the cup. And like I mentioned, there's a cafe map on every cup
and these are tested to a thousand washes. So a little bit of the experience is when you pull out of
it in English and Spanish, we have an element of surprise where you can, if you don't,
Where you want to go, you can spin the wheel and it'll tell you which cafe to return to. And then we
have also the cafe map and you'll see that these are all independent cafes as well. And so that's really
important to us is to support and unite all the independent businesses across the state.
So here's a little bit of the program in action since the summer. So as you can see, what we have seen
is that if we can make a reuse system work in a town like Breckenridge, but there's only 15,000 residents
and 2 million visitors that are here for an average of three to four days, we can get a reuse system
work anywhere. It has to be so simple that someone who's dropping into this town for three days can
use it. And so that's exactly what we've been seeing
these two visitors from North Carolina and Kansas. And so different, these are just a few different
pictures of the cup in action. And so let's talk about, talk about how the program's doing and the results
thus far. We launched a Memorial Day weekend. We have had over 750 borrows that makes up about 10% of
reduction. So if you count those one to one, we've seen about 2% reduction in single use to go cups. Our goal,
is to get to 20%. So right now our nonprofits on a mission called Mission 220. And so we're doing different
activations and marketing to get that there. And then earn rate, we hypothesize it would be around 10%
in a mountain town like Breckenridge where people are there for a few days. Well, it's been close to
40%. And so that has really surprised us and we see it's a strong start. So that means a little bit
over one in three cups are coming back.
We want that to be closer to two to three out of two to three cups, and that's something that we're
working on. So some of the learnings that we have found is that a wide convenient network to return
to is just important as a reusable product, which I'll talk to you about with Bloomington here in a
moment in Monroe County. Adoption is strongest when people are invited to participate. So you'll see
that when you're at it and you come to Breckenridge, you'll get asked, do you want that here?
Or do you want that to go in a Colorado Cup? The verb is starting to shift here. We even have a ski
resort that is thinking about completely eliminating single use cups, where the only option for it to
go is a reusable to go cup, which is something that's pretty novel here, but not novel in certain parts
of Europe and other parts of the world. And then partnerships across resorts and independent businesses
and government is key to making reuse
The next thing I'll talk about, in addition to coffee cups really filling up our waste streams here,
is the next thing is pizza boxes. One pizzeria in Breckenridge goes through 15,000 boxes in one winter.
That's one pizzeria. So across the state, we just have this massive pizza issue, and there's a squeeze
with composting infrastructure.
It's not everywhere yet that we can really tap it at. And so we are working on a reusable pizza box
pilot and with the product that we're calling. And we're starting it off with ski schools because there's
a there and back route every single day of a hundred pizza boxes. And so we're putting these containers
at resorts where scheme structures can then drop the reasonable boxes in the container. And then the
pizzeria picks up the boxes the next day and they're good to go. And so.
While we're really focused on coffee cups, we want to talk, we really want to think about what are all
areas of waste streams. And I know pizza, I mean, I ate a lot of pizza at IU during my day. So I'm sure
that it's also there too. Which brings me to why I'm here. The Indiana Cup.
The first two weeks we were now live in seven different municipalities. We just launched in Boulder
and we also are launching with CU Boulder. So it's kind of similar. We have this university town in
a city. And, uh, but we, in the first one, we were launching Frisco. There were two folks from the city
council of Bloomington who I met in line. And they said, this would be really interesting to talk about
in Bloomington. And then before you know it, you know, I was.
in Bloomington and now here we are. And earlier today I had a meeting with the head of IU Dining talking
about what could this look like on campus if we were to do a pilot in Bloomington, where on campus would
this really matter? Where would this really hit some heavy weight with waste? So we're talking about
Wells Library, we're talking about different things on campus. And so really the way that we look at
building out a reuse system
is with partnership. And so it's not just the university, it's not just the city, it's independent
businesses, it's us all working together to design a reuse system that really matches the flow. So I
think for next steps for Bloomington, the timeline that we're talking about is a little bit away. We're
talking a fall 2028 pilot. And so wanted to bring this here because
We're talking about waste reduction. I've presented a lot of waste reduction committees across Colorado.
And as we start to think about expanding, I feel a lot of pride about bringing this back to my home
state, about bringing this back to my home state. And I would love to hear your questions. I'm sure
you have some about how the systems could look like in Monroe County.
Thank you very much, Meredith, for your presentation. To start, any questions? Meredith, my name is
Thomas Glass and I'm the director for the Waste Reduction District here in Monroe County. And earlier
in your presentation, you made reference to some single use policies that some cities had. Can you kind
of describe what those are? Yes, exactly. So in some, in Colorado, so in Breckenridge,
you cannot get plastic water here. And so essentially that was why we started in Breckenridge. This
is not the case in every city that we have expanded to. So for example, that's not the case in Boulder.
We started with the cities and the towns that were the most aggressive on single use plastic policy
because they were the ones that really wanted to invest in a pilot and get it off the ground.
did the landfill crunch that they're experiencing mainly in Summit County. So that applies
to some municipalities, but not all that we're working with. I've got a question. Have you reached out
to either the Chamber of Commerce or the Bloomington Economic Development Council to kind of test the
waters on how interested local businesses would be?
No, I did when I always across Bloomington and had some conversations that people thought was pretty
interesting. Um, but that's really where it started. And so there's definitely interest. Um, but in
terms of like more concrete conversations have not continued those. Really important piece to nail down our goal.
is in every town there has to be 60%, 60 to 70% saturation. Meaning like at, it's offered at over majority
of cafes. So how many in Blooming, in Monroe County, how many would that be? Including the locations
at IU, like Collins Learning Living Center, they have their own, you know, coffee shop run by the students.
You mentioned Wells Library.
How many locations would you need for that to be that 60 to 70%? So without IU, we're talking around
10. But with IU, we're talking closer to probably 15 to 17. Dining halls would not be included in this.
I confirm that today. It would be independent cafes on campus, like the Wells Library Cafe is a great
example. So not dining halls. So we're talking probably, I think 15.
15 to 20 is ideal for a pilot in Bloomington. Gotcha. I guess the other thing that just popped up in
my mind with you guys doing CU Boulder, is there any idea, potential to do this with Greek life with
the fact that they have, I mean, they're not coffee shops, right? But they are, they probably have their
own coffee and they probably all single use.
Yeah, that's a great idea. We haven't looked into Greek life yet. We've been focusing on independent
establishments that are pushing like 500 cups a day sometimes. But I think that's a great move. And
so that's something that maybe those establishments could purchase those cups and have them available.
I think what's really important too is the integrity.
of the cup and the deposit. And so that's something that really careful about is like we're keeping
those in commercial places right now to maintain the integrity of them. Um, because with the Greek life,
what I would be concerned about is someone's like in three cups, right? And then that's worth something.
So that that's why we really stem in commercial is to keep the integrity of the system. That makes sense.
Um, I saw, I think in,
Some of the materials I look through that you guys are going through trash cans to find cups that were
thrown away and with 36% being returned any idea of where all those other cups are going. People are
just keeping them and we're using them on their own. That hypothesis from quality data.
that that's what people are doing. So we've heard from people like, oh, I use my cup all the time. Or
I took this home as a, as something memorable from my trip in Colorado and I'm raising it. Luckily they're
recyclable and end of life wherever number five is accepted. Um, which, um, I'm curious, is number five
accepted in Monroe County? Uh, for the, for the district and the vendor that we use. Yeah. I mean, that's,
it's a rigid, rigid plastic. So that would be acceptable throughout program.
Okay, that's great to know. Yeah, it does make sense that it would be a collectible or a souvenir. I
keep mine. Any other comments, questions? Okay, well, thank you very much for your presentation. And
I think it's a great idea. I personally hate single use plastics.
So, and then Justin, we're gonna move to you to kind of explain. So Justin is the chair for DECAUSER,
Commission on Sustainability and Resilience. And they had Meredith present in September. So he contacted
the INSET Waste Reduction. So sounds like a good idea. Yeah, thanks Matt. Yeah, so Justin Vassel, moving
through the Commission on Sustainability and Resilience.
And for those that aren't familiar with us, we sort of focus in on sustainability, not just the environmental
aspect of it, but multidimensional, you know, the economic and societal aspects of sustainability as
well. But in this case, this is more of the environmental side of things. And, you know, our commission
has been focused quite a bit on the past on waste reduction. And that's a large part thanks to Matt,
who was on the commission for a while until earlier this year. And so when I found out about retrocycling,
when I got introduced to Meredith, that kind of perked my ears up as a really interesting concept, something
that could actually work here in Bloomington, I think. It's a little bit of a different space than some
of the cities that are rolling out there, which are, Breckenridge is a little more touristic, for example.
She mentioned 37% or something like that of, you know, all the waste was just coffee cups. You know,
that number would probably be different here in Monroe County, but we also do have a major university,
so it might not be that different.
And so right away found what started looking into how we could support a pilot eventually coming here
at Bloomington. And this year in 2026, our commission had about $6,000 left over that we were looking
for a suitable project that we could use.
Thought about this one. So he sort of got to work really quick, putting together a proposal of what
a pilot might look like. And then, you know, realized that because, you know, this retro cycle is a
Colorado nonprofit that we would need some sort of local entity here in the area to be able to sort
of support that project kind of to receive the funds to partner with the cafes, retro cycle supporting,
you know, close to that. And so we had written up a proposal.
you know, looking for some organization to kind of serve that role and thought this organization might
be interested in something like that. But, you know, we did hit a snag, and so we're not actually going
to be able to get that money into place in time for 2026. So at the moment, not here with any sort of
concrete ask, mostly just wanting to kind of socialize this idea a little bit and get it on folks' radar
and start thinking ahead if
you know, if there is interest in like a 2028 pilot, like she was mentioning, you know, we could start
thinking about other groups to engage with. And, you know, I don't know if there's any sort of policy
solutions like the ones that they have over their single use kind of policy things, but that's another
thing to think about that could help kind of pave the way for these. And, yeah, again, we don't really,
I guess, at least I'm not aware of any recent studies that would tell us something about
the volume of disposable coffee cups that are being sent to the landfill. So I don't know if that's
something that, you know, data that could be gathered at some point, but that might help kind of get
a sense for what we actually could stand to gain if there was something like that here in Monterey County.
So yeah, mostly here to just kind of put it on folks' radar and hopefully keep the conversation going
in the coming months and years.
And I think you mentioned that there were some independent cafes that were interested or had been approached
already. Yeah, I'll probably send that one to Meredith because she did meet with some individual cafes
while she was here in Bloomington about a month or two ago. So yeah, Meredith. Yeah, I stopped around
and I don't have the list right in front of me. I said the Bloomington table and talked to the manager.
That was really cool. Showed her the cut.
that this is really interesting, let me know if this comes. There's a guy in front of me, but several
ones around Parkway as well. The one that is underground, I can't remember, sorry. So I think, well,
maybe not very happy.
Yes, thank you. And so there was definitely some early interest in just saying like, I like this cup.
This is cool. Let me know something comes of this. I can send you the names of those. I do have a list
of those. And so the ones that were most interested, but really just the meeting of just talking new
cafes. And also it takes if visits to get the decision maker as well. So there were only a few cafes
where I really got to land on like the
manager or the owner was in. I got lucky in Bloomington Bagel that day, where the owner was in. But
it's not to... It looks like you froze there for a second. And what has been the barrier or the challenge
for Caffe's adopting this?
One that I thought was if they were only a to-go option, they didn't already have a dishwasher, that
would be one issue. But I guess what would the barrier to entry be that you see? The biggest barrier
you don't have in-house, like if they don't do mugs in-house, if they're primarily to go with a hand
washing sink, that is a barrier. If they already had this cycle of washing in-house mugs, which mugs do,
That's a strength. I will say, I think education is really important. And so we also, when we do onboard,
we talk about what the local waste audit is showing and how they are part of the solution. I think that's
really important. And so even with the financial support that a lot of these municipalities are giving,
where they buy for several cases of cups for cafes, it's still with energy and it's the chain.
And that's always tough in the beginning. And so I'm interested to see maybe six months from now, like
how that evolves. And that's something we continue to work with our cafes on, of integrating it into
our day-to-day speech with customers. And so I would say it's, yes, if they don't do any in-house training
at all, that is a hand wash sink, but there are cafes that do that.
There are cafes though that we do that have that and they're, they're game for it. Um, especially when
the cups are free and they're making on pure profit on every reusable cup, it's kind of an E-brainer
for a small business. And that's why we went with this model called a flat barn. Um, because once the
subsidy is up, they'll start paying for those cups and they pay for the cup and lid, which is a higher
cup, but they get 50 back up. And so I would say really pushing the economics. Okay, thank you. Any
other questions? Comments? Yeah, I've got quite a few. Okay. Okay. Um, so, um, just, you know, I work
for the city of Wilmington utilities department. Um, I think that,
partnering with them on something cup-based might be very wise. We have water carts that we take around
to community events, having a cup, like either taking in cups there or giving them out might be really
smart. Typically right now we give people a little paper cone, like you get a snow cone in. So if you
don't have a water bottle, that's what you got. So that would be, I think, a potential partnership.
I'm also curious, so what did you say that the acronym for this group is?
So that's the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability and Resilience. Okay. So this is the commission
staffed by the Economic and Sustainable Development Department, right? Okay. So I would think that ESD
would have the ability to start bringing forth legislation to start working on the single use item issue.
I think they would have a respective city council if they brought forth such an ordinance. So personally, I would
be kind of pushing them a little bit. I think adopting something like that countywide might be kind
of difficult. I think at least in the city, you would find some reception. Aside from that, so is the
struggle with the grant funding that like ESD can't be the department that gets such a grant or? It's
their money.
Okay. So they give it to us to decide kind of where it goes. And if you don't spend it, what happens
to it? Does it go back to the general fund? Yeah. So that's why we were, this was going to kind of be
a Hail Mary, you know, we were just trying to get, get the money obligated and it wouldn't be until
later in 2027 that things actually start moving. But sorry, you passed the ability to encumber that
money for next year or for next year.
Well, technically no, but we're pretty much right there that it needs to start going through the approval
process now. And it really comes down to the size of the pilot. There's certain minimum orders for the,
you know, the cups and things in order to make it the deposits sort of economically viable. And yeah,
just not enough lead time, unfortunately. Gotcha. I hope it would all work out. Yeah, that makes sense.
I would also caution IU
is probably, I think you sometimes need to lead and show IU that something is possible, and then they
tend to adopt it. I think they can be kind of cautious of new things. Just say that. That has been my
experience as well. Yeah. Yeah. But I think you'd have a very receptive partner, at least in city government.
And I think, I don't know how this group feels specifically, but it sounds like a really interesting pilot.
Is it possible to still use the grant money to start the study of like what people in Bloomington? Cause
like we talked earlier about looking at what folks are throwing away in Breckenridge and you know, like
how many people actually bring it to go cup to a coffee shop, at least sitting at Inkwell. I feel like
quite a few people bring, but maybe it is only 2%. Yeah. You know, so is it possible to use that to
start the study? It's kind of like, is the study to justify or does it have to be.
sort of waste on it. Yeah, well, I hate it because I know how city government works, so I mean that
6000 is going to go to reversion lines in the general ledger and then some department. Any department
can make a claim on it for anything that they think they want, so it is too bad to see that
money appropriated enough spent and it makes it harder for them to ask for that money in the future.
Yeah, it may be a possibility, so that's definitely something that they happy to work with folks on
to see if that's something that we can use those funds for and I can chat with ESD as well.
see what's possible on that front. Okay. Yeah, I just would hate to see you lose it. And then that may
use this justification not to give up similar funding next budget cycle. Right. Exactly. Awesome. Any
other comments, questions? Thank you, Liz. Yeah, thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Meredith,
for your time. We would love to see you. I personally would love to see a pilot here in 2020 around
that, because once again, I hate same business.
All right. Anything else, Justin? That's it for me. Thanks so much for your time. All right. Thank you
guys. All right. And last on the agenda. Transition.
Oh, can I give you my card so you can shoot me an email? Yes. I'm already in touch with Jolie and Sean
all the time. Perfect. I actually just gave them grant money to give out because I didn't want to manage
a grant anymore. Nice. All right. Yeah. Shoot me an email. OK, Chuck. OK. Great. Thanks so much. Thanks,
everybody. Oh, do you have one, too? Yes. Yours isn't an accused little piece. That's too many things.
Thank you. Good job.
All right, last on the agenda is a review of the Association of Neosolvus Manor District's conference
that we were just at. I'll start out. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed Grumke's demonstration about the
current state of recycling. I always appreciate that. And then I know that the batteries was always,
excuse me,
We're at the top of mind right now with battery fires and whatnot, and especially all the vapes. And
there's just, what do people do with it? Do they get recycled? Not really. You don't want to throw them
in the trash. And then with some EPRs, the responsibility of the manufacturer all the way through.
It is EPR? Okay.
Yeah. Tom, Liz? Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's fine. So the field trip the day before, I think Tom and I
were the only, a bunch of his staff came. But is it high left work? High left work. Yeah, high left
work material, and that was really cool. They mostly just took us to the top of a very scary tower.
So, but it was interesting. I would have loved to hear more about their environmental compliance, but
I feel like I was the only person who was interested in that.
And then I was only able to attend the first day. The second day I was putting on an event for item.
But I found the education roundtable to be really good. I took some ideas that I'm probably going to
steal from my program. But that was cool. They were all really, really great. The snack was bad. What
was the snack? It was just chips and a giant bat of ranch. Like the bowl of chips wasn't the biggest.
I think it was homemade chips.
And I ate a lot. But then also the tour of the Lawrence County recycling, their recycling facility.
It was interesting. They have a lot of stormwater compliance problems. Oh, gotcha. That's Lawrence County.
I might have to tell Lawrence County, I'm so sorry. Don't tell items. I won't tell items.
So anyway, yeah, it was interesting to see the drive through recycling center that they have there,
but I was a little, it kind of bummed me out because it was so car centric. I realized that Lord's County
probably is very car centric, but, and made me miss when we had the recycling behind city hall.
That was, that's where the trades district garages now, where people that don't have a car could still
potentially recycle, but the locations are kind of far flung.
Thank you. Those are my takes. And I met some really cool people. Yeah, I thought it was a good conference.
So overall, I will say there will be matter recycling slash EBR legislation. A bill will be introduced
for the upcoming session beginning of the year. I'm involved in a group that's working on helping a
representative to draft that legislation.
It will not include base bands, but over embedded batteries. Those are a whole different animal. Will
it include scooters? It will include the bags. If you can remove the battery from the scooter, the e-bike,
it will be included. At this point, everybody's agreeing. What ultimately gets passed, who knows?
What the bill introduced last year didn't include that everybody's agreeable to be included this year's
damage to defective batteries, and that's a big one, particularly for solid waste this year, because
those are a huge cost. Those are expensive to deal with. It will not include recalled batteries, because
there's a whole different infrastructure already in place to deal with those. There's a big educational
component needed for that, making
people that have batteries aware of the recall process and how to contact the manufacturing at that
dealt with. One of the things that's come up is whether or not this ever happens, who knows, but this
would be a nationwide deal. But it'd be nice to have like a central clearinghouse for that where there's
just a general web border
what portal you can go to, and whether or not you have a generic battery, a Duracell battery, an energized
battery, if you recall on this battery, what do I do? Instead of trying to deal with the manufacturer,
whoever they've contracted to deal with, to type a central clearing out so that you can plug your battery
model into the oil pop-up, here's what to do, here's where you lose the contact to get your kit to send
it back in.
But that's beyond the scope of the legislation. But anyway, that's kind of beyond the cup. But yeah,
I thought it was a good conference this year. I thought we had a lot of good topics, at least from the
perspective of the solid waste district. Good for solid waste districts. The last session of the conference
on Wednesday afternoon was from the associations
primary legal lobbyist or lawyer who does the bulk of the lobbying for us. It was really good. He had
a lot of good information for solid waste districts about going and testifying at the state house of
staff. Figure out who your representatives are. Here are the ways to reach out to them. Here are the
key phrases and things to use to catch their attention when you want to talk to them about
in a bill or something that's going on. I thought that was really good information for the encryption
line districts out there. They don't necessarily have the relationships that they need or should have.
Their senators and representatives. Thank you, Tom. I just wanted something new. Embedded batteries.
So there would have to be a whole separate legislation just for embedded batteries to address that?
It wouldn't have to, but the way that
My understanding of the way the system is all set up that the people that are dealing with the recycling
now are prepared, their process doesn't deal with extracting the matter, they just want the matter.
And it's different to extract it, depending on what the thing is, I'm sure. We just really never...
I wonder if the nonprofit up in Indianapolis that does a lot of the electronics recycling,
Could take that off. Sounds like there's a mark for that. I keep wanting to say retro cycle.
That's not it. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Recycle Force. Recycle Force. Yeah. Recycle Force can
get into that. Yeah. Challenges with batteries as technology continues to increase. All right. Thank
you for that review.
So now to public comment, each member of the public will have four minutes to speak. Please indicate
your desire to comment by using the raise hand function in Teams or by typing into the chat, and you'll
be called on in the order of your request received. I see no public. Well, we do have one member of
the public. We got a laugh, all right. I do not see anybody on, nobody's raising their hand. Teams, okay.
So moving on, our next regular meeting is Thursday, November 19th, 2026. Here, showers building room
106D. And then please let me know if when I send the agenda out, if you will be able to make it or not.
And next we will adjourn. If there's no objection, this meeting. I have to object, sorry. I can have
one question after your next meeting. I mean, obviously the makeup of this group can always change at
any time, but we need to start thinking about scheduling
meetings for next year and getting rings reserved. So is the third Thursday at 530 what the group wants
to continue with? If I will access reading still adequate for your purposes and yes, I will send the
request and it's really sure that that's the case. Dude, are you asking for a vote on that right now
or just a net on it? Not in a consensus. You know, yes.
Definitely prefer this location. Yeah, or this location. That's why I'm asking you to set your schedule
or do an informal. I'm just I'm going to get the requested and to get the meeting to be sure. So I'm
following Thursday at 530. If it changes, it changes. OK. So no objections to that. Alright, so if there's
no objection, this meeting will adjourn no more. Alright, sitting down this meeting is adjourned. Thank
you everybody.