BWRC Approved Minutes Sep 5 2019Beverly Waste Reduction Committee
Meeting Minutes —September 5, 2019
Beverly Waste Reduction Committee
MINUTES: Monthly Meeting, Thursday, September 5, 2019
7:00 PM, Beverly City Hall, Conference Room A
CALL TO ORDER: 7:03 pm
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Susan Higgins (Chair), Sandy Burgess, Nancy Dillon,
Joyce Hermon, Toni Musante
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT: John Swain
INVITED PARTICIPANTS AND GUESTS: Eric Magers and Aimee Voerman (Seaside
Sustainability), Ben Wildrick (Brookwood School), Bruce Swanson, Karen Thaw
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes of the July 2019 meeting were not available for the meeting
and will be presented for approval at the next meeting. The August meeting was cancelled.
Treasurer's Report
Burgess reported that approved expenditures for the month included reimbursement to Charlie Perlo
for Senior Day expenses ($509) and reimbursement to Jen Bissett for the sponsorship of the
screening of A Plastic Ocean ($324). A donation from the Beverly Rotary Club to sponsor the
Styrofoam collection event was deposited into the account ($600). The current account balance is
$25,420.54. Burgess reported that she returned bottles and cans from Lobsterfest, which amounted
to $7.45. Dillon moved to donate the bottle return funds to Beverly Bootstraps, as we have done in
past years; Hermon seconded. The motion passed (5 -0).
Styrofoam Collection Event
Joyce has confirmed our event date of Saturday, November 2nd with Gold Circuit. Higgins
summarized discussions with the Beverly Music & Performing Arts Association ( BMPAA), which
has held an electronics collection event on this same date at the high school for the past several
years. Higgins and the BMPAA explored the possibility of hosting a joint event. Due to
challenging logistics and other complications, BMPAA decided to move their electronics collection
event to the following weekend. Mary Barthelmes has drafted a flyer; she will be making some
edits to it in the upcoming days, and then we will circulate it for review and distribution. Promotion
of the event is a top priority. A formal thank you letter is still owed to the Rotary.
Promoting and Expanding Curbside Composting
Since the last meeting, Dillon and Swain have been working on compiling notes and ideas for
expanding the curbside composting program, building on discussions from the July meeting. Nancy
provided a high -level overview of their work. Key recommendations include:
• Reaching out to realtors (need to develop promotional material)
• Advertisements in newspapers (need to research cost)
• Surveying businesses (Do they compost? If no, why not? What are the barriers ?)
• Advocate for Black Earth to do an exit survey
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Meeting Minutes —September 5, 2019
• Emphasize the referral program; are their other or better incentives?
• Door -to -door canvasing (need promotional material)
• Brochures at City Hall and tabling at more events
• BevCam programming
• Meetings with civic associations
• Outreach to schools
Dillon wrapped up with a suggestion that we focus on developing promotional materials, to enable
the outreach outlined above.
Higgins provided a summary of current program statistics. At the start of the year, we had 1039
participants. Black Earth discovered that there were many participants that had not renewed /paid
but were continuing to use the service. Those households were dropped from the program in
March, bringing the numbers down to less than 900. Since then, many of those households have re-
subscribed. As of July 1, 2019, we were back up to 1048 participants. We continue to have at least
a dozen new signups each month. Soon we will need to consider restocking the bin supply, which
will require discussions with the City about who pays for the bins and where they will be stored.
The Committee agreed to invite Black Earth to a future meeting to explore ideas for expanding the
program and to discuss potential concerns with service.
Polystyrene and Straws — Efforts for Proposed Ordinance
Higgins thanked Ben Wildrick (Brookwood School) and Eric Magers and Aimee Voerman (Seaside
Sustainability) for joining us at the meeting. Eric provided a brief overview of Seaside
Sustainability and gave an introduction to the work they have been doing on polystyrene initiatives
including local success stories. Ben updated the committee about the work his students (currently
fourth graders) did last year, including letters they wrote to Beverly City Council about their studies
of this topic and their concerns. Several City Councilors offered a range of support around this
topic, including Julie Flowers and Estelle Rand.
Eric suggested that we consider a comprehensive polystyrene ordinance that covers straws, stirrers,
and hotstoppers. Seaside has draft language for such an ordinance. We talked a bit about who
would draft and lead the ordinance, and concluded it would likely have to be a Councilor with
background information and template information that we could all provide. We also talked about
what work would need to be done to build more support. Eric noted that in Gloucester, they did a
lot of leg work connecting with local businesses — they dropped off letters to every business in
town. We agreed it would be important to get one or more City Councilors on board and sitting at
the table for discussion as soon as possible. Higgins advised that in drafting an ordinance for
Beverly, we need to be mindful of enforcement. Enforcement would likely fall to the Board of
Health, which is not directly involved in day -to -day waste management activities. In addition, the
Health Department has limited staff. We may need to give consideration to certain exemptions in a
polystyrene ban, to facilitate implementation and enforcement. Ben commented how it often takes
time for a business to catch up and be prepared to follow the ordinance (i.e., use up existing stock).
Ben agreed to compile information about the work his students have done, in order to re- educate
City Council about the issue and the objectives of an ordinance. He told the Committee that his
students talked to a lot of businesses and found that there are many challenges the businesses would
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Meeting Minutes —September 5, 2019
face. The students also found through their research that there is support for this initiative. This
information can be compiled to engage City Council in a discussion and have a call to action. We
also discussed that we should engage the Mayor's Office in this effort early in the process.
As a group, we talked about other ways to reach out to the community and build support for an
ordinance. Eric suggested we consider petitions (on line and /or in paper), and other ways like
change.org.
Old Business and Other Updates
Higgins provided a brief update of Lobsterfest. Thank you to everyone that volunteered and
participated. The rain made it a bit challenging, but most things went very well. We separated chip
bags again this year, and delivered more than 500 emptied, flattened bags to Subaru for recycling
through the Terracycle program. We also collected film plastic this year, including a large amount
from the catering station (water bottle case wrapping, sausage roll bags, ice bags, etc.). The film
plastic was delivered to Shaws and Market Basket. Next year, we need to put a bottle and can bin
over by the catering station. A lot of bottles were ending up in the trash. We recovered what we
could, but if we give them a convenient bin we will likely collect more. The caterer made a switch
to reusable lobster crates, which eliminated the waxed cardboard we had in past years. This was a
fantastic change. Another great change was the switch to Simple Green to clean the tables, so all of
the paper towels used in the cleaning process could be composted.
Dillon and Burgess volunteered at Senior Day, which was moved to the high school because of the
weather. They reported that the event resulted in just one bag of trash!
Upcoming Events
Higgins reminded the Committee about the September Municipal Recycling Council meeting,
which is focused on Composting. Two members of our Committee plan to attend (Higgins, Swain).
Some of the topics of interest are drop -off composting programs, and outreach/educational efforts.
This is a great opportunity to learn about other models that municipalities are using and become
familiar with other composting companies.
The other upcoming event is the Electric Vehicle and Sustainability Fair at BHS on September 14tH
Burgess, Herman and Swain plan to attend and set up a table on composting. We discussed
logistics and items needed for the event.
Other Updates and Discussion Items by Committee Members
No updates or discussion items.
Adjournment
There being no further discussion this evening, the meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm.
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