SOLID
WASTE TASK FORCE
Monday,
April 10, 2023 - 11:00 AM
Joe
Pete Wilson, Chairperson
Supervisor
Winemiller called this Solid Waste Task Force meeting to order at 11:08 AM with
the following in attendance: Clayton Barber, Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Shaun
Gillilland, Jim Monty, Tom Scozzafava, Meg Wood, Davina Winemiller, and Jim
Dougan. Ike Tyler and Joe Pete Wilson were excused.
Also
Present: Dina Garvey.
WINEMILLER:
I’m going to call the Solid Waste Task Force meeting to order, please.
Jim,
go ahead.
DOUGAN:
So, just a real quick update. I handed out a few pictures from the glass
pulverizer that we started up last Thursday. Ran a couple of tons of glass out
of it, so first page is just a quick look, looking at the whole unit and then
second we’re filling the hopper and you see some glass going up the
conveyor. Next you see, there’s three
products that come out of this. The 3/8th inch course material and
then after that is a glass sand and then the garbage. It seems to do a pretty
good job of separating even the garbage out of things. Out in the hall here,
right across from the elevator, I have two buckets of one of the course product
and one of the fine sand. So, by all means take a look at it. It does about a ton an hour. So, it’s
going to take a little while, but is a pretty neat product. DEC was there with
us on Thursday when we started it. They confirmed that if we want to use that
glass sand and mix it in with our road sand, you know we can do that. They
accept and they thought that the use of that 3/8th inch minus will
be good for drainage, if you wanted to use it to make French drains around pipe
or if want to mix it with gravel. All of those are all things that they
already, categorically permit for us to do. So, it’s kind of a neat process and
we’ll try and get caught up on that glass here in the near future.
Then
the document that I handed out and I probably didn’t make enough copies, just
goes along with our annual report that send into DEC. That map kind of tells
you the direction that solid waste travels as it goes from the different
transfer stations and then off to the right hand side is a list of the overall quantities
that we handled in 2022. If I have any of your hours wrong on your transfer
stations, let me know, but we try and track when things are open, as well. So,
that’s all that is.
WINEMILLER:
Jim, can you please explain the blue arrows a little bit?
DOUGAN:
Yup, the large blue arrows are showing that from that particular location that
go directly to Franklin County for disposal. The smaller arrows, so those, the
areas where they have those arrows, we actually have scales there. So, solid
waste and C&D is actually weighted are that location before it goes to
Franklin County and then the smaller arrows you see are when things are moving
from one transfer station to another transfer station before they’re eventually
disposed.
BARBER:
So, Chesterfield, it’s actually a Tuesday, Friday, Saturday.
DOUGAN: Okay
BARBER:
It’s 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM
DOUGAN:
Okay, make some adjustments there.
BARBER:
My second question, Jim, what about the clear plastics? How come some towns are
recycling that and some are not?
DOUGAN:
To be honestly with you, some towns are doing it, but when it shows up to us it
still ends in the garbage. That’s what happens.
BARBER:
One of my concners is since I’ve been in office we’ve been watching closely on
our reports and being in the red and the black and actually for the first
quarter of 2022 I’m in the black red for the first time and I mean we have
thought about increasing prices, but I’m paying for the clear plastic.
DOUGAN:
Well, in all honestly, actually the County’s paying for that clear plastic. I
hate to say it, but that’s the fact. When it shows up that way, most of it, it
gets dumped into the same hopper, Serkil looks at it, it doesn’t fit into the
number two plastics that are really the only thing that are being recycled
these days and all of it goes in to the dumpster across the road from the
municipal recycling facility.
BARBER:
Right, but my point is, I am paying the county.
DOUGAN:
You’re not paying on the recyclables. You are paying part of the county levy,
but you aren’t seeing a direct charge for that. The County puts a million
dollars a year into solid waste, even though it’s an enterprise fund. The
County, itself, on top of what is actually billed back to the towns, there’s a
million dollars that the County puts into that funds every year.
BARBER:
Again, that plastic is going into the compactor. My clear plastic.
DOUGAN:
Not at your location, at my location.
BARBER:
Absolutely, I am.
DOUGAN:
So, are you charging someone for it, as solid waste? Then you’re actually
making revenue off of it.
BARBER:
Okay
DOUGAN:
Right, if you’re charging them to throw it away in the compactor, then you’re
making revenue off of it.
BARBER:
But, my point. I’m paying for that, okay, I get your point, alright.
MONTY:
I’ve actually seen recyclables that come in there, because I spend a lot of
time down there, more than I need to, where they’ll come from a community and
dump them into that hopper, where it’s supposed to be #2 only and half of that
is #1. That’s coming from independent transfer stations. So, that now has contaminated
the #2, so Serkil’s not, which they were collecting for free, now they can’t
because they contaminated what they were going to bale up and stuff, so that
gets taken out and gets put in the compactor and gets billed to the County.
DOUGAN:
Yeah, there’s a, so you know, all the recyclables that we get from the
individual transfer stations are relatively dirty. Our source separation is not
very good. You know, I can speak for Davina to know that she’s come in on
Saturdays in St. Armand and basically taken recyclables from people in order
for her to recycle it to try and do a better job, but it’s generally dirty,
what we get from all the town transfer stations and that maybe staffing. I
don’t know the reasons, maybe some people don’t necessarily care. Either way,
what happens is those plastics get dumped into one bin at the municipal
recycling facility and maybe we should all, everybody on this committee to
should take a drive through that at some point, then they get pulled out of
that bin with a skid-steer. Skid-steer pushes them into the baler unit, which
is recessed down in the floor, it’s a large conveyor belt, pushes in, that
conveyor belt goes up, there’s an attendant that sits on the top and like an
assembly line, they’re picking out all the things that aren’t that #2 plastic,
it gets thrown behind them in a dumpster and then it gets wheeled out and goes
as regular garbage and that happens with every process. It happens with the
tin, as well, you know, quite often there’s plastic, there’s glass, there’s
other things mixed with the tin, sometimes it’s bags of garbage. Asking
everybody to do a better job with their attendants at the transfer stations is
a tough thing. You guys have trouble hiring just as much as anybody.
WOOD:
You’re not recycling #1 plastic at all?
DOUGAN:
Nope
WOOD:
Then why are we separating in Schroon Lake, between #1 and #2?
DOUGAN:
There was a time when there was a market for it. You can see that even at the
beginning of this year there was a small market for it and there were 13.7 tons
that they actually were able to recycle of the #1 plastic, you see that on
here. There’s basically no market.
WOOD:
So, we have a whole bin that we don’t need?
DOUGAN:
Right now, with no market for it, probably. Ideally, we would like to.
WOOD:
When you’re pulling the bin, you’re just taking it as garbage?
DOUGAN:
Basically, that is what Serkil is doing with it. If they don’t have a market
for it, that tends to be what happens to it, yes, similar to the glass.
HUGHES:
I might aurge that you want to still continue to separate them, because we’re
trained to do so. So, when there is a market, you’re not retraining and going
back and forth.
WOOD:
I get that.
DOUGAN:
And the goal and the goal of a later thing that we’re going to discuss here,
the goal is that we actually find more ways to recycle more things, right?
That’s part of what our solid waste study that we got a small grant to do,
that’s what it was about was to try and ways to do more recycling and find more
markets for it. There hasn’t been a glass for years and now we think, a market
for glass for years and we think we now have one.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Yes, we have two part-timers. Crown Point closed and we just, you can see what
our tonnage is.
DOUGAN:
Yup
SCOZZAFAVA:
Second to North Elba. I want to talk a minute about the electronics. I spent
Thursday, most of the day going back through emails and I obviously missed an
email that was sent back to me in January, actually earlier than January is
regards to charges for electronics. I found out that they sent it to my old
email address, so we no longer charge for any electronics. We were charging,
because we were paying E-waste to get rid of them. So, that’s all changed now,
because it goes back on the manufacturer has to pay that cost. So, I don’t know
if everybody’s aware of that and we had a run on televisions on Friday and
Saturday, believe me. So, there must have been a lot of people that were just
hording them and then decided to bring them in. But, we still have to store them,
we still have to have a trailer available to put them in and they come and they
pick them up. The way I understand, from what I read and was told that you
cannot any longer charge for electronics.
HUGHES:
There was, I remember receiving the emails. There were some caveats around
that. E-waste is stull charging me, so I am still charging people.
MONTY:
They should be taking them..
SCOZZAFAVA:
My last two invoices from E-waste and believe me we have a trailer, a 40-foot
trailer back there, 0 invoice.
HUGHES:
So, how picks up? Is E-waste still picking
up?
SCOZZAFAVA:
Yes, I immediately contacted. That’s what brought my attention to it, when my
accountant, said, hey, e-waste there’s no, zero balance. They’re not charging
us.
MONTY:
That came from DEC.
SCOZZAFAVA:
Yeah
HUGHES:
The thing was maybe I misunderstood, because you are a recycler…
WOOD:
A collection site.
HUGHES:
Thank you, Meg, and there was some other language and I didn’t think that I was
one or the other.
SCOZZAFAVA:
We have zero balance with E-waste and they’ve been there a couple of times to pick up.
MONTY:
They’ll send you an invoice telling you how much they picked up and the cost is
zero.
HUGHES:
Until I get that, then I won’t charge my people.
SCOZZAFAVA:
We called E-waste and then I sent an email, because I wanted something back in
writing.
HUGHES:
I’ll just confirm that with them.
WOOD:
Are you registered as a collection site with the DEC? Because we were not and I
started that.
MONTY:
That’s a good point.
WOOD:
When you’re registered with the DEC then you’re part of the whole.
HUGHES:
I don’t know if I am registered with the DEC.
DOUGAN:
I haven’t been involved in the other towns, any of the towns as far as
electronics, but I’m registered with DEC for electronics recycling for the
County.
WOOD:
It’s online.
SCOZZAFAVA:
It’s right on their website. Moriah is, you are, Jim. And then the other thing
I heard, you mentioned running in the red and I can tell you that through this whole
operation that’s like, you’re going to be in the black, you’re going to be in
the red, you’re going to be and we raised the rate. We went from $2.5 a bag to
$3.00 a few years ago and literally shot ourselves right in the foot, because
then the volume dropped and everybody was going to private haulers. So, a lot
of that has to do with your private haulers and we got a new private hauler,
doing a great job out of Ticonderoga and you know, we’re seeing the revenues
start to drop a little bit.
BARBER:
Is anybody taking refrigerators?
SCOZZAFAVA:
We do. We have some guy that comes in and drains the freon out of them and we
bring them to George Moore.
MONTY:
He provides the seal? Is it a locate guy?
BARBER:
With us, if you deliver them to him, he’ll take them, drain the freon, I’m
assuming he drains the freon. He takes all microwaves, refrigerators.
MONTY:
Microwaves, E-Waste takes those.
Can
you just explain to everyone, because it looks like Etown/Lewis generates 4,000
tons.
DOUGAN:
Yeah, these are the numbers directly off of what gets sent to DEC.
MONTY:
Right, we share that site, a lot of this is from county, right?
DOUGAN:
Nope, no, actually no, most of that, other than the C&D. The C&D, Tom
accepts C&D in Moriah. So, all C&D gets weighted and gets figured out
of that location, but actually like Essex/Willsboro, that station there
actually comes to the Lewis station, but their numbers are listed down below
here, at not figured into the 4,021 tons of solid waste, that’s all private
haulers.
MONTY:
Okay
DOUGAN:
Everything above you is private haulers, no towns.
MONTY:
That’s private haulers.
SCOZZAFAVA:
And one other thing on these numbers, and we’ve know this for quite a while,
but what’s interesting, Moriah and Ticonderoga are pretty much the same number,
same population, same number of residents and so on and we’re doing twice the
tonnage as Ticonderoga and the reason I point that out, is because we are doing
½ of Westport, except Ike disagrees with that and we’re doing Crown Point, most
of Crown Point.
MONTY:
But, do think it could be because Ti is using Washington County and maybe doing
a better job recycling?
SCOZZAFAVA: Ticonderoga? I mean I’m looking at
their garbage tonnage.
MONTY:
I see what you’re saying, but I am saying there are other factors because the
Washington County landfill isn’t that far from the line.
SCOZZAFAVA:
I think a lot of it in Ti, driving through Ti is private haulers, also.
MONTY:
Could be, yup.
SCOZZAFAVA:
So, I don’t know what’s going to happen.
DOUGAN:
All of the things that you guys are discussing is all, you know, if we can hire
a couple of summer interns, you know we went out to bid for this solid waste
study. We’ve got $40,000.00 to go towards a solid waste study, $20,000.00 which
is grant and $20,000.00 that we have for a match. We out to bid for a
consultant to help us with that, a year ago and the lowest number we got was
over $80,000.00 and they second bidder was $140,000.00 and they were both just
canned studies. So, we’re hoping to hire a couple of summer interns. We reached
out to programs like ESF in Syracuse and there sustainable materials management
program hoping there’s some students from, kids from this area who that’s what
they’re going into. But, a lot of these questions, if we can get a couple of
staff members, we’re going to come right back to you and spend some time at
each of your transfer stations and try to ask some of these questions to do a
solid waste study. The goal is to get this study done under the grant and then
apply under a MRF or a local government efficiency grant for a much bigger
project that would help us with infrastructure to do more recycling, to handle
all of this more efficiently. So, that’s out goal.
WINEMILLER:
I just want to add, I am of the opinion that nothing is going to change with
the recycling issues that are happening in our county, until we get some
assistance on the federal level and what I mean by that is, you know
manufactures, I’m just going to say Tide pods, they make these plastic
containers, they’re really nice, you know, but until Tide is required to take
those back and reuse those, we’re just going to keep floundering, I think and
it’s going to be a big problem. I think most of you have heard from the DEC
that PFOAs in the water, so that’s minuscule, microscopic pieces of plastic
that are ending up in our water supplies. It’s happening right now, it’s
another thing that we’re going to be required to reduce, but they’re literally
coming through the ground and through and the air. So, until we really, as a
country, take some steps and make some laws with some teeth in them that
require manufactures to reuse and reduce our plastic waste, you know I feel
like we can do everything that we can on the county side, but until we get the
entire country involved with it, we’re all going to struggle.
DOUGAN:
It’s a bigger problem than just us, I definitely agree with that and we’re in
the Adirondack Park and we can’t even have our own landfill to even deal with
any of it, so it’s even cost effective for us.
The
only other update that I wanted to give you was regarding the new clause we put
in the contract with Serkil. That clause that said they were going to give us
$25 a ton for every outside hauler that
brought Solid Waste or C&D to them. So, in January and February of this
year we picked up through that just under $20,000.00 in that $25 per ton coming
back, so I’m glad we instituted that
clause in that renewal and we’ll continue to track it.
WINEMILLER:
Thanks Jim, does anyone have any other questions, comments or concerns? We are
adjourned.
AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME
BEFORE THIS SOLID WASTE TASK FORCE IT WAS ADJOURNED AT 11:30 PM.
Respectively
Submitted,
Dina
L. Garvey, Deputy Clerk
Board
of Supervisors