The Western Finger Lakes Solid Waste Management Authority Board met for its regular monthly meeting at the Authority office in Lyons on Monday, January 23.  The Board re-elected its 2011 officers: Suzanne Earl (Newark, Wayne County ), Chair; Robert Hutteman (Town of Arcadia, Wayne County ), Vice-Chair; Patrick Flynn (Town of Torrey, Yates County ), Secretary; Robert Weichbrodt (Lyons, Wayne County ), Treasurer.

In light of the likely closure of the Authority offices and operations, the Board retained Raymond F. Wager, CPA, P.C., to both perform the 2011 audit and to provide other services to the Authority.  The Authority Board also directed the Administrator to execute the Retainer Agreement with Boylan Code, LLC, as General Counsel to the Authority.

Since the Materials Recovery Facility in the Town of Arcadia has ceased operations, the Authority Board resolved that the employment of the three remaining employees be terminated, effective January 13, 2012.  The Administrator was directed to seek an appraisal from the Steeves Company to determine the fair market value of the equipment.  The Administrator is also directed to seek an appraisal on the Materials Recovery Facility building.  Finally the Administrator is directed to seek quotes from engineering firms for a Phase I review of the Materials Recovery Facility property to assess environmental conditions, estimate clean-up costs, and recommend Phase II action.

The next meeting of the WFLA Board will be on Thursday, February 16 at 5 p.m. at the Authority offices,

            WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is observing Pollution Prevention (P2) Week (September 19-25, 2011) by launching a new tool designed to provide Americans easy access to information about everyday products like home appliances, electronics and cleaning products that can save money, prevent pollution and protect people's health. The new green products web portal is available at  www.epa.gov/greenerproducts

            This week serves to recognize significant pollution prevention work around the country and help consumers get involved in pollution prevention. EPA's new green products web portal is an easy way for all Americans to learn about products that prevent pollution and protect our
environment.

            Using the new tool, consumers can find electronics and appliances that have earned EPA's Energy Star label and can browse WaterSense products that help save energy and water. Additionally, consumers can find information about cleaning products that are safer for the environment and people's health. These products bear the EPA Design for the Environment (DfE) label. The website will also help manufacturers and institutional purchasers with information on standards and criteria for designing greener products.

            "By purchasing greener products, consumers can help reduce air pollution, conserve water and energy, minimize waste and protect their children and families from exposure to toxic chemicals, while also creating green jobs," said Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, "Pollution Prevention is good for our health, our environment and our economy."

            Join the EPA in marking P2 Week this week, and help prevent pollution every day. More information on pollution prevention, P2 Week, and EPA's P2 programs: http://epa.gov/p2/

Message to Economic Development Council  August 31, 2011

I did not know that the meeting of the FL Economic Development Council would be a workshop.  I prepared the following, thinking I would have a chance to speak about recycling and its connection with economic development.

            Good evening.  My name is Marjorie Torelli.  I am the Interim Administrator for the Western Finger Lakes Solid Waste Management Authority.  The Authority serves Wayne and Yates Counties , providing services for solid waste and recycling policies and programs in the two counties.  I have worked for the Authority for 20 years, in large part as a member of the team providing curbside recycling service and education on recycling and composting.

            As a part of my job, I have also served on the board of the professional recyclers’ association, the New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse and Recycling, called NYSAR3.  In that role I also served on a board for the National Recycling Coalition, the long-time national advocate for recycling.

            So, it’s obvious by now that recycling is my message.  I would include composting under that heading.  My hope is that in your search for viable industries to develop the Finger Lakes Region economy that you not only include, but actually emphasize, industries whose raw materials are collected from recycling bins whether in homes or businesses.  3 operating Materials Recover Facilities, called MRFs, accept and process for sale recyclable materials collected from around the Finger Lakes Region from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania state line.  There is one MRF in Ontario County , another in Wayne County , and the last in Monroe County .

            The Western Finger Lakes Authority operates one of those MRFs, located in the Town of Arcadia, Wayne County .  I can only answer for the tonnage of materials that pass through our facility which is the smallest of the three.  In 2010, our MRF processed nearly 5,000 tons of paper, glass, plastic, and metal to be sent to companies that made new products from discarded materials.  We employ 10 people directly processing those products, plus an office staff of 3.  We also employed 7 drivers who collected those materials from households and businesses in Wayne County .  So the collection, processing, marketing and sale of the materials from Wayne County employed 20 people.  This was supported by tax dollars since the Wayne County MRF is subsidized by the County.  Sale of the recycling materials also supported the operations of the MRF.  The two other MRFs are operated in the private sector.

            Downstream employment included drivers who transported the materials and brokers who further marketed the materials to their eventual end users.  Industries around the US , and indeed world-wide are dependent on recyclable materials.

            One of the concerns of those who market recyclable materials is that the end users are so distant.  We are fortunate in this region to have a couple of relatively local end markets for the collected newspaper, cardboard and other forms of paper.  One is in Solvay and the other in Arcade .  The first is a large business with multiple locations.   The second is a small local business with few employees.

However, markets for plastic, one of our most plentiful recycling materials, are mostly located in the South.  Part of what makes recycling expensive is, of course, transportation.  If there were more end-users for the recyclable materials locally, recycling would be more profitable at all levels.

The definition of green jobs from the Bureau of Labor Statistics does include recycling.  However, the description makes recycling sound as if it were a by-product of other endeavors such as reducing waste, energy use or carbon footprint.  Recycling does all of those things, but I hope that you will regard it in its own light, on its own merits.  Someone working in a company that takes used soda bottles and makes them into new carpeting is recycling as his or her primary employment, not as an add-on to other duties.

The Northeast Recycling Council which has representatives on its board from 10 northeast states has published a study of recycling in 5 states, including New York .  The study broke down recycling employment into 3 categories; directly involved in recycling, reliant on recycling or as a part of reuse and remanufacture. According to their study, published in 2009, employment in New York State in those 3 areas totaled over 32,000 jobs.  Payroll was over $1.3 million and receipts were over $10 million.  This is dwarfed by Pennsylvania with employment of over 52,000, payroll over $2 million and receipts over $20 million.  So recycling is a sector that New York State may be missing and one which is primed for development.  There is a broad range of businesses that can be included under the recycling umbrella.

I would like to return to the specific sector of composting as an economic activity that is largely missing in the Finger Lakes region.  Cornell University has a terrific array of composting information ranging from backyard projects to large scale operations.  Their web site includes a map that shows pretty much all of the composting operations in New York State .  The Finger Lakes region is lacking in these facilities.  This is a sector which can provide both strong economic activity and a great benefit to agricultural sector.  As more farmers develop boutique operations for a wide range of products, returning organic material to the soil becomes more and more important.  However, it is difficult to develop large-scale operations in this region to supply that need.

The abundance and variety of dairy, fruit, viticulture and various row-crop and flower operations in the region, as well as food processing, grocery stores, and restaurants provide both feed stock for composting and end-users.  However, the region continues to be very difficult economically for people interested in these operations.

One additional strong benefit in the Finger Lakes Region is that the population is very well educated in the benefits of both recycling and composting.  They are ready to continue or increase the diversion of materials from landfills into new products, given the opportunity.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Council.  I hope that as you consider economic opportunities in the region that will use as feed-stock the plastic, metal, glass, paper and organic materials available.

The following is a post from a list-serve on a variety of environmental issues...

Not having fruit flies in our home was really critical to us because we ferment kombucha, wine and beer. One fruit fly will destroy an entire batch and all the effort that went into it. We also compost in worm bins which can be awful if they get a fruit fly infestation. We truly struggled with this problem and I tried many different traps including the one you built. My desire to minimize waste in our home (especially disposables) means that I don't use plastic wrap. Even so I borrowed some from a neighbor to build these traps you demonstrated. Eventually I found the best success in trapping them actually came from no plastic wrap but instead just adding a drop of dish liquid to the bait liquid (we use apple cider vinegar) and stirring till it dissolves. The soap breaks the tension on the surface of the liquid and the fruit flies cannot touch down on it to feast without falling in and drowning. Perhaps the dish liquid trick will add to your fruit fly arsenal and get even more people composting.

Summer is the time of year when we all have abundant materials to compost.  All those fresh fruits and vegetables provide many materials to put in our compost piles.  However, along with the ripe fruits come fruit flies, a tremendous annoyance.  Here is a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates a way to build a simple, effective fruit fly trap.  The builder uses "sour" red wine, something that I do not have in my house.  However, I have used fruit juice with similar results.  http://www.beyondattitude.com/

            I had the pleasure of volunteering for a few hours at the 20^th Annual Ganondagan Festival of Music and Dance this past weekend.  The Festival is a great opportunity to encounter and participate in Native American music and dance as well as arts and crafts and food.  The Ganondagan State Historic Site is the only one in NYS devoted to Native Americans.

            Since I am pretty well immersed into solid waste and recycling topics all during the work week, I had a busman’s holiday and helped out in particular with the volunteer-staffed areas to sort waste.  David Goldman, a member of the Friends of Ganondagan, is the chair of this effort.  He has done this for at least four years, I believe, and he has the system down to a science.

            The first lesson is to have plenty of 55-gallon barrels into which the waste is sorted according to its destination.  As well as having a central “Waste Collection” station, located near the food vendors and the picnic tables, there were several other stations scattered around the grounds.  At each station barrels were labeled for deposit bottles and cans, other recyclable materials, compostables, and trash.  There was no reason for material to be sorted into the wrong barrel, except for a little confusion with the festival-goers.

            According to Dave’s thank you e-mail this morning to all his volunteers, the amount of waste destined for the landfill has decreased each of the last few years of the festival.  This year he found that for the 2-day festival even a 10-yard dumpster was way too large.  There was no report on the quantity of recyclables and compostables.

            Finding a location for the compost materials is not an easy matter in this region.  Compost facilities cannot compete with the low tipping fees for landfills so the revenue stream would only be for the sale of the compost itself.  This is not a sustainable model.  However, a new company in Rochester has taken the collected organic material and will create bio-fuels. According to the Epiphergy website, “Epiphergy upcycles food and beverage wastes by converting them into ethanol fuel, animal feed, and organic fertilizer.”

            I missed a recent opportunity to visit Epiphergy with a professional group, but I hope to make contact with the owner and take a tour of his facility.

            In the meantime, the Ganondagan Festival and especially its dynamic group of coordinators and volunteers has developed a self-sustaining system for removing valuable materials from the waste stream and returning them to useful life.

Recycling means jobs and economic activity.  People frequently call this office to ask about a location to recycle unwanted electronic items.  Fortunately we have several locations around Wayne County , even in the less populated Towns.  Not as often as previously, but still occasionally, people would like to be paid for their working, and sometimes even non-working, televisions, computers, and printers.  This is understandable.  Electronics are a sizeable investment and it is frustrating seeing a piece of equipment that cost hundreds of dollars reduced to no better than a plastic-wrapped clutch of wires only useful as a door stop.  Sometimes the next response after the answer that no one will pay for old electronics and you are fortunate to be able to dispose of it without paying is, “Well, I think I’ll just throw it in the trash.  That’s free, isn’t it.”

Ahhh…well, yes, throwing the electronics in the trash is essentially free after you pay your garbage company to take it away.  But really, the people who throw away electronics are throwing dollars away.  Recycling electronics produces jobs, jobs, jobs.  It is not magic that extracts the valuable and sometimes toxic materials.  People deconstruct the non-working machines and separate out the plastics, printed circuit boards (very valuable), wires, glass, and heavy metals.  In the greater Rochester region there are at least three profitable firms that I know of that all recycle electronics.  And they are all doing very well, employing dozens of people and putting value back into the economy.

The fact that electronics are being deconstructed into their components and basic materials means that those are going somewhere else to be made into new products.  I’m not just talking about cufflinks made of keyboard letters and clipboards from circuit boards.  I’m talking about high-value, engineered products that someone had to make through skilled labor.

Recycling means jobs and economic activity.  When recyclable materials end up in the landfill it is dollars – lots of dollars – representing jobs and sales and sales tax that is being buried.

If you have questions about electronics recycling, please feel free to call 1.800.724.3867 or e-mail mtorelli@co.wayne.ny.us.

A proclamation by the Wayne County Board of Supervisors will recognize Sharon Lilla for her many years of service as Director of the County Planning Department.  Lilla has announced her retirement, effective Friday, July 8, 2011.  She has also served as the Administrator for the Western Finger Lakes Authority for around 15 years.

The proclamation will be presented at the regular monthly meeting of the Board of Supervisors, Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 7:00 p.m., in the Wayne County Courthouse,

For more information, please check the Wayne County website.

New York State Rechargeable Battery Law

From the on-line newsletter of the Northeast Recycling Council (www.nerc.org)

The "New York State Rechargeable Battery Law" was signed into law on December 10, 2010. This law preempts any local municipal laws on rechargeable batteries including New York City ’s rechargeable battery recycling ordinance.  The law:

• Prohibits the disposal of most rechargeable batteries as solid waste starting December 5, 2011,

   

• Includes any rechargeable nickel-cadmium, sealed lead, lithium ion, nickel metal hydride battery, or any other sealed dry cell battery or battery pack capable of being charged and weighing less than 25 pounds.  (Rechargeable batteries used as the principle electric power source for a vehicle such as, but not limited to, an automobile, boat, truck and tractors, batteries used to store electricity generated by an alternative power source, such as solar or wind driven generators, and for memory backup that is an integral component of an electronic device, are excluded from the legislation),

   

• Requires that by March 10, 2011, battery manufacturers must submit battery management plans detailing how they will meet their obligation to arrange and pay for the collection and recycling of all rechargeable batteries that are returned to retailers, and

   

• Requires manufacturers to provide for public education regarding appropriate ways to recycle rechargeable batteries and submit annual reports with information such as, but not limited to, the number and amount (by weight)  of rechargeable batteries received and recycled in the state and the cost of the collection and recycling effort. 

   

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation is required to provide review and approval of the collection, transportation, and recycling plans; promulgate rules and regulations needed to implement the law; and provide appropriate enforcement.  The Department must also provide a report on an analysis of the manufacturers annual reports to the Governor and the NYS legislature every two years.

Beginning on June 8, 2011, retailers that sell "rechargeable batteries" in New York State will be required to accept up to ten used batteries of the same shape, size and function as they sell from customers for recycling, regardless of whether such person purchases replacement batteries. Retailers must also accept as many such batteries as the consumer purchases from the retailer. Retailers are required to post signs informing consumers of the New York State law prohibiting disposal of rechargeable batteries as a solid waste and that they accept rechargeable batteries for return to the manufacturer. The law requires battery collection by both local retailers and direct sellers of rechargeable batteries (i.e., catalog, telephone, or internet sales).

Non-compliance with the law is subject to potential civil penalties of up to two hundred dollars for the consumer, five hundred dollars for retailers and five thousand dollars for manufacturers.

More information regarding the law can be found on the NYSDEC Website.

Name the health behavior you want to change: smoking, drinking, eating, wearing seat belts, wearing bike helmets, having safe sex, etc. -- none of them can be changed with just education. Rather, policy is needed to change the environment that people live in to help them make healthier choices. Many articles and books have been written on this subject. Just ask any health educator how hard their job is, especially dietitians.

The above paragraph is copied from an article in Grist (http://www.grist.org/food/2011-06-08-whats-wrong-with-the-usdas-new-myplate-graphic-plenty) about the problems with the federal government guidelines on healthy eating.  However, a light bulb went on in my head on reading what Michelle Simon said about food and government policy.  Excuse me for being a little – no, a LOT – slow on the up-take here.  I guess I drank the Kool-Aid.  Education will solve so many problems.  If we educate the children, the adults will get the message from them.  That is the axiom that we in the recycling industry have espoused for over 20 years.

I will say that my response for many years has been that educating children does not work for two reasons.  First, it’s very hard to get into classrooms to do any education.  Teachers are overwhelmed with requirements and have little to no time and less inclination to allot precious teaching moments to something as arcane and yet mundane as recycling.  We all “get” the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle mantra we’ve been chanting since the first Earth Day.  But who has time or interest in the minutiae of plastic types, glass color, and whether sorting is better than no-sort recycling.  (Of course the former is superior, but that’s just the opinion of someone who tries to get materials into a two-stream recycling facility.)

The second reason that educating the children doesn’t work is that they are not the decision makers.  The model of educating the children works for simple, clearly healthy activities like ceasing to smoke and consistently buckling a seat belt.  Children can be very, very good nags with the adults with whom they spend time.  However, children cannot nag a school district into providing recycling containers in every classroom.  They cannot grab the fruit and vegetable waste from trash cans and put the material into a compost pile.  Schools don’t work that way.

I do not mean to pick on schools only.  It is the decision makers who make policy to enforce healthy habits whether the health is individual or environmental.  Sure, children nagging their adults got many to buckle up, but NYS Troopers holding check points really bring home the lesson.  If people cannot smoke in public places, including the campuses of many schools and hospitals, well, then smoking is very inconvenient and not smoking becomes much more attractive.  These measures are policy moves not education efforts.  Policy (Notice that only one letter separates that word from “police.”) made the difference in many people’s lives.

It was the policy of New York State over twenty years ago to push local governments into managing trash, called “solid waste” in formal terms, in environmentally sound ways.  These new solid waste management edicts included recycling along with closing old, environmentally unhealthy “dumps.”  The progress in 20 years has been amazing.  However, while some counties, towns and villages took those edicts from Albany and ran with them, developing comprehensive systems and adjusting as new problems came along, other places have not done as well, citing “unfunded mandates” as a reason for dragging their feet.

While every municipality in NYS is required to have a law making recycling mandatory, there is no requirement by the state that these local laws have either enforcement written into the ordinance or a minimum list of materials that must be collected for recycling.  This leeway gave local governments the ability to slide through with token programs that depend on individuals’ willingness to participate, not their enforced behavior.  The result is that NYS is a checkerboard of recycling progress alternating with less positive outcomes.  Counties with a 60% rate of diversion and recycling are cheek-by-jowl with counties that have a far lower rate.

In these days of incredibly shrinking public budgets, any policy decision that might carry a price tag is an endangered species. (Please excuse the mixed metaphor.)  The solution to bulging landfills – especially in the Finger Lakes Region – is not an easy one.  It is not a discussion that public officials have much passion for at this time.

Send items to Soldiers through your Town Clerk’s office

The Wayne County Town Clerk/Deputies and Tax Collectors Association have formed a group called Clerks Helping Area Soldiers (CHAS). The Association will be celebrating Christmas in July; in lieu of exchanging Christmas gifts they will be send­ing packages to our Soldiers overseas. The group is asking their local communities in Wayne County for help in filling the packages. The mailing of these packages will be sent at the expense of the Wayne County Clerks/Deputies & Tax Collectors Association. A list of suggested items needed to fill the boxes will be available at your local Town Clerk’s Office upon request. Items must be brought to your Town Clerk’s Office by Wednesday, July 13th.

Let’s show our soldiers that they are not forgotten while they are away.

This item first appeared in the Wayne Times, June 12, 2011.

Thousands of new recycling jobs added in last year

 

By Editorial Staff of Resource Recycling on-line newsletter

New numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, highlighted by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, show that the recycling industry added more than 12,000 jobs between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011.

Preliminary BLS figures put the number of individuals working in the "recyclable materials" industry at over 115,000 for the month of March. In the same month last year, there were over 103,000 people in the industry, and 2010 closed out with 107,500 people, according to BLS statistics.

"We know that the scrap recycling industry is very healthy and poised to expand further, especially if the federal government takes a reasonable and rational regulatory approach that will create thousands of additional jobs," ISRI President Robin Wiener said in prepared statement. "These new job figures are not entirely unexpected, but they are wholly welcomed."

The BLS numbers come shortly after ISRI announced that the recycling industry has grown 40 percent since 2009 in monetary value, despite the anemic economy

Plastics Recycling Heading Towards Crisis

            People generally like to recycle.  There is a tremendous recycling industry for plastics both domestically and internationally.  The pipeline for recycling plastics is pretty much wide open, but there is very little movement to increase the plastics that are going into the pipeline.  These statements set the stage for the scenario playing out in recycling in the U.S.

            Waste and Recycling News reported in its May 2, 2011 issue that the issue of supply and demand is close to crisis because the demand is outstripping the supply.  Experts in the field disagree about how best to increase that supply.  State and local governments have little cash and less political will to increase the plastics supply.  It would require public education, possibly local ordinances and infrastructure investment to increase recycling materials from people’s homes.  In this time of tight budgets, recycling is getting less not more of the public money.

            One possibility is for the companies that need the plastic as raw material for their processes to make investments in the infrastructure.  In Canada , plastics recyclers are helping to finance collection in public spaces to increase available materials.

            Plastics recycling industry groups are talking about the issues, but not making much progress in improving the situation.

            In the Finger Lakes Region it is great news that Monroe County is increasing the plastics collection program to include all types of plastic containers with #1 - #7 marking.  With some good public education, this will increase the supply of recycling materials, at least locally.

            Recycling educators hear constantly about how little is being recycled in other states.  The missed opportunities for recovering valuable materials are shocking.  That’s from a professional viewpoint.  From a casual, but habitual recycler’s viewpoint it is outrageous that people do not recycle.  It’s as if they did not brush their teeth or mow their lawns.

            In other recycling and waste management developments, more and more companies are developing and succeeding at programs to reduce waste and to send less material to the landfill through recycling.  More significantly, companies are reducing waste through many programs.  The first word in the “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle” mantra has long been ignored, but not by companies that are pursuing zero waste.  After so many years of residential recycling programs and few significant developments in industry, the tide is turning.  One company after another is setting goals for zero waste.  These programs will also help in the supply of materials for recyclers.

            Another major development in waste management is the increasing number of laws that place responsibility for end-of-life recycling on the producers of materials.  In New York State the electronics collection law recently put into effect is already making ripples in the local collection opportunities.  Electronics hold a lot of value in their components as well as some materials that are difficult to manage.  However, entrepreneurs have developed industries based on those waste materials and that recycling pipeline is flowing well.

            In an interesting development, the CEO of Nestle Waters is calling for Extended Producer Responsibility to increase the supply of recycling materials.  Such a law or program is not really necessary in New York State since the returnable bottle act already provides incentive for people to recycle their beverage containers.  However, in the many states that do not have redeemable bottles and may not have convenient recycling, the majority of those bottles are going into the landfills.  Nestle Waters is especially interested in those bottles because it has already invested in factories that use them to make new bottles.  Their investment could become a very valuable museum of wasted opportunity if the bottle-neck (Sorry.  No pun intended) is not opened.

            Recycling is a dynamic industry in the United State and around the globe.  Many companies have invested heavily in manufacturing plants that depend on collecting post-consumer plastics.  While the Finger Lakes Region is doing well with providing recycling opportunities, more could be done.  In many parts of the U.S. , recycling is much less robust and materials are being wasted.