Gregory Butler, Action Team Lead
Meetings first Tuesday of each month, 6:00-7:30pm
Notes from previous meetings
4/1/21
- Tracy’s students submitted their single-use plastics project last night
- Council Member LeGris tackling city-wide backyard composting
- Joining next month?
- High schools are encouraging students to compost
- Soil to Salsa to Soil
- Held at BCTC Newtown Campus
- Can we piggyback for publicity?
- Social media contest with compost piles
- Weirdest thing growing from your pile?
- Most creative pile?
- “Can I eat this?”
- Use BGGS Facebook page
- Get local, city government officials involved?
- Single-use plastics
- Bags are a big problem
- Encourage people to take them back to the store?
- What happens after they are put into recycling bins at the store?
- Find out from processors and work backwards
- Encourage the use of reusable bags
- What can Lexington do to set an example?
- Composting needs
- Written instructions–have, from Arin
- Info-graph
- Social media campaign with city involvement and contests
- Pressure City Council
3/4/2021
- Environmental Commission is on the schedule for May to present to the Council Environmental Committee via Zoom
- Arin’s compost bin has had some wear and tear from the ice storm
- LeGris next month?
- Arin writing step-by-step instructions for composting to tide Lexington over until LFUCG gets a city-wide composting program
- Joanne: once people start composting they realize how much they waste and so their food waste tends to go down
- NYC tested giving everyone compost buckets and their food waste went down as a result
- Eventually you end up with a surplus of compost
- Need the city to have a dedicated sustainability team/coordinator who can lead initiatives
- Wish-cycling: putting non-recyclable items in recycling, hoping that they will/can be recycled
- Incentives for composting and recycling
- Make composting mandatory
- Examples on West Coast
- Framed as reducing our carbon (methane)
- In KY, it’s already illegal to put green waste in landfill
- Recycling: monetary incentives?
- City needs to lead
- Make composting mandatory
- Backyard composting campaign/how to
- Partner with Live Green Lex?
- Break it down into a small number of steps; make it easy and simple to do
- How to start
- Start with 3 items & a container
- Paper towels, banana peels, and coffee grounds (for example)
- People are more likely to do it if it’s easy
- Arin is going to write a simple step-by-step for BGGS
- Need to get past stigma of composting and disprove some myths
- Start with 3 items & a container
- Maybe a visual guide?
- Tracy’s class could make a composting infographic
- General how-to
- Myths debunked
- Things your compost pile will love
- Uses; what to do when your compost is done
- Seedleaf tried to teach the community how to compost and get restaurants to compost
- People lost interest
- Lack of city support
- Some city council members are interested in composting because of yard waste problem
- Colorado grinds their glass very fine and puts it in their compost (could solve Lexington’s glass recycling problem!)
- Transferring glass to recycling is prohibited in Colorado
- Resource Map
- Get started ????
- Make excel sheet and send to group
2/4/2021
- Lois–sat in on Environmental Commission meeting on 1/11; Commission has 2 objectives, including reducing use of single-use plastics; Paul says timeline around March/April for proposal/publication (not a ban); Surfrider Foundation’s Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act (BFFPP) in Congress–one part is put onus of recycling on producers instead of consumers–Health Bill 5842 Senate Bill 6243; no KY representatives have supported
- Plastic bans in other cities
- Tracy’s class can research how other cities have implemented single-use plastic bans
- Environmental Commission’s plan: to have city implement plastics reduction and to educate council and general public on the issues; not a ban; council is receptive on what city could do to start reducing use of single use plastic
- Arin: what about styrofoam?
- Cheap to make and efficient
- Gasoline byproduct, not oil
- Assisted living and retirement homes have tried to reduce styrofoam use with their residents through education
- Styrofoam has been gradually losing popularity due to international bans for packaging (shipping)
- Currently an increase in use for food due to pandemic and increase in takeout
- Tracy: is this a good time because of so many people ordering food out?
- Encourage restaurants to ask customers if they want disposable plasticware
- Arin, composting: Councilmember LeGris is coming to our next meeting to talk about backyard composting; doing container composting
- Paul: city is in process of trying to put out information/plan for improving yard waste handling; including composting increases quality of final product
- Education is important
- Digesters are super expensive and need a steady stream of compost once you install one; yard and food waste would go into the same processor
- Yard waste is chopped up as opposed to food waste and food waste can gum up the yard waste processing machines
- Andrea: promotion and recruitment
- Lightening lecture or lunch and learn about what the team’s been working on
- Current focuses are on single-use plastics and composting; would be the most appealing to the general public?
- Lois: fact sheets; everyone follow the same format; an action item for general public to do to help team
- Arin: each team have their own FB page would make it easier to recruit
- Need for Sustainability Coordinator or Team at LFUCG
- Could save money for city’s government
- Good collaboration opportunity for all four teams
- Another collaboration opportunity: resource map
- City drop offs for recycling and landfills
- Plastic bag recycling
- Electronic recycling
- Start from basics and add on
- Treehouse Composting
- How far down the rabbit hole do we go?
- City drop offs for recycling and landfills
1/7/2021
- The group has been focusing on a single-use plastic ban.
- Everyone in attendance was encouraged to listen in to the Environmental Commission meetings which occur once/month. They’re open to the public and are listed on the Lexington City website.
10/15/2020
- Arin has started a plastic bin compost
- will turn it into “blog”-style composting tutorial
- wants to do how-to for apartment composting
- Giulia collaborating
- share on KLB and BGGS social media
- Newsletter
- Lois will send Giulia article for newsletter
- New Director of Sustainability for Lexington?
- a group member is reaching out to Julie Donna of Louisville
- Reach out to government to affect legislation
- tax on single-use plastics versus ban
- Judith is starting research to address single-use plastics in 2021
- Future collaboration with Zero-Waste Team of the Sierra Club
- Also, work with Treehouse Compost (Arin is working on this)–potential to work on a grant
8/27/2020
Glass
- Push its use in concrete
- Can use as sand
- Benefits but may be a challenge to convince city to do it
- Need a buyer
- Ale8? How does their glass recycling system work?
- Separated by color=more profitable/valuable
- Is separating bottles easier than grinding them down?
- Drop-off locations for glass w/separation
- Canopy in Louisville organization
Plastics
- Loop Products as alternative
- We’re currently so reliant on single-use plastics because of pandemic that this may need to be tabled for now
- Need easy, free solutions
Composting
- UK’s composting program
- Frankfort–animal composting program
- Seedleaf has shifted focus from composting
- Champion backyard composting?
- Reduces landfill waste
- Videos
- Final goal?
- City sponsored composting program
- Online composting workshops?
- Use Peace Meal gardens
- Post on social media
- Arboretum?
Newsletter
- Resources and info from research that team members have gathered
6/25/2020
- Glass recycling
- Rumpke
- Bourbon industry
- Contamination
- Glass plant in Harrodsburg
- Make glass locally
- Reach out to them?
- Recycle glass locally
- Textiles
- Simple Recycling: turns textiles into insulation
- Grant opportunity
- Use to build a rain garden?
- Backyard composting program
- Possibly collaborate with the Food Team?
- Goal should reflect the community
- Prioritize our 4 focuses–homework
- Make a goal, then find the funding?
- Prioritizing our goals
- Lexington waste is mostly food, then textiles (apart from actual garbage)
- Tackle the easiest first?
- Assign tasks to team members–Action Items
- Share what we know and what we don’t know
6/4/2020
- 4 target areas
- Single-use plastics
- Recycling glass and paper
- Textiles
- Backyard composting
- Multiple options with glass recycling
- Where does our glass go after MRF? Atlanta
- We are not separating glass at MRF
- Facility in OH requires separation by color
- Lexington is paying for transportation of the glass
- Costs more to recycle glass than to just throw away right now
- Rumpke recycles their own glass in their own facility
- Purple trailers/dumpsters for glass to help Lexington organize it
- Composting
- USDA grants for local governments for composting/food waste
- Cruch(?)–resource?
- Grass clippings? Where do they go from curbside?
- Keeneland waste goes to landfill, not compost facility for city; same with KY Horse Farm
- Single-use plastics
- 1 thing we can champion?
4/23/2020
- Need to address “organics”
- Define; re: yard waste vs. food waste
- Food waste does not equal composting
- A virtual composting workshop exists for Franklin County
- Common misconceptions about composting
- DIYs–make your own compost for cheap
- 75-100 people reached per post
- Common issues people have
- Include yard waste
- Single-use plastics
- Bag bans: deposit every time you use a plastic bag
- WIC and EBT exempt
- City may appreciate revenue from a bag ban?
- Which single-use plastics do we want to focus on?
- Voluntary programs first before mandated
- Bag bans: deposit every time you use a plastic bag
- Glass recycling
- Purple bins in the future?
- Needs to be separate from rest of recycling
- Would be something we’d need to advocate for
- We don’t use as much glass as as we used to so may not be feasible
- Gpi.org (?) may help set up purple bins
- Serdc.org may be helpful too
- Difference between contaminated glass vs. other
- A Team Member’s students at BCTC researched sustainability programs in
- Ann Arbor
- Cincinnati
- Durham
- Ft. Collins
- Indianapolis
- Louisville
- Madison
- Textile recycling
- Through Goodwill
- Can be ground up & reused
- Can be sent overseas
- New goals/focuses
- Composting at home
- Textile recycling
- Glass recycling
- Single-use plastics
3/26/2020
- Books for researching advocacy
- Community Toolbox, chapter 30
- Psychologist’s Toolbox for Social Advocacy
- Don’t forget goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. goals
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-based
- Two team members will spearhead research about what other cities are doing
- BCTC students are doing project on it
- Cities discussed to be researched:
- Durham
- Madison
- Lincoln
- Fort Collins
- Eugene
- Ann Arbor
- Montréal
- San Jose
- Minneapolis
- Louisville
- Cincinnati
- Indianapolis
- A team member will take over researching information gaps
2/27/2020
- Ground rules: respect time and opinions
- Goals of Action Team
- Small actions
- Don’t want to be duplicative
- Educate
- City already does good job communicating & educating
- Build trust between civilians and recycling organizations
- What is actually happening to the recycling?
- Brainstorming session:
- Video of where recycling goes from bin to plant
- Kroger bags? Share video on Trash Talk page on Facebook?
- Compost & restaurants
- Collect & share information
- Trash Talk on Facebook
- Kroger—be a Zero Hero
- Whole Foods
- Refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle—educate
- Compile list of waste resources
- Citizen Environmental Academy
- Borrow ideas from other cities
- Sustainability plan—put out in 2012
- Empower Lexington
- Environmental Commission—meeting early March
- Choose to Refuse Lexington
- Changing the culture
- Go to businesses most impacted by single-use ban
- Get them on board
- Educate them about what the public is expecting
- Recognition
- Video of where recycling goes from bin to plant
- What do we want to occur from the actions of our team?
- Bring back brainstorms for next meeting:
- What other cities are doing
- What we know/think of
- Review gaps/repositories
- “Welcome to Lexington” packet include recycling information?
- Improve repositories/mass knowledge
- Advocacy
- Bring back brainstorms for next meeting:
Notes from previous meetings
3/4/2021
- Environmental Commission is on the schedule for May to present to the Council Environmental Committee via Zoom
- Arin’s compost bin has had some wear and tear from the ice storm
- LeGris next month?
- Arin writing step-by-step instructions for composting to tide Lexington over until LFUCG gets a city-wide composting program
- Joanne: once people start composting they realize how much they waste and so their food waste tends to go down
- NYC tested giving everyone compost buckets and their food waste went down as a result
- Eventually you end up with a surplus of compost
- Need the city to have a dedicated sustainability team/coordinator who can lead initiatives
- Wish-cycling: putting non-recyclable items in recycling, hoping that they will/can be recycled
- Incentives for composting and recycling
- Make composting mandatory
- Examples on West Coast
- Framed as reducing our carbon (methane)
- In KY, it’s already illegal to put green waste in landfill
- Recycling: monetary incentives?
- City needs to lead
- Make composting mandatory
- Backyard composting campaign/how to
- Partner with Live Green Lex?
- Break it down into a small number of steps; make it easy and simple to do
- How to start
- Start with 3 items & a container
- Paper towels, banana peels, and coffee grounds (for example)
- People are more likely to do it if it’s easy
- Arin is going to write a simple step-by-step for BGGS
- Need to get past stigma of composting and disprove some myths
- Start with 3 items & a container
- Maybe a visual guide?
- Tracy’s class could make a composting infographic
- General how-to
- Myths debunked
- Things your compost pile will love
- Uses; what to do when your compost is done
- Seedleaf tried to teach the community how to compost and get restaurants to compost
- People lost interest
- Lack of city support
- Some city council members are interested in composting because of yard waste problem
- Colorado grinds their glass very fine and puts it in their compost (could solve Lexington’s glass recycling problem!)
- Transferring glass to recycling is prohibited in Colorado
- Resource Map
- Get started ????
- Make excel sheet and send to group
2/4/2021
- Lois–sat in on Environmental Commission meeting on 1/11; Commission has 2 objectives, including reducing use of single-use plastics; Paul says timeline around March/April for proposal/publication (not a ban); Surfrider Foundation’s Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act (BFFPP) in Congress–one part is put onus of recycling on producers instead of consumers–Health Bill 5842 Senate Bill 6243; no KY representatives have supported
- Plastic bans in other cities
- Tracy’s class can research how other cities have implemented single-use plastic bans
- Environmental Commission’s plan: to have city implement plastics reduction and to educate council and general public on the issues; not a ban; council is receptive on what city could do to start reducing use of single use plastic
- Arin: what about styrofoam?
- Cheap to make and efficient
- Gasoline byproduct, not oil
- Assisted living and retirement homes have tried to reduce styrofoam use with their residents through education
- Styrofoam has been gradually losing popularity due to international bans for packaging (shipping)
- Currently an increase in use for food due to pandemic and increase in takeout
- Tracy: is this a good time because of so many people ordering food out?
- Encourage restaurants to ask customers if they want disposable plasticware
- Arin, composting: Councilmember LeGris is coming to our next meeting to talk about backyard composting; doing container composting
- Paul: city is in process of trying to put out information/plan for improving yard waste handling; including composting increases quality of final product
- Education is important
- Digesters are super expensive and need a steady stream of compost once you install one; yard and food waste would go into the same processor
- Yard waste is chopped up as opposed to food waste and food waste can gum up the yard waste processing machines
- Andrea: promotion and recruitment
- Lightening lecture or lunch and learn about what the team’s been working on
- Current focuses are on single-use plastics and composting; would be the most appealing to the general public?
- Lois: fact sheets; everyone follow the same format; an action item for general public to do to help team
- Arin: each team have their own FB page would make it easier to recruit
- Need for Sustainability Coordinator or Team at LFUCG
- Could save money for city’s government
- Good collaboration opportunity for all four teams
- Another collaboration opportunity: resource map
- City drop offs for recycling and landfills
- Plastic bag recycling
- Electronic recycling
- Start from basics and add on
- Treehouse Composting
- How far down the rabbit hole do we go?
- City drop offs for recycling and landfills
1/7/2021
- The group has been focusing on a single-use plastic ban.
- Everyone in attendance was encouraged to listen in to the Environmental Commission meetings which occur once/month. They’re open to the public and are listed on the Lexington City website.
10/15/2020
- Arin has started a plastic bin compost
- will turn it into “blog”-style composting tutorial
- wants to do how-to for apartment composting
- Giulia collaborating
- share on KLB and BGGS social media
- Newsletter
- Lois will send Giulia article for newsletter
- New Director of Sustainability for Lexington?
- a group member is reaching out to Julie Donna of Louisville
- Reach out to government to affect legislation
- tax on single-use plastics versus ban
- Judith is starting research to address single-use plastics in 2021
- Future collaboration with Zero-Waste Team of the Sierra Club
- Also, work with Treehouse Compost (Arin is working on this)–potential to work on a grant
8/27/2020
Glass
- Push its use in concrete
- Can use as sand
- Benefits but may be a challenge to convince city to do it
- Need a buyer
- Ale8? How does their glass recycling system work?
- Separated by color=more profitable/valuable
- Is separating bottles easier than grinding them down?
- Drop-off locations for glass w/separation
- Canopy in Louisville organization
Plastics
- Loop Products as alternative
- We’re currently so reliant on single-use plastics because of pandemic that this may need to be tabled for now
- Need easy, free solutions
Composting
- UK’s composting program
- Frankfort–animal composting program
- Seedleaf has shifted focus from composting
- Champion backyard composting?
- Reduces landfill waste
- Videos
- Final goal?
- City sponsored composting program
- Online composting workshops?
- Use Peace Meal gardens
- Post on social media
- Arboretum?
Newsletter
- Resources and info from research that team members have gathered
6/25/2020
- Glass recycling
- Rumpke
- Bourbon industry
- Contamination
- Glass plant in Harrodsburg
- Make glass locally
- Reach out to them?
- Recycle glass locally
- Textiles
- Simple Recycling: turns textiles into insulation
- Grant opportunity
- Use to build a rain garden?
- Backyard composting program
- Possibly collaborate with the Food Team?
- Goal should reflect the community
- Prioritize our 4 focuses–homework
- Make a goal, then find the funding?
- Prioritizing our goals
- Lexington waste is mostly food, then textiles (apart from actual garbage)
- Tackle the easiest first?
- Assign tasks to team members–Action Items
- Share what we know and what we don’t know
6/4/2020
- 4 target areas
- Single-use plastics
- Recycling glass and paper
- Textiles
- Backyard composting
- Multiple options with glass recycling
- Where does our glass go after MRF? Atlanta
- We are not separating glass at MRF
- Facility in OH requires separation by color
- Lexington is paying for transportation of the glass
- Costs more to recycle glass than to just throw away right now
- Rumpke recycles their own glass in their own facility
- Purple trailers/dumpsters for glass to help Lexington organize it
- Composting
- USDA grants for local governments for composting/food waste
- Cruch(?)–resource?
- Grass clippings? Where do they go from curbside?
- Keeneland waste goes to landfill, not compost facility for city; same with KY Horse Farm
- Single-use plastics
- 1 thing we can champion?
4/23/2020
- Need to address “organics”
- Define; re: yard waste vs. food waste
- Food waste does not equal composting
- A virtual composting workshop exists for Franklin County
- Common misconceptions about composting
- DIYs–make your own compost for cheap
- 75-100 people reached per post
- Common issues people have
- Include yard waste
- Single-use plastics
- Bag bans: deposit every time you use a plastic bag
- WIC and EBT exempt
- City may appreciate revenue from a bag ban?
- Which single-use plastics do we want to focus on?
- Voluntary programs first before mandated
- Bag bans: deposit every time you use a plastic bag
- Glass recycling
- Purple bins in the future?
- Needs to be separate from rest of recycling
- Would be something we’d need to advocate for
- We don’t use as much glass as as we used to so may not be feasible
- Gpi.org (?) may help set up purple bins
- Serdc.org may be helpful too
- Difference between contaminated glass vs. other
- A Team Member’s students at BCTC researched sustainability programs in
- Ann Arbor
- Cincinnati
- Durham
- Ft. Collins
- Indianapolis
- Louisville
- Madison
- Textile recycling
- Through Goodwill
- Can be ground up & reused
- Can be sent overseas
- New goals/focuses
- Composting at home
- Textile recycling
- Glass recycling
- Single-use plastics
3/26/2020
- Books for researching advocacy
- Community Toolbox, chapter 30
- Psychologist’s Toolbox for Social Advocacy
- Don’t forget goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. goals
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-based
- Two team members will spearhead research about what other cities are doing
- BCTC students are doing project on it
- Cities discussed to be researched:
- Durham
- Madison
- Lincoln
- Fort Collins
- Eugene
- Ann Arbor
- Montréal
- San Jose
- Minneapolis
- Louisville
- Cincinnati
- Indianapolis
- A team member will take over researching information gaps
2/27/2020
- Ground rules: respect time and opinions
- Goals of Action Team
- Small actions
- Don’t want to be duplicative
- Educate
- City already does good job communicating & educating
- Build trust between civilians and recycling organizations
- What is actually happening to the recycling?
- Brainstorming session:
- Video of where recycling goes from bin to plant
- Kroger bags? Share video on Trash Talk page on Facebook?
- Compost & restaurants
- Collect & share information
- Trash Talk on Facebook
- Kroger—be a Zero Hero
- Whole Foods
- Refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle—educate
- Compile list of waste resources
- Citizen Environmental Academy
- Borrow ideas from other cities
- Sustainability plan—put out in 2012
- Empower Lexington
- Environmental Commission—meeting early March
- Choose to Refuse Lexington
- Changing the culture
- Go to businesses most impacted by single-use ban
- Get them on board
- Educate them about what the public is expecting
- Recognition
- Video of where recycling goes from bin to plant
- What do we want to occur from the actions of our team?
- Bring back brainstorms for next meeting:
- What other cities are doing
- What we know/think of
- Review gaps/repositories
- “Welcome to Lexington” packet include recycling information?
- Improve repositories/mass knowledge
- Advocacy
- Bring back brainstorms for next meeting: