Title
A committee discussion on issues related to recycling in public places and at special events. The discussion will also cover issues related to recovering organics at special events.
Body
As part of the City of Madison's commitment to zero waste, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee will be discussing the status of recycling in public places such as the State Street Mall, City parks and bus shelters, and street corners. The Committee will also be looking at the recycling at special events and at issues surrounding the recovery of organics from special events. The Committee will look at how we got to our current situation, barriers to improvement and try to develop a plan to increase recovery of materials and prepare to recover more organics as we move closer to an organics program.
Notes from 8/7/14
The committee discussed issues surrounding recycling in public places and away form home. Parks does not require recycling for all of its permits. Recycling is required with events that have Street Use permits. The Concerts on the Square program is unique. They have volunteers that direct concert goers to the proper container for their material.
Areas for the committee to look at include convenience stores and gas stations, public spaces like street corners and especially parks, shopping malls. Many difference areas of responsibility. Streets, Parks, and Building Inspection are all involved in one way or another. Staff will work to get representatives form Parks and BI to attend future meetings.
Streets may wish to consider doing an audit of street corner litter containers to find out what is in them and where the greatest concentration of recyclables in the trash occurs. Corners/bus stops are hampered by lack of space for two containers. Recycling and refuse containers ned to be side by side or very close to each other for it to work.
Notes from 9/4/14
The committee did not have time to take up this item.
Notes from 3/5/2015
Concerning SWAC request to address increasing the recycling in parks.
Charlie Romines provides update.
Description of current recycling program for Mall Concourse & General Parks.
Mall Concourse (State St.): 7 day trash collections with seasonal variability. Recycling is collected 6-7 days per week. Material is typically 50/50 trash/recycling in the recycling containers. The recycling material volume tends to be higher on State St than in General Parks.
Collection of recycling material in General Parks occurs during mowing season.” Collections are use based and frequency varies from park to park. At a minimum there is a weekly recycling collection.
Special events are required to submit a Refuse/Recycling plan as part of permitting process. Permits are approved by the Park Commission. There is no enforcement mechanism for complying with the recycling component of the submission. There seems to be no problem with compliance, but there is no real data on outcomes.
Concerts on the Square is the best model for a special event that enhances recycling compliance due to volunteer input.
Parks has 3 garbage trucks for trash and borrows 2 trucks from Streets for recycling collection. The initial program for recycling collection was a $5000 pilot program for seasonal employees to perform the collection. The pilot either ended or was folded into the Parks budget. Not sure but the collection continues. Recycling collection occurs at major parks, park structures and some athletic fields based on usage. There is a lot of contamination in park recycling containers, which a look the same as the trash containers but have signage.
Parks staff are engaged in recycling efforts and interested in the programs success.
Parks has budget for new containers for recycling in 2016. These will look different than the trash containers. This should increase utilization. They will be distributed according to park usage.
Parks provides recycling containers for Concerts on the Square. Not sure how this arrangement began. These containers can be made available to other city agencies but not to the general public. Other Special Events use clear streams available from the Streets Division. Streets will increase promotion of clear stream availability for Special Events.
General discussion concerning ways to increase recycling in parks. Parks Staff would like to increase frequency of recycling collection. Implementation of additional programs for increasing recycling in parks may not be the highest priority of parks management at this time due to the priority of other concerns.
Using a carrot/stick model for Special Events & shelter rentals may not be viable within the current cost structure.
Additional discussion on State St recycling. Better in general than in parks. Could a volunteer model work on State St? Could additional revenue be generated, i.e. advertising on trash cans, etc?
Resident/Neighborhood Associations could adopt parks for increased recycling by purchasing additional carts and rolling carts to the curb on the scheduled recycling day. This already occurs at Orton Park and could be expanded to other parks. Funds could be available through Community Development Grants and Neighborhood Association funds. Carts in the program should be decaled or identified in some way.
Discussion on possible funding for study on recycling in parks. Probably not a budgetary priority at parks right now. Council policy analyst could be consulted or council could budget for a consultant for a broader study.
Increase guidance with application materials for shelter rentals and Special Event permit. Parks should inform applicants of the availability of clear streams through the Streets Division.
Recycling issue could be addressed to the Parks Long Range Planning Committee.
November, 2015
The Committee discussed this issue at length at the November 5th meeting. Staff informed the Committee that no new funds will be in the 2016 budget. The Committee recommended that staff insure that all permits for park shelter and picnic reservation include recycling information and instructions on how to get recycling containers form both Streets and Parks. Staff will work with Ald Eskrich about plans for Monroe Street reconstruction.