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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - MGG - 07-11-2012MILTON GROWS GREEN COMMITTEE JULY 11, 2012 MINUTES [APPROVED] ORICINAI, Date: July 11, 2012, 6:00 - 7:00 pm (Immediately Followed by National Wildlife Federation Meeting, 7:00 — 8:30 pm) Place: Executive Conference Room, Milton City Hall, 13000 Deerfield Parkway, Milton, GA 30004 Attendees: Cindy Eade, Jack Lindon, Francia Lindon, Kathy Johnson, Amy Peters, Julie Pinckney, Ken Hughes, Lily Pavao and Will Check. I. Agenda: It was posted on the City's web site. II. Approval of Minutes: No minutes were approved. III. Announcements & Updates: Kathy Johnson — Passed the Georgia Bar and is now licensed to practice in Georgia, Florida and New York. Worm Technology - Ken Hughes, PhD, was introduced who talked a bit about his business, Skolex Biotechnologies. Vermiculture is the technology of worm composting. He explained how it works and how and where it's being used. Worms are biological catalysts that breakdown fine ground organic waste that is a problem for landfills such as coffee grounds and organic waste from supermarkets. The technology is synergistic with closed -system composting. The worm "castings" are beneficial for natural fungi and bacteria that, when used as a soil enhancement, improve a soil's ability to better retain water and reduce the need for fertilizer. Trying to get discussion of this into the classrooms. Worm castings can also be molded into small figurines and colored with organic tempera colors and used as fertilizer for potted plants. • Adopt -A -Road — Currently 29 roads are adopted out of 41 that are available. We are in the process of reaffirming those adoptions. There isn't any active outreach to get more people interested in the program. Suggestions were made to put those roads available on the City website. Also have a map and availability list at Earth Day. Cleanups are supposed to be done quarterly. Environmental Education Schools Program — Waste Pro was at a meeting with MGG members to get their help in recycling material at the new Cambridge H.S. Kathy was in the process of getting approval from Birmingham Falls E.S. for the giant "earth balloon" with accompanying lesson plans. Roswell owns it — we pay to rent it for $600/ day. Hoping that if it's tested in one school, others will also want to use it. Solid Waste Survey — There has been 330 responses so far. Very interesting things have come in. We're trying to find out if there's something we can use to incentivize recycling and putting less trucks through neighborhoods. Meeting with Waste Pro very helpful in giving a perspective from the business end of things. Cindy is following up with phone calls from 15 people who had requested them. There are about 12 haulers who are "official" and maybe 3 others who haven't registered with the City. Kathy's experience in her neighborhood going with a single hauler is that the quarterly bill was reduced by $31 and only one truck comes through once a week. Any recommendations for changes to the city ordinance have to be drafted before November when the ordinance goes before City Council for their approval. For example there is no leverage or incentive if haulers don't pay the 5% infrastructure fee. So much boils down to communication. Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes, July 11, 2012 [APPROVED] ALL MILTON GROWS GREEN DOCUMENTS ARE PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER WITI-I AT LEAST 357o POST — CONSUMER CONTENT. Rivers Alive — Annual clean up done in fall. Prospective dates discussed. Initial staging area will be Bailey Farms and Gardens as it has for many years in the past. Tentative date is October 27`''. Need to identify every place a stream crosses a road. We cleaned 15 of these last year although Jack identified 18 sites. Suggestion made to have a Rivers Alive/ Adopt-A-Road/City-wide cleanup on same date. We could collect a lot of trash. Encourage Adopt -A -Road cleanup on same day. They would get recognition and publicity for their efforts. Would have to check to see if we have enough safety vests. We should check with Young Mens Service League to see if we can solicit their help. We could advertise the event at the Milton Roundup. Milton Herald could give publicity for City-wide Cleanup, "Be careful driving on this date." Milton Roundup — Date is October 20t' this year. We should have a booth at this. Talk to HomeDepot about doing a kids activity again like they did at Earth Day. • Adopt -A -Stream — Dr. Bartlett would be a good candidate to bring it to Northwestern M.S. Household Hazardous Waste Collection — Jack and Cindy met with EnviroPro, who have been around for 7 or 8 years. They were much cheaper then the other companies we contacted, about $50/ car. The price is actually based on the volume of specific materials. EnviroPro will go back and look at their records for averages. Volume and weight of what people bring determine the cost. We would have to have a pre -registration and a cutoff number for cars. We're going to be asking City Council to budget $10,000 for 200 cars. We wouldn't have to pay the full amount if we had fewer cars. Paint is usually the main waste product and would be handled separately. We could do this on November 10' if we could get the date changed for Bulky Trash to November 3" Bulky Trash Day for Milton & Roswell — Tentative date is November 10, 2012 this year. Needs to be advertised to Milton residents better. We've gotten about 120 residents in the past. MGG Meeting adjourned at 7:00 m A ITEST: Jon B. McPhail, Co-c it Francia Lindon, Secretary National Wildlife Federation Community Wildlife Habitat Project — Began immediately after MGG meeting with many of the MGG members staying on. Cindy Eade introduced William Check, summer intern and project leader. Additional attendees who joined the meeting at this point included Michele Macintosh -Ross, Joanne Newell, Mike Elkins, Rachael Elkins, Stacey Smith, Jessica Smith — just graduated from Milton H.S. and joined Americore, Lynna Lee, Teresa Stickles, Jonathan Copsey, Fred Salomon, Rach Femo and Marcia O'Shaughnessy. Will gave a PowerPoint presentation which has been posted on the City's website. NWF Meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes, July 11, 2012 [APPROVED]