 You can see me now. Okay, thank you everybody who might be watching for your patients Welcome to the public presentation of the CSWD new mirf and the bond vote that we're going to be issuing at The general election on November 8th or that you can get your ballot for now If you just call your town clerk or go to your my voter page and request the ballot for the CSWD Bond vote or the CSWD materials recovery facility. My name is Michelle Morris I'm the director of marketing and communications for the Chittin and Solid Waste district and I'm going to run through about a 15-20 minute presentation that includes a short video. That's all about CSWD first That's about a minute and a half and that'll be immediately followed by a six-minute video that was shot seven years ago At our materials recovery facility or mirf and it just shows you how that facility works Even though it's seven years old nothing has changed there, which is partly why we need a new one so without further delay, I'm going to get started with that and We'll hopefully not have no other technical difficulties and we can move right along Hello, I'm Sarah Reeves executive director of the Chittin and Solid Waste district Our job at CSWD is to help you make less waste and to help you safely handle the waste that you do produce We have answers to your questions on recycling compost hazardous waste and household trash CSWD's facilities manage all kinds of materials Maybe you're familiar with the friendly staff at our drop-off centers where we handle trash Recycling food scraps and so much more or maybe you've brought hazardous waste or leftover paint to the environmental depot Gardeners may know that we mountain compost is made at CSWD's compost facility from local food scraps and leaves Half of Vermont's blue bin recycling is processed at CSWD's publicly owned materials recovery facility We're award-winning educators We advocate for statewide waste reduction policies and we work with local reuse programs to further those goals We do all of this without any revenue from property taxes. We're funded by four main sources These charge at our facilities a fee on every ton of Chittin and County trash disposed in the landfill Revenue from selling materials we collect and process and revenue from products we make like compost and local color paint I invite you to find out more about our services and programs by visiting CSWD net or by giving us a call Thank you for all you do to reduce your waste and to keep from our clean recovery facility video which is on YouTube and so it's going to take me just a minute to get to that because we need to We wanted to be able to show it with the closed captions and that's the only way we could do that So thanks everybody for your patience. I was 17 years old when I took over my family small while skip the ads and Get us going Your blue bin think it's just another place to put your household waste think again The things you put in this blue bin are actually valuable resources that are about to embark on an amazing journey. We call recycling This plastic bottle when it falls into the bin It's about to take a magic carpet ride to a new life. It could become another bottle or something like this fleece This is the first stop on the journey CSWD's materials recovery facility or Murph for short thanks to you more than 80 million pounds of recyclables are processed in this building Each year they go through a wild series of spinning discs speeding conveyor belts whirling magnets It's sort of like a Willy Wonka factory for recyclables when they come out the other side They're shipped off to market to be made into new products Trucks come into this building. We call it the tip floor That's because this is where trucks literally tip their recyclables out onto the floor It can look like quite a mess, but that's only because the Murph hasn't worked its magic yet Another machine a skid steer or a loader pushes it all onto the first conveyor belt Where it heads up the hill and into the pre-sort room The pre-sort room is where the first line of workers take off bags of shredded paper for special handling They also take out items that made it into your bin by mistake like styrofoam plastic bags and hazardous materials It takes concentration and quick hands, but it's important to get these contaminants out now Contaminants lower the value of recyclables and they can get caught into the machinery or even injure workers Cardboard is the first material to be sorted a screening machine with spinning discs pulls off big pieces of cardboard While everything else drops through it onto a conveyor below After the cardboard glass is next your recyclables go through something called a bottle breaker Which does exactly what it sounds like it crushes glass into small pieces That crushed glass falls through a screen onto its own special conveyor The rest of your recyclables are still on the move. They're heading for two more sorting screens We call paper like newspaper and office paper fibers These items float on top of the screens while containers like plastic bottles and metal cans bounce down the hill The fibers head for a conveyor where workers pull out box board and cardboard for separate recycling and They pull off any trash that might have sneaked by the first steps The plastic and metal containers are headed for a special machine called the ballistic screen Whose rows of paddle arms weed out any leftover fibers and drop the containers onto their own conveyor The workers on the next line are looking for plastic containers like jugs tubs and bottles These plastics may end up as plastic or composite lumber bottle caps or even fleece sweaters Each worker on this line is looking for a different type of plastic to sort and each type of plastic needs to be kept separate That's because every type of plastic is different Companies that buy the kind of plastic used in water and soda bottles, for example, don't want other plastics The color of the plastic can also make a difference a Colorless plastic milk jug is worth more because it can be made into more things than one that has been colored orange or blue Next up metal Ferris metals or metals with iron in them are in for a fun ride as they pass under a high-powered Electromagnet which lifts them off the conveyor and drops them down a chute into a bunker below The last sorter on the line is looking for aluminum Aluminum cans aluminum pipe hands big balls of aluminum foil and those products will be recycled into just about any other Product you can think of made of aluminum Aluminum siding engine parts or another aluminum can After all the paper plastics and metal are sorted out They're each billed into giant cubes that weigh up to 1,700 pounds apiece These bills will be loaded onto tractor trailer trucks and sold to companies that will recycle them into new products These bills are worth a lot of money some are worth $30 some are worth more than $700 each year the MRF sells an average of four million dollars worth of recyclables But wait, we're not done yet remember that bottle breaker Well that broken glass took an exciting trip of its own past vacuums fans and magnets that picked out any paper Plastic or metal bits that may have gotten mixed in The glass then goes through a spinning cylinder called a trommel and the end product is used in road building projects And in drainage project That's the end of this part of the amazing journey we call recycling if you were a newspaper or a plastic bottle Your journey would have taken you only a half an hour from door to door If you ever have a question about what you can recycle in chitinon county check out our a to z-list on cswd.net Or give us a call at 872 8111 Thanks for joining us and your recyclables on this amazing journey Remember recycle right so the equipment and people at the MRF can do their job as effectively and safely as possible All right, excellent so That is what happens at the current MRF and Now you're going to see the drawbacks of what that means uh for recycling in chitinon county and basically northern vermont And why we need a new MRF to replace that facility and the way it works at that uh location So here's some more information about the current MRF It was built in 1993 It is at maximum capacity. We can't expand it cswd owns the building the machinery the land and there's just literally no room To expand that building and there's no more room in the building to add modern machinery So it can't expand and there's a single baler. So as claire our staff member who shot that video who or who did that video as she mentioned The everything gets baled and turned into those cubes at the end of the process If the baler breaks, it's the heartbeat of the facility if that goes down We're dead in the water the picture that you see here Reflects three days just three days of recycling that was processed at the MRF when the baler broke And that's the time that took us to repair that Um, that is not good. You need that redundancy. You need that backup. We're going to talk about how we will solve that issue in the new MRF There's also just no flexibility. You can't um tweak the way the material flows. You can't speed it up Slow it down adequately. You can't adapt to different kinds of materials It limits the amount for monitors can recycle We're stuck at a maximum of around 47 000 tons, which is what we're processing now It's inefficient hand sorting. You can see from this picture and the video that we showed There's a lot of manual sorting even though plastics are only about six percent by weight of everything that comes to us for recycling It all all those um containers Glass not glass but plastics and metals have to be hand sorted by humans So that's really inefficient because humans just can't effectively Identify things quickly enough and get them in the right place. They work really hard They do a great job and they do an amazing job with the volume that we're processing in the The way the MRF is set up But we lose valuable recyclables because sometimes they accidentally get tossed onto the floor with the Refuse that's going to go to the landfill or they get stuck to other items Or they end up in the wrong bale sent to the wrong processor and that's just not a great way to process your recyclables The other feature of the current facility as because of its limited space is the storage is extremely limited Which forces us to put baled material outside And it's not good in the summer because the UV sunlight degrades plastics and materials And it's not good in the winter for sure because the moisture and the cold degrades those materials And we cannot put paper outside for obvious reasons So it reduces the quality which means the value is lower when we send those off to market And that hampers our ability to be flexible in how we market. So if we have An awful lot of paper Let's say everybody shut indoors for a global situation like covid and they start ordering online from amazon and we get a lot of cardboard which we are We have to ship that as soon as we get it because we just don't have space to to store it That means we can't ride out any little blips in the market if we wanted to So how will the new MRF address these drawbacks? Well, it's going to provide decades of affordable in-state recyclables processing Art the cswd mirf serves the entire upper half of vermont There's only one other single stream or large mirf single stream meaning you can put it all in one bin and the mirf sorts it out for you There's only one other one in the state and that's in ruttland and it serves the southern half of the state The new mirf will have modern technology to sort recyclables more efficiently and effectively It'll have flexibility to adapt to future recycling demands better conditions for the workers And it'll reduce vermont's carbon footprint by recycling more materials and keeping them close to home And the next slides will go into each of those points in a little more detail But first I want to show you How the current mirf Square footage that's where my cursor is the little blue rectangle Compares with the proposed mirf square footage. So the current mirf is just for comparison sake Obviously that won't be there the new mirf is going to be cited on redmond road in williston on property that cswd owns This up here is redmond road and it's the same road where we have our williston drop-off center And our compost facility and our admin office currently. So that's where it will be located It's just about two and a half miles from the current location Technology benefits of the new mirf it will have what's called optical sorters and eddy currents So we're going to try to keep the jargon limited here, but there are a couple things. I just needed to mention These two features are standard technology in any 21st century mirf These are not out on the far bleeding edge We opted not to go for robotics because those are not quite tested enough now Optical sorters and eddy currents have been in use around the world for decades In fact, the mirf in Rutland uses an eddy current and what that is is it Gives aluminum a positive charge that then repels it into the right bin instead of having having that person having the hand pull aluminum An optical sorter is shown here this orange auto sort machine the materials run underneath it on the conveyor and it pings an infrared laser off of those and the Rate and the how it comes back to that infrared laser as well as many high-speed cameras Shooting that material at the same time Tells it immediately what that material is and then a puff of air can blow it into the correct Bin or up and over a wall that's there. So much faster much more accurate than humans We'll talk about the role for humans in a minute. So this this technology is essential for meeting today's quality standards It'll give us access to more markets closer to home And um higher value for the materials we market It can also help alleviate labor shortages in the video we showed a moment ago about the mirf You saw all those workers picking through the paper We don't have any workers in that room right now because we just can't staff it so We intend to have the same number of jobs at the new mirf But they will be different kinds of jobs that are more desirable and easier to fill So more square footage means a higher quality output for the reasons I just mentioned But also we'll have more and longer conveyors. So you won't have all that piled up material To to weed through and the machines will be better able to identify it and the humans who are doing quality control will be better Able to identify it and pull off any errors that got through It'll give us adequate bail storage We talked about that and all the processing will be indoors since that video that we showed We've added another round another type of glass cleanup equipment But we had to put it outside because we didn't have any more space inside That means it doesn't work effectively for Three or so months out of the year when it's very damp wet and just barely freezing here It gums up the machinery and we have to send that glass Out of state a long way away to get further processed and recycled So future proofing benefits of the new mirf 40 more capacity will equip We equip us for the next 30 years of recycling And it'll have the ability to adapt to evolving packaging who knew that we'd have flat Carriers for beer cans these days that are a very high value plastic But it they act like paper So we take them at our mirf, but they're hard to sort at this facility because we don't have those optical sorters The new mirf it'll be no problem at all Benefits for workers. I mentioned we're going to maintain the current 21 jobs at the current mirf It'll have cleaner brighter Clearly better ventilated working conditions at the new facility folks will be spaced out Um and not as crowded as they are Environmental benefits are significant. So obviously we're going to continue to preserve the dwindling landfill space there's one landfill left in vermont operated by kasella and coventry and by Having a mirf with 40 more capacity our current mirf was designed to process 25 000 tons It is averaging 47 000 tons a year But it's maxed out the new mirf will be able to handle up to 70 000 tons So it'll accommodate growth in population as well as growth in products and packaging that we can process Recycling that kind of tonnage Will conserve more natural resources as shown here all the non-renewable stuff like Mind materials ores mineral sand petroleum products as well as renewables like trees conserving nearly 28 million gallons of gas every year And reducing greenhouse gas emissions Equal to removing over 52 000 passenger vehicles from the road because recycling more instead of using virgin materials conserves resources reduces greenhouse gas generation So this all sounds great how cswd going to pay for this amazing new mirf Well, that's partly why we're doing these presentations We want everybody to be aware that we have a vote coming up at the general election on november 8th You can request your ballot now for the cswd bond Or the cswd materials recovery facility bond We were not allowed by law to include it on the general election ballot So if you had that ballot mailed to you, please go on your my voter page and request our ballot Or call or visit your town clerk's office so that you can be sure to get the cswd ballot so you can vote to support the new mirf 16 million dollars is what we're asking for in this bond Another six million is coming from a zero percent loan coming from the closed loop fund Which is a fund that offers zero or low interest loans to municipalities to support Um closed loop recycling and recycling infrastructure cswd will be contributing three and a half million dollars that we have on cat in cash And then another half a million from the recycling partnership in another grant And then um, we may reduce our contribution if we get epa grant funding, which is just opening now in september for applications So we want to be clear extremely clear cswd does not receive any funding from local taxes No school taxes. No property taxes. No income taxes We will pay back this bond Which is a loan over 25 years through operational revenue at the mirf, which comes we that's how we currently cover our costs We get that from selling the recyclables as claire mentioned in the video We get anywhere from an average of about four million dollars a year from the sale of recyclables. It varies And the tip fee that we charge the haulers coming in The tip fee we're able to set to cover any gap between the revenue from the sale of recyclables And excess expenses. That's how the mirf is structured now And that's how it'll be structured going forward cswd is a municipality We are publicly owned Formed by the public in 1987 and we've recycled literally Tens of millions of tons of recyclables since then since 1993 when we brought recycling to chitinon county We have a board of commissioners representing our members And so that is how we operate We will continue to serve the public at this mirf without profit as a motive because we're not in this for profit That way we can keep our fees as low as possible and provide maximum recycling opportunities Even when we have to maybe operate at a loss for a little while like during a global recession We can ride that out and we don't have to jack up our fees to make a profit or pay shareholders We just have to cover costs so We're hoping that um Everyone will vote yes to recycle more. We're seeking voter approval during this year's general election to borrow 22 million dollars As mentioned in the previous side to build a new mirf To vote on the mirf bond you can visit the my voter page and request the cswd ballot Or visit or contact your town clerk to request our ballot Or you can go in person at your normal polling place and make sure you get the cswd ballot other ways you can support cswd and this mirf bond issue i'm going to take us now to the internet again Hopefully this will work. You can go to cswd's website cswd.net slash m r f dash b o n d mirf bond It'll take you to this page It shows you A link to a page on how to vote It'll show you public forums. This is our last public forum until we have one november 1st In williston, which is our last public hearing and forum But we are offering tours So the best way to see what really happens to your recyclables and how the cswd mirf Works and why we need a new one is to go on a tour We have them as you can see all throughout september and october and we would love to host you at the mirf Let me just take us to the voting instructions page if you click on that box On our website It shows you the steps that you can have and it shows you what the my voter page looks like and how you would request our bond vote So that's the end of my presentation If you'd like to further support cswd and the new mirf I'm going to tour we welcome letters to the editor Postings on front porch forum and if you're not comfortable with that or not sure how to do that Contact us at info at cswd.net or give us a call at 802 872 8100 and we're happy to walk you through it Now at least are there any questions on the live stream? Okay. Well that wraps it up for us this evening I hope folks will visit and watch this and let us know if you have any questions About anything that cswd does. Have a great evening