 Good morning Fort Worth and welcome to the first annual state of the recycling in Fort Worth. I greatly appreciate you joining us either Facebook Live or at the Central Library in the Discovery Theater. This morning we have a great panel put together to talk about Fort Worth recycling. I'd like to introduce Ann Zeta, Councilwoman Zeta. Good morning. I'm really happy to be here and excited to introduce our panel today. The first person on our panel is Robert Smouse, who you just heard from. He is one of the City of Fort Worth's Code Compliance Assistant Directors with more than 26 years of experience in waste recycling and sustainability industry. Since joining the city in 2015 he's helped implement the city's next 20-year comprehensive solid waste management plan, increased the residential recycling tonnage and reducing the contamination rate and began working with Fort Worth businesses through the material management program team. Houston Chambliss is also with us this morning, currently holds a position of Senior District Manager for Waste Management at Fort Worth Hauling. He has over 30 years of experience in waste industry, with 19 of those being at waste management in various operational roles. He's been here in Fort Worth since the inception of our current contract, and Houston Chambliss received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas. Mike Hu is the General Manager for Republic Services of Fort Worth, one of the largest waste and recycling providers in the DFW area. He oversees the company's Fort Worth and Alito Hauling companies, as well as operation of the North Texas Recycling Complex. The North Texas Recycling Complex processes all of the City of Fort Worth's residential recycling materials, and Mike has been with that company since 2018 and has prior experience in oil and gas and aviation. Joey Burnett is the Safety and Environmental Manager for West Rock South Fort Worth Container Plant, which is celebrating its 50th year in operation, later tonight in the stockyards. West Rock is an international corporation focused on game-changing developments in paper-making, innovative packaging design, and retail cardboard solutions to help drive business partners growth that reaches outside the box. So I'm happy to be here to kick that off for you all this morning, and happy to be talking about recycling here in Fort Worth. Well thank you very much, Ann. You know, Fort Worth has been facing a lot of questions, you know, in the past couple years since different policy shifts have happened internationally. You know, within the growth of Fort Worth, we have a lot of individuals moving into the area from different parts of the United States, as well as the world, and with the media coverage on the recycling industry. We tend to face a lot of questions, and the questions about the state of recycling is recycling dead, and I'm here to tell you it's not dead. Recycling in Fort Worth continues to grow. It continues to improve. We do face challenges. Everybody, I think, needs to remember that today we're celebrating the 25th anniversary of Texas Recycles Day, or the 23rd anniversary of America Recycles Day. Yes, that's correct. I'm a proud Texan, and I'm proud to say that the Texas Recycles Day started 25 years ago, and was such a success. It grew through the National Recycling Organization and Keep America Beautiful to become America Recycles Day. And so with that, everybody really needs to remember that the origin or the roots of recycling, we did not start recycling because of financial means. We really started the recycling and reusing materials because of a resource aspect, being able to reuse that resource instead of continuing to create resources that then get disposed of. And that goes back to, you know, really, World War I with metal. So it was never a financial aspect, but over the course of the years, the financial markets have kind of skewed or allowed the recycling industry to become focused on, and somewhat dependent upon that recycling revenue. So as the recycling markets have changed due to policies international, the supply has outgrown demand in certain aspects. The markets for those materials have dried up in certain areas. And so when individuals that you may talk to in different parts of the United States talk about, you know, hey, well, I hear recycling is dead. I hear we're landfilling material. I hear it's not worth it. That may be the case in certain parts of the United States, but it's not the case in North Texas. We have been luckily blessed and fortunate enough to have a healthy industry and infrastructure for being able to reuse those materials and making new products. So the market has changed. The industry has changed. Recycling has changed. And I think you'll hear some of that today. We have to get back to the basics. What is really the importance of recycling? What materials can be effectively and efficiently captured at the curb to be recycled? And what materials have to be recycled through other channels and not just wish-cycled by placing them in the carts, hoping that it does get recycled or it may not get recycled. So really the one of the big aspects is the markets have changed. The industry has changed. Technology has changed. And in packaging or what materials are actually used has changed. And I think all four of those aspects have changed rather quickly over the past five, ten years that we can't lose sight of looking at a cost of recycling today. That if we were to go back into the 2009-2010 time frame or 2004 or 1998 and when the industry had a speed bump that they hit, we stopped recycling. We didn't. We continued to carry the course. We continue to focus on the benefits and the aspects that we can improve. And from the city standpoint, we've enjoyed a, you know, healthy and successful recycling program. So as a community, we just have to continue to focus on those aspects that we can address individually as residents, as homeowners associations, as a community to make sure that recycling is healthy today as it will be in ten years from now. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Houston Shambles to talk about collections. Well, I'm going to, yeah, thank you, Robert, for asking me to participate in this panel. I think it's a discussion that, you know, as I've been here during the inception of the current contract we're working on, you know, I've seen it grow or it's changed in many ways. But, you know, one of the things that we are battling is definitely getting the contamination out of the, out of the, out of the, out of the cart that we are, or we're, we're tasked with picking up. So what I want to kind of do is kind of go back in memory is that prior to the start of this contract, the current contract we're in, you know, if you, some of you all might remember the old, the old fashion way, the old garbage way. And at that point in time, recycling was picked up at the curb with a 14, what we call the 14 gallon cart. You remember that, the guys, right? So we had the 14 gallon cart and the driver in that, the truck that was being used was a compartmentized truck. It had two sections, not more, not five or six of every item that that is recyclable, but it had two compartments. So it had a compartment that paper and paper and cardboard went into, everything else went into the other compartment. The, so and the driver came and whenever he saw that 14 gallon bin and usually a lot of times they were, there were multiple bins or they had stuff around the, the, the bin. You remember that, so right there, the driver would pull up, he'd stop and guess what that driver is? He becomes a what? He's a sorter and an auditor. That's right. So therefore, he's already doing a semi-sort helping the processing, the mirf before we go to the landfill and don't. So he throws all the cardboard, paper and one side and everything else goes the other. Remember that, right? So anyway, that and then the problem, there's a lot of issues with that. I mean, I mean, there's efficiency issues. You, God darn, I got one side of my truck is full. In the other side, I still got room, but guess what? You got to go dumb because you can't, you, you, so you're, so there's a lot of pros and cons to that method. So there, you know, there definitely is, we, so we move to automation. You know, so, so we now use automation to pick up the recycling here. They're, they're called, we use, we run well over 30 trucks a day to pick up every single days of collection service day. We run over 30 trucks and those trucks are tasked with picking up all the recycling carts. And that's how those trucks are identity, are that identity, they know which cart or which cart to pick up by the identity of the cart, which is the blue cart here in Fort Worth. So with that comes the possibility of contamination getting into that waste ring. And that's what the big battle is. And, you know, the drivers, you know, the drivers can sit here and tell you out there when they're on the streets, they can see a lot of things. The unfortunate part versus the old method we used to do is they had the lids closed and they don't see what's inside that cart when they dump. They, you know, unless that is visible, the cart, the lids open, the stuff sticking out of it, you know, we've, we've seen, the driver has seen everything from, you know, clothes to yard waste to automotive parts and stuff. You know, one, he was telling me the other day that he found a bowling ball and, and one of the, and then the whole, and stuff. But anyway, yeah, really, apparently he wasn't a very good bowler. So he gave up the sport. So, and then the other thing they see is just the plain plastic bags, the black plastic bags, which would be, we don't know what's really in there, but that would kind of give us an indication that's household trash that's probably gotten over into the, into the blue cart for some reason or not. So definitely once single stream recycling used by the automated side loads definitely increases the participation, the, the amount. Averages show that it increases it by 40% is what I'm told. I would almost have to believe when Fort Worth went to single stream and the automated slide load, I think we beat that beat that considerably. So anyway, with that, they come with benefits of efficiency. You know, my driver, the driver is not in and out of the truck, you know, the safety from a safety perspective, everything like that. So, you know, their efficiency most definitely to also, but one of the problems, you know, the cut, and then there's a convenience to it also for the residents. Now they have a cart they can roll out. It's pretty, it's pretty, you know, it's a lot easier on them. Usually with single stream, more, more material, more items become acceptable in the recycling program. And it helps the cities and the municipalities that we work with achieve their goals, you know, when we, when that single stream is introduced. You know, there's, there's a lot of things that, that we can do or we do do out there on the streets to try to educate or notify, which is, you know, our drivers are running and when we are able to see the contamination in the carts, we, we, we have a tagging system we use that we take a picture, make, you know, identify the address and we send that information to the, to the call center at the city to deal with the, or address the issue and stuff. And, and, and the problem is, is that you'd only imagine it's not enough, in my opinion. It's just not enough. And, and, and there's efforts on the city's part, far as education, training, and, you know, when a new resident comes, the delivery of the cart, the training material, the information material, that is all well and good. And the, and I know when we implemented this and delivered all the carts to that, those residents, you know, it's, it's a, it was, at that time, I think there was a hundred and forty-five, hundred and fifty thousand units at that time. You know, we're now up to two hundred and thirty, two thirty. So you figure, we got, like I said, we got over thirty thousand, or thirty trucks every day running out there just to pick up recycling carts. Now, that doesn't include the trash. That's the recycling cart. So there's a lot, there's a lot of material out there. And, and there's a lot of folks, a lot of residents that are really doing a great job. But we are seeing way too much contamination. And it's obvious to our driver, if he doesn't see it at the point of collection, he's definitely seen it when he goes to Michael's home, I'll call it Michael's home, but, you know, to dump. And, and, and we, that's when we see that, that, that all the material, and you can, you know, you definitely can see those black plastic bags. You can see those, you know, the, the, you know, definitely the, you know, even the white kitchen bags. Yes, you're right. Using the white kitchen bags for recycling, but again, that recycling material shouldn't be bagged in the first place. That's right. And it's, and it's, it's difficult. Well, I wouldn't say it's difficult. It's just that we, we need for that to get better. I mean, just so that that, that's waste stream is cleaner material coming into there. And, and as a collection company, and as a driver, we want to, I mean, we want to be able to help someone. And there's some great technology that's coming down the road. It's, you know, it's, it's, that more can be done on this. You know, there's, there's, we're testing some technology right now in our commercial vehicles that actually has cameras, third eye, that actually looking at the, at the cart, looking down into, into the hopper, where after you dump it, you can see the material. Now that's not going to, once it's in the hopper, there's not, we're not going to go digging it out. But what it is, is at least identifying the address, identifying the address, the location, the type of material, and that we can, you know, we have a hard decision to make. Do we, how do we go educate? Do we, do we enforce? Do we find, we don't want to get to that. I mean, I don't think we do. However, we want the material just cleaned up. We want the right things being put into that cart and stuff. But overall, the collection, the collection is something that is, we have seen grown, really have. And the support of your blue crews out there, we have seen some things getting clean, get cleaned up a lot better. And, you know, we're, it's noticeable in the audience, audience we do every quarter, you know. So, and you're seeing less, we're seeing less residue, but there's still tons and tons of opportunity out there. And I've got to say, Houston, before we go over to the Murph, you know, the, one of the things when there is a identification of contamination, we do have what we call the city's blue crew, where we have individuals out auditing the recycling routes. They lift the lids, they go through looking for, you know, looking through the material to see what is in there, what is recyclable, what isn't recyclable. We start out with, you know, kind of what we call an oops tag. Again, starting with the education. If you didn't know, plastic bags are not, you know, acceptable or styrofoam materials are not acceptable. We start with education. But as we identify it's a repeat occurrence, we move to what's called a bag tag, where the individuals will remove the recycling material from the cart that's not recyclable or acceptable. And they'll put one of these bag tags on it and it actually goes to the individual's utility bill, and there's a $10 fee assessed to it. So we are able to identify at the source specifically. So education works broad based, it works in a neighborhood, it works in general. And then at some point we have to move towards, you know, the individual that is really not abiding by the guidelines and holding them accountable. Well, I guess I would add, is that fair to say, yes, the Blue Crew, but the, the, and they're doing a great job. The third eye technology and where that takes us is that we will, it'll be more, right now quantity, doing those audits with your Blue Crew is limited on the resources that you have. With third eye, with the cameras, looking into the hopper, knowing that more touches can be made where we can blast the education or the, or the process of how do we fix that or get them doing the right thing. And I honestly believe everybody wants to do the right thing. I don't think, I don't think they intentionally are doing that and stuff. The challenge is going to be with all this data. I mean, you got these videos, you got what? Somebody has to review those. And that's, so there's some other challenges that we got to work out and stuff. But I can see us, Robert, getting down the road where it will be, you know, it will be cleaned up. I mean, we're seeing, we're seeing improvements. And a lot of times these commercial customers we go back to, they just, they, they, they weren't, wanted, I wouldn't say to take a little enforcement, but they'll say they didn't know, but in some cases they do know, but it was because they didn't think we cared. So why do I care? What if I put in recycling in there? So therefore, if we get it in front, this is important for people. And the more we talk to them and, hey, here's what can happen if you don't get this cleaned up. Because there's cost associated with, with doing that for, for the city, the company that you contract with and so on. Absolutely. So Michael, as far as getting all this material. Sure. So everything that Houston bring, he collects, he brings to our recycling facility and we sort it. And I think that's a good, good to provide a backdrop to actually what happens to the materials when it's, when it's collected. How does it get processed? Because I think growing up, I was a wishful recycler as well. You know, you see something that has some metal and some plastic and you say, well, the people at the recycling center, they probably melted down or do something with it and it gets recycled. And I think understanding what happens to the, in the recycle stream of how it gets all the way to the mills helps, will help people understand how they can help prevent a lot of the contamination. So what happens when Houston's trucks bring the materials in, they dump it and then we put it into a hopper, which then gets sorted through manually, through hands. So we actually still to this day have people picking recyclable materials out as well as optical sorters. So what happens is that there is nothing that separates something that's both plastic and metal or any of the paper packaging that has a plastic on the inside of it. Nobody actually sorts that. So when you think about what you put into your bin, if it's a combination of materials, it's very difficult to recycle. So as always, when in doubt, throw it out. Because what ends up happening to that type of material is that it just ends up going through our sort line and then goes back to the landfill, right? And so then now when you think about helping out the environment, now you've actually double handled the material and transported it twice, right? And then it goes into a landfill. So and within Fort Worth, the way our system is working, you know, operate and structured, if residents are putting that material trash or non-recyclable material in the recycling cart, Houston's team collects it, you sort it out, and it gets pulled out as non-recyclable item, it's actually five times more expensive than if the resident would have just put that non-recyclable item in the trash cart in the first place. That's a very good point. And in the state of the recycling that we're at, you know, that just adds expense to everything and it puts more pressure on the entire system. So in order to have recycling be sustainable in the long term, those are the things that as individuals we can do to tighten up and help out the market in general. Because it is tight, the good news is that we don't have any issues finding people to buy our material to be recycled here in Fort Worth, which is great. In fact, you know, for us here at the North Texas Recycling Center, we're actually making capital investments in our recycling center. So we're spending over a million and a half dollars to increase the capacity to be able to handle more recyclables, right? So when we talk about the health of recycling, you know, for us as a company, Republic Services, we believe long term it's still there. And specifically in Fort Worth, recycling is alive and well for us. And that doesn't mean that there aren't challenges. Because of contamination, typically at our recycling complex, you know, 30% of the material that comes in is contaminated, right? So we only get to sort and sell 70% of that. So the other 30% has to go to the landfill, right? And so you think that's a very big number for things that we're intentionally sorting and putting in the recycling and our recycle bins. And I think for us, the most important part there is that adds cost to it. So the cost because of contamination has gone up 50% to sort this because of the contamination that we have to have manual hands in there. And we're making some investments in robotics for the long term to help sort that out. But overall, the biggest thing that people can do to help the recycling market in Fort Worth and recycling is know what to throw. And we'll talk a little bit about that later, right? Empty clean and dry. So when you have your materials is cleaning it out, right? And making sure that it's dry and then don't put it in bags, right? And so for us, the big thing is, is that you can collect your material. But if you bag it and then put it in the recycle bin, that can contaminate it as well. And it makes it much more challenging for us. And at the end of the day, when in doubt, throw it out. Absolutely. And you talk about that contamination, whether it's, you know, 30%, you know, if you think about that at 30% contamination, you have 10 trucks roll into your facility and dump. Basically, that's like saying seven of them are pure recycling, and three of them are nothing but trash. I mean, that's a huge impact to have to go through and sort that material out when it never should have been in the recycling cart in the first place. Great. Michael? Joey? Well, you know, that 30%, you know, not all of it, you know, it gets pulled out of that. So the mills are still going to get some of that. So that cost is still, you know, is still handed down because there's still more work to do once it gets to the mill. You know, there's a lot of, I've got a few notes here because it is such important topic, even just from the residential side, you know, it's a daily, it's a daily thing. You got to stay on top of it, you know, yourself, even in your own house, right? And the importance of that is, I think, once people realize the education like we were talking about the contamination, what it can do and what it can cause. So from the paper industry, talk about cardboard. My plant specifically deals with corrugated boxes, but the fibers are the same as far as that goes. We have contaminated paper, let's see, the recycling, let me back up a minute. The container division uses, you know, the fibers from these materials to make the boxes, right? So these fibers is what's going to get into the product, right? And that goes to the consumer, which is us, right? So contamination causes several items. So they can cause, contamination that gets by or a poor causes poor fibers, right? So it can have a defective final product, has multiple negative impacts, defective final product, customer rejections and complaints. I mean, just think about it, how important the quality of your product is now these days, compared to what it was years ago. It's not the same. It's not even close. So odor, I mean, contamination causes odor. Who wants their food, you know, in a product, in a box that smells, right? You don't want that. We don't want that. And one of the big issues here is bacterial growth that's in the paper itself. So when that happens, when it gets to the mill and you do get that contamination, they've got to treat it with chemicals, right? So they've got to, they've got to treat it. So now you've got lost time and productivity, right? Increased in chemical costs. It also create increases corrosion, right? So you got some more issues. Operational cost goes up, right? Waste production, obviously now you got extra waste that you're dealing with, leading to higher maintenance costs and higher equipment failure rates. So also with this, and when you talk about the safety of the employee, you know, this type of product also creates, you know, jams. You know, somebody's got to clear that. You got to have a human to do that. You prove people at risk, which in order can increase, you know, comp costs. I mean, it could go on and on. It's so vital to understand that it might not look like a big deal, but the end result, it's a big deal. It almost magnifies through the process to the end mill, you know, if there is that contamination. It just continues to grow and become a bigger issue all the way through. You talked about the human safety aspect. It doesn't take a lot at all. So there's, as far as like, you know, we talked about one of the topics was the market conditions and China decision policymaking is. I can't really talk about that as far as that goes, but as far as our company, you know, we are one of the largest integrated paper recyclers. We manage the entire recycling process from our clippings ourselves. And we obviously buy, but we also recycle everything that we have, you know, to ensure that, you know, we're getting a good product from our own places, right? Our own companies. Thirteen of our mills use recovered fiber exclusively from recycling facilities, produce 100% recycled fiber for new paperboard and corrugated boxes, which is, you know, we talked about cardboard and corrugated. In 2018, our company, Western Recycling Facility, recovered 7.6 million tons of fiber. So that's a lot. But just think about what it could have been if you're not dealing with, you know, contamination. So there's, I don't have a figure on the contamination part, but that's, we know that's significant for what you, you were just saying, you guys. So we do a lot of items on that. But as far as how it affects, you know, the other, as far as capital investments and plant expansions, poor paper recycling in the long run affects capital investments in plant expansion, expansions like this. Less effective fiber recovery increases operational costs, which we talked about of recycled paper mill. This cost increases limits ability to reinvest capital investment and expansions. Funds could be diverted into further fiber handling and cleaning equipment instead of other plant improvements and expansions. Absolutely. So it has a, it has a massive impact. Massive impact. It's all down the street. You know what, it starts at the, at the home. That's in the container, right? Container, that's right. You know, and it, and it's something that, that is controlled. We can fix this. You know, we really can. It's just, it's just everybody's got to do the right thing. We all have to do our part. It starts with education. It starts with awareness. It starts with the kind of accountability and doing the right thing. Recycle right. I guess before we move, I'd add, because I think, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm the garbage guy. I'm the collection guy. So you guys are kind of the, the mill and everything like that. But, you know, I kind of dabble over into y'all's world every once in a while. But, you know, one of the things you, you referenced, Michael, that you are, you're fortunate. You have the markets to find the stuff, you know, that I bring to you that you, after you guys clean it up, throw all the trash out of it. You got material that you can sell, which is the whole, the reuse, the, you know, back, you know, to use it back and get it out as a useful product or a new product and stuff. And that's one of the things that the American mills and stuff have done is that, you know, Republic waste management, you know, we've kind of been working on that process for a while now. Where, and you heard stories in, you know, with regards to the recycling market. It's so bad people are landfill and stuff. Well, part of the problem is we kind of accepted, you know, what the problem was, our biggest purchaser of recycled materials, what? Was China. Was China. Well, China finally woke up one day and said, what? You know what? We don't want this dirty stuff, which you referenced, that you still get dirty stuff in your bales and stuff like that, your product. They woke up and said, wait a minute. Oh, we're doing over here. We got a little bit of recycling and a lot of trash in this and we're still, and we're having to landfill this stuff back out. So they woke up and said, you know what? We're put, mandating no more trash, X percent only that we'll accept. And so what has happened, it makes the markets and finding homes for this product. You're right. Waste management here in North, we have, you know, we're fortunate. We have homes for this material. Other places of the country are struggling with that issue. Absolutely. And that's why, you know, we wanted to kind of do this today was to make sure that Fort Worth in North Texas knew that in this area, the correct materials that are going into the cart, getting collected, getting recycling are going to mills and being used. And so wanted to move to kind of a little bit of a fun example of is it recycling or is it not? So pizza, you know, West Rock does make, you know, corrugated containers. So pizza boxes, one of those questions we always get. Recyclable? Yes? Yes? It depends. So looking at that, is that a yes? That's a no. Well, okay. So now, now it's a no. So that was one of those things that a lot of people, you know, if it's empty, clean and dry, then yes, it can be recycling. But when it's saturated with grease and oil that is going to get through the system and then impact, you know, the finished product, do you want to order a pizza that has cardboard that looks like this or has particles in that? You know, one of the other things, Michael, you mentioned, you know, plastic containers. You know, this is another good example. Is it recyclable? Well, the bottle is. But when you look at, you know, this container, it's got two different types of plastic, metal spring, metal bearing or ball bearing in there. So the container is, but the pump mechanism isn't. You know, so there's these other aspects that, you know, it kind of talks about Oreos, you know, is it recyclable? You know, no, it's not from the standpoint of you do have a plastic container inside, but people aren't taking the time to pull out the plastic and throw the foil packaging, you know, away. One of the things we didn't talk about, you know, is the systems and small things. Again, here's a glass container, you know, with a wick and a plastic cap. It's the mixture of materials, but it's also size. And, you know, one of the aspects that almost all mercs are set up to anything that's typically smaller than two inches, maybe an inch and a half, three inches credit card. I think I got a tic-tac container in here. You know, it's plastic, but the chances of this going through the entire system and getting pulled out, you know, as that belt goes flying by it, I don't know how many feet per second, probably 70, 100 feet per second, it may not happen. So, you know, again, some, you know, you see these pop up, you know, it's plastic, plastic container, you know. So, it is one of these things that we are having to kind of slow down and start with the education, making sure people understand the difference between what is truly recyclable and what is something that could be recycled like a single-use plastic bag. We have these consumer choice bags that we've been promoting. City of Fort Worth is not taking a band stance on any plastic bag, but it's the consumer's choice. If you're going to use plastic bags, then use them for, you know, liners in your trash containers at home, pick up after your dog, or bundle them up, take them back to your grocery store the next time you go buy them, and so they can be recycled, but it's not acceptable in the cart. So, hey, we've got a couple questions coming in from Facebook or the Discovery Theater. Has the city identified certain zip codes or neighborhoods that are more prone to contamination? If so, are you targeting those areas with more education? That's a great question, and it kind of touches on, you know, from a driver's perspective, as they're out running those routes, they have the opportunity to see what's in the bin, not before they dump it, but once they dump it. We do the quarterly audit so that we randomly select five different areas, one for each day on a quarterly basis. We go through, we look at the carts before the materials collected. The material is taken to the MRF, and it's actually sorted out by individual grades, and so from a certain aspect, yes we do. We have been targeting advanced recycling or enhanced recycling education through some of the individual Facebook posts, sometimes neighborhood associations, the community engagement office or area, has community education coordinators that reach out into, you know, those neighborhood homeowners associations. We do work with the Fort Worth ISD of trying to offer educational materials to the specific schools, and not only in the schools, but that's one of those things that if you identify that area of education with your little children, what happens? Three o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock, we get home from work, and oh, hey dad, you can't do that anymore, hey dad, that's supposed to be recycled. So we're taking that and then obviously with the Blue Crew. We do identify certain routes that are more prone to have recycling issues, contamination issues, that, you know, are really focused on that. And that's where, that's actually where the Blue Crew actually performs the audit out there. We make some collection alterations with our routes and allowing, you know, so the auditors can be there on their service day. So we, you know, adjust so that that can be completed. And then, you know, there's also they, you know, like you mentioned, the Blue Crew actually pulls the recycling material back out. If they're auditing, they're not, you know, they pull it out and then, you know, they push the cart back up and they put it at bag next to the cart, and we know to go pick the, dump the cart and take that bag also. But, you know, it's a lot of labor, I would think. A lot of, you know, and it's about those touches I was talking about earlier. It's, you know, it's kind of a, you know, it's not the most efficient way, but it's, it's what we got working right now. And where it is, I mean, where it is being used, I think we've got some success, the successes on it, so. Yeah, and that's got to say, it is the balance between trying to utilize resources in a cost effective way. There's 230,000 homes, you know, to try and address every one of those homes on a annual basis, on a quarterly basis. You know, we don't have the resources or the financial aspects. The city, you know, the residents really are not going to pay for trying to make sure that every home is visited, you know, every year or every month. But one of the things we started also, Michael, with, you know, is to promote the MRF tour of actually setting up individual tours so that homeowners associations or schools, Boy Scout, Girl Scout groups can come out to the facility and actually see how that material is, you know, is when it gets dumped on the tipping floor as one big mound of recyclables with contamination mixed in to then being sorted. What kind of success do you guys see, you know, as far as those tours and how impactful it is? I think it opens up people's eyes to what it is that they do on their end, how that affects the recycling stream. We talk about wishful recycling and I think that that, when you talk about a direct impact, it really eliminates that wishful recycling. Absolutely. I mean, we don't separate the materials. We don't, you know, we don't melt anything down. We simply take the plastics that are all sorted out together, put them in a big cube, and then move them on to our suppliers like West Rock. So that is all that happens at the recycling center in terms of separating the materials. So then when people start thinking about those packages that have the multiple types of materials on them, they know, okay, I should probably throw this away. And right there is an immediate impact. And then every person that you touch, and they end up telling somebody else about it and so on and so forth. And that's the educational aspect that we hope to impact with the people coming for tours. Absolutely. And we kind of touched a little bit about know what to throw is a regional campaign that the city of Fort Worth participated in as part of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, so that we try to create a common, not barrier, but a common campaign and knowledge of these are the types of materials that you can recycle in all of North Texas. These are the kind, these are the most predominant contamination areas that your contamination items so that as individuals that live in Fort Worth may work in Dallas or that live in Dallas may work in Fort Worth, they're hearing that same message. So it kind of breaks down that barrier of, oh, well, I can do this here, but I have to do that there. And so one of the things time to recycle, if you haven't taken a few minutes, I would encourage everyone to go to the time to recycle.com website and go through the know what to throw quiz. It's a regional based campaign that's began this past June. It's going to continue into the future. I know what the city, Fort Worth website has also some tools, the waste wizard. So if you have a question about is Styrofoam recycling, you can type in Styrofoam. It's going to tell you not in the blue cart, do not put that at your curb, but you can recycle that now at one of the drop off stations. We implemented a program last month. So there are those tools that we try to reach out into the community. We've got another question coming in from the Discovery Theater. Can you clarify the numbers on the bottoms of plastics and what are acceptable by Fort Worth? Oh, that's a good idea. You know, I brought in a couple of things. So, you know, typically all plastic containers have a little triangular area with a number one through seven. And the number identifies what type of plastic it's used to make, you know, the actual container. So, you know, right now the city of Fort Worth accepts number ones through sevens, no Styrofoams. But that's what that is. But, you know, there are a lot of products that are made out there. You know, and this is an example, you know, Styrofoam or raspberries. We have really moved into a situation where these are potentially more of a contamination issue than they are a recycling aspect. And I say that really for two reasons. One, there are a lot of these containers. This one does have, you know, the triangular, you know, type of plastic on it. But there are a lot of these types of clear clamshell containers that you don't know what type of plastic it is. And then also they usually have kind of a pad, a moisture absorbent pad stuck to the bottom so that as the strawberries or raspberries fruit, you know, absorbs that moisture. And residents aren't taking the time to peel that out because that, again, is a separate material. It's saturated in food, you know, food juices. It creates issues. And that's something we don't separate. So then if it gets through the system, then it goes down to your end. And then it contaminates an entire batch, right? Absolutely. So those plastics, you know, again, it's critical, you know, container. Again, one of the things that I started my wife and kids on, you know, is the amount of these types of plastic containers are where? Where in your house are these? Bathrooms, absolutely. And what is important for these types of containers? Empty, clean and dry. So I've started getting on my kids, you know, okay, hey, I go to the shower and here's like 15 containers that are all like a little bit left. And it's like, no, come on, Hadley, you know, take the container off, put some water in there, rinse it around, put it on your washcloth, use it. And then once it's empty, you know, get it to the recycling bin. Don't let it sit there and stack up. But it's one of those things that it's really, it's relatively easy. And those are great materials for recycling. You can use them for so many different things. Absolutely. In particular. Yeah. And I mean, it's heavy duty. It's thick. It's got a lot of weight to it. So again, you look at, you know, and I didn't weigh this, but this is probably, oh, eight to 10 times more weight than this little clay and shell kind of thing. So it's, again, it's, we really have to kind of look at getting back to the basics of the specific material that can be recycled, but then also looking at how we need to make sure we prepare it. Another question coming in, has the city worked with any pizza company to add sheets or something to reduce contamination of boxes? Oh, that's a great question. I wish, you know, I could sit here and say, yes, we moved that, that needle. We created that. We haven't. But within the industry, you have started to see, you know, in the past probably three to five years, a lot of the pizza boxes or pizza companies have a thin, either kind of a waxy sheet or a separate corrugated insert so that the pizza goes on to absorb any of the oil, grease and cheese. Have you guys worked, if anybody, I think, we haven't, I mean, we haven't in general, because we're making the corrugated box itself. But we've seen that where the customer would start putting sheets in it, but I don't know how rampant it is right now. I don't think it is very much because of the education factor on this. But that is one of the things we kind of touched on a little bit earlier. It's the packaging aspect. And I know West Rock is in that packaging industry. But if you look at the last 10 years of just going into the grocery store, wow, the packaging that is used has changed. I mean, it used to be a 12 or 16 ounce Coke glass bottle. Everything was glass bottle. Then it kind of moved into the plastic side of things. And then even lightweight, that the plastic bottle is 30% less plastic than it used to be. When I went to buy sour cream a couple of months ago, I was looking for the tub and I couldn't find it. And I'm looking there, I'm like, hey, where's the sour cream? And the gentleman next to me is stocking the shelves, like it's right there. And I'm looking, I'm like, oh, holy cow, it's no longer in a tub, it's one of those foil squeezable type containers. And so that is I think a great question of where the city, manufacture, and it really, it's through the whole system from the standpoint of making sure that everybody from beginning to end are starting to have that dialogue to understand and life cycle cost of it may be more beneficial for everybody to use this product or this packaging material instead of that packaging material. But being able to have that dialogue through the process beginning to end and making sure that, okay, is it a product that can be recycled through curbside, single stream recycling? Can it be recycled through a take back program or it has to be separated from other commodities? Or I hate to say it, but is it a product that you're better off using it and it going to landfill, but yet it's a product or a material that's better than some other material? Any dialogue or thoughts on that? Oh, I would concur. I mean, it's moved here in the last five years, I would say, but actually, I can remember 20 years ago, or 15 when they started moving some of the big bulky packages and stuff like you used to get, you don't find that anymore when you receive the stuff. Like I said, recycle is a downstream effect and there's all so many little pieces to it to make it a successful program. And I definitely would think that you've got things that would be better landfill than actually going into that recycling because that product is going to take up air space or landfill space, which we don't like either, but it's actually better than actually what it can do to the recycling side of the house. I agree wholeheartedly, and I think it's all about consumption as well, right? Just being aware of what you're consuming. And I think that that's at the end of the day, that's going to affect it just as much than anything else that we do here. Absolutely, and that's one thing we haven't touched on is, you know, this was aimed at recycling. The infrastructure, the program, everything is in place and we're trying to take it and improve it. But Mike, you bring up a great question, you know, or aspect of, you know, really starting at the beginning of the process, you know, and one of the things that Fort Worth is as our 20-year plan, rethinking waste, looking at it to say, gee, do I even need this in the first place? And, you know, okay, if I really need it, then when I'm done using it, just because I'm done using it, doesn't mean it just goes to the landfill. You know, if it's a usable table, you know, oh, it no longer goes with my motif, well, okay, let's get it to, you know, a non-profit, let's get it to another family. I mean, I grew up with Hammy Downs. I can remember, you know, all my clothes, you know, it was, it was a special day. School and Christmas, I think, were really what I remember as- You must have not been the oldest. I was a baby. So, you know, it was kind of, twice a year I got new clothes that I remember, you know, other than that, it was the Hammy Downs, you know, any weather is even- I was the oldest. You got all new. So, another, oh, go ahead. Oh, no, I guess back to that, you know, consumption and everything like that and contamination. I said, but we have a starting point right now and you got the people that, this versus that, is that recycling versus that, right? If we could get just the people, the ones that are, you know, the ones that we see the yard waste in the cart, the clothes that we know doesn't predict, that would be a great start. That's recycling 200. Right, that's recycling 3.0. We're at 1.1, you know, right now. So, yeah, you know, and I think, and I think the more we talk about it and keep it in front of the residents here in Fort Worth and us talk about it as the partners and the, you know, as we go out and, you know, with the task of, you know, providing the service to the residents here in Fort Worth, we'll get there. But, you know, if we can, if we walk away from this panel discussion and people are sitting there saying, you know what, I remember, you know, I put yard waste, I put the, I know I did it and I, you know, they got the devil and the angel on the shoulder and I said, hey, I know I shouldn't have done that, but they did, you know, they did, if they would just stop that, that would be, I mean, that would be such a huge, you know, win for us at this point. And then we can, then we can go with educating those, this kind of stuff. The fine tuning. The fine tuning, right, exactly. 2.0, 3.0. There you go, there you go. You're right, you know, so, you know, in Fort Worth, you know, your paper items, newspaper, magazine, you know, office paper, cardboard, chipboard, plastic containers, one through sevens, you know, aluminum cans, steel cans, glass bottles, and that's it. And again, the primary, five primary types of materials in your home designed for residential, single use purposes, those are what, you know, you need to know what to throw. So, yeah, if you have a question in your mind, should I recycle this or should I not? Is it recyclable? Just throw it out. Throw it out. All right, that's a question, if you can't find, you know, I search it too. Yeah, sure, yeah, you know, look at the website or call the city, can this be recycled? But if you can't get an answer, absolutely. When in doubt, throw it out. The information is out there, I mean. Oh, yeah, sure. Everybody's got it, everybody's got a, you know, a phone. Everybody's got access to it. And it's, it's absolutely, you can find out in literally seconds, you know, just making a, just making an effort to do that. Our company is working with, you know, customers on, on looking at ways, you know, they, you looked at, talked about the grease paper or whatever it might be. So they're constantly looking at ways to improve not just the product for the customer, for their, you know, for their benefit, but also for, because it is, you know, like I said, we, you know, we use those, those fibers to make that product. So the more we can use, you know, items like that, that's not contaminated, and it's, it's going to benefit us all in the long run. The better we get out of it. So it's a constant, you know, the, the company's, you know, got a whole recycling division that's, that's, you know, looking at items like that and how to, how to better it. So, absolutely. Hopefully, you know, hopefully in the near future, you know, we might be able to come up with something that, that'll be, you know, a great, you know, a great find or whatever. So it's just, it's continuing, continuous improvement. It's a really, really, daily thing. Yep. And Mike, you, not Mike, I'm sorry, Joey, you mentioned, you know, how easy it is, you know, your phones. Fort Worth does have, you know, a solid waste recycling app. So I mentioned the Waste Wizard. You know, we do have an app that, you know, you can go and download and look at specifically, is this material recyclable or not? You can get notifications, you know, hey, tomorrow's my recycling day. You know, next week is my bulk week, you know. So it gives you notifications. We're moving into the winter weather, you know, if we have, have delays with, you know, collections, anything like that, or post storms, you know, Father's Day. We had, you know, the Father's Day windstorm, you know, that hit up north and through other parts of, you know, Fort Worth, being able to have, you know, that information, you know, is easy. I'm downloading it as soon as we get done, so. There we go. I think my wife downloaded mine. I was surprised. I mean, I've never seen something like that before. So it was really nice to have that app to be able to use it. We've got another question from the Discovery Theater. Does Fort Worth still accept aseptic packaging like milk containers? And, you know, it's funny. You bring, that's one of those questions, you know, you know, I'd say yes, aseptic cartons are an acceptable material in Fort Worth's program. As long as, again, it's empty, clean and dry. One of the things that we see with, you know, these containers are that you don't see, you know, inside of them. So if the lid's still on, they have, you know, water or milk or something like that still in it, it becomes a problem from that standpoint. But, you know, water's one of those, and I don't have my glass with me here in the studio, but, you know, it begins with a choice, you know, buy a filter container and drink tap water, buy bottle water, buy container water, you know, and so, you know, it is one of those opportunities to make a decision. But yes, aseptic containers are a part of it. Another question. Profit organization, we work with profit, nonprofit organizations such as churches considering residents or businesses. How do they start a recycling program? The city, with one of the 20-year plan components, Ann mentioned it, the material management program. We have three planners and one marketing analyst that work not only in the residential, helping to improve our residential program, but they actually go out and work with Fort Worth businesses, nonprofits, schools, and they go into those businesses, they'll do a waste audit or a waste assessment, identify kind of what that business is in, you know, their core business, what streams they have that could be recycled or need to be land-filled, and then they'll look at, you know, if they have a program in place, how can they enhance it or improve it, or even, you know, help them implement a new program. The city does not service businesses, that's where we partner up kind of with waste management and republic and other waste haulers or recycling service providers in Fort Worth that we leave with the business with, hey, here's our recommendations. You can do this, this, this, and this, but it starts with reaching out to someone that can offer those services and asking the questions. What kind of services can be put in place? So that is one of the things that, you know, the comprehensive solid waste plan is moving beyond kind of recycling at the curb or the residential stream and moving into that, you know, commercial sector. And really, you know, both of you guys know, run in landfills, you know, typically, the residential sector is kind of the smallest sector of the total amount of volume going into a landfill. And within our plan, historically, we look at basically, simplistically, about a third of the volume, you know, going into our landfill is residential in nature. Two thirds of it is commercial. And think about, as you drive around in Fort Worth, you know, both of you gentlemen were talking about, you know, expansion and everything. You guys just moved your location into, you know, the new C&G site. All we're seeing around Fort Worth is that, you know, growth and business development and everything. Apartment complexes, yes, we do. The city of Fort Worth was one of the first municipalities in Texas to move down the road of really encouraging multi-family complexes to offer recycling. So we have an ordinance in place that they have to provide for a plan so that the tenants of those multi-family, you know, units have access to the same type of recycling program that the residents have. So, you know, we have a great opportunity. Again, this is not about, you know, what's wrong. We're addressing, we're identifying kind of what's wrong on a global aspect. But within Fort Worth, we have done a tremendous job of having a successful program, continuing to improve it, and moving forward with kind of Recycle 2.0 or 3.0. Where are we going to be five years from now, 10 years from now? You know, it's a great opportunity. One last question, getting close to the end of the hour here. Heard Fort Worth now accept Styrofoam. Can you explain the new program? Absolutely. So, Fort Worth saw that one of the contaminants that we were getting in the recycling carts was Styrofoam. So, we submitted an application through the North Central Texas Council of Governments to receive what I call seed money or grant funding to assist Fort Worth with implementing a program. So, we were able to receive Cog Grant Funding to have what's called a densifier and trailers, so that at every drop-off station or the four drop-off stations in Fort Worth, residents can take, again, clean, empty, dry Styrofoam packing material to the drop-off station and have that separated, stored separately, taken to another facility where it's densified. So, if you think about a large industrial blender, kind of a heating blender that takes it and grinds it up into a smaller particle, heats it up and kind of creates a densified polystyrene product that then gets pushed out at the end of the machine to make a new what I call a brick or log type material that's heavy. It's densified into one heavy product. That material is in stockpiled and then we're in the process of, we just started that last month, so we're in the process of getting that material. Once we have enough of it, we will sell that to a mill, a different manufacturer that can then use it to make Styrofoam crown molding. Different applications, but one of them is made into a polystyrene-based crown molding instead of the old wood molding, so that's another one. Fort Worth, I greatly appreciate everything that you've got going on and working with us as an entire community. I don't know if each of you have a closing word or two to wrap up today's session. No, other than say thank you again for allowing me to come to this and visit with that and kind of share the perspective from the collection side of the house. We're definitely a committed partner and a good partner, we think, and we have a great partnership across all lines and look forward for this recycling 3.0, but it's going to take a little work. We got some work ahead of us and I think we're all committed to doing that, but thank you again for having me, Robert. Thank you. Yeah, and I'd say you look at 10 years ago, the recycling markets, we're selling at $200 a ton to the mills, we're now down to $30 a ton on average, so you look at the price drop. So when we talk about the things that we can do as individuals, not just as organizations, but as the individual at the cart, these are the things that we do to improve the quality of the materials that make it to the mills that keep recycling sustainable here in Fort Worth. And so the continued pressure does not just make this a luxury for us, this is something that as residents, we have to do to keep it going. And fortunately, we're still, we're on the good end of that right now. But happy to be here and happy to talk about recycling. Thank you, Michael. Joey? I appreciate you guys asking me to come down. I found something out that while we were discussing last week about just some things at our local location that we need help with and that would be very beneficial to a lot of other locations in Fort Worth area. So this has been really educational for me as far as some different things coming on, especially the app. It wasn't familiar to that, it will be. But overall, the more contacts you can make dealing with this is vital to what we're trying to do. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you all. I appreciate it. Not only for being here today, but being partners in this. One of the things that we all have to really recognize is at the end of the day, we have a resource. And one of the aspects is reusing this acceptable material into making a new product. But the one thing we didn't talk about yet today, and this may be one of the opportunities for a future one, we can do it out at the landfill. One of the aspects, the city's landfill is not an infinite place. So we are looking at between 20 years, maybe 25, if we can get the community engaged in and the businesses more engaged in, taking advantage of waste minimization and recycling or diverting that material away from the landfill and preserving the life of our landfill because that is a tremendous asset. But it's also a tremendous responsibility because once that site reaches capacity, where is that material going to go? And it's going to have to find a new landfill, a new site. And right now in today's world, permitting a landfill is not the easiest of things. Nobody wants one, but yet it's a necessity. We as a community, we as a city, are responsible for making sure that there's safe and effective and environmental means to dispose of all that solid waste. So I appreciate Fort Worth paying attention and including in, it is going to be the first of a future one. If you have any questions, I'd call 817-392-1234. That is the city's commercial care hotline. They're there to answer questions. And if you have any service issues with your residential or other city needs, definitely use that city's website or download the app, the recycling solid waste app, or the My Fort Worth app. If you want to report an issue that you notice as you're out there in Fort Worth. So with that, enjoy the weekend. Greatly appreciate you. Look forward to future opportunities. Thank you.