Planning for 21 Feb 2020 mtg: How does our waste disposal work?

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We agreed at today’s meeting that the next meeting will be some sort of panel discussion where we (& anyone else who joins us) can learn about how waste is handled in Morris and its environs.

@syd has the notes with names and such, so she can share those here when she has a chance.

We can use this topic to ask questions, share ideas, volunteer for tasks, etc. I’ll make this top post a wiki so we can use it to collected the “finished product” (people we invited, structure and agenda, etc.)

Some important dates:

  • 17 Jan: Get invites out
  • Week of 20 Jan: Follow up with phone calls
  • 27 Jan: RSVPs from invited panelists
  • 30 Jan: Community Connections radio interview (Volunteers so far: Margaret Kuchenreuther)
  • 1 Feb: The meeting!

Presenter Invitation Draft - !!THESE HAVE BEEN SENT OUT!!

Hello,

My name is Sydney Bauer and I am a part of a group in Stevens County aiming to become more sustainably conscious citizens. We have monthly meetings and are hoping at our February 1st meeting to learn about how the different waste systems work in Stevens County & West Central MN. Our group is interested in supporting our local government and businesses in creating sustainable, economical change but we cannot do that without knowing first how these types of core systems work.

The goal for this meeting is to invite some of our local waste experts to inform us about waste systems in Stevens County/West Central MN so that we are then able to put together a document that brings all of the key information together in one place. A local waste cheat sheet, if you will.

Your name came up as a local expert! This email serves as our excited invitation to you! We would love if you were willing and able to come to this meeting and present us with some of your knowledge. The meeting is very informal and will largely be us asking you to share with us what you know about the local waste process, policies, and planning.

  • Bob Kopitzke - Specifically, we were hoping you could share with us about the county-wide policies regarding waste. We would also love to hear about what the county is thinking in regards to waste planning for the future. We are aware that there are currently some problems within the waste system in regards to cost and shipping location and would love to hear more about that from you.

  • Ron Staples - Same as Bob?

  • Troy Engebretson - Specifically, we were hoping you would be able to speak to the waste system process. The only part of this process that we as customers are fully engaged in is the pick up schedule. We would love to learn more from you about the cost to operate your system, the locations for garbage and recycling drop off, and what consumers can do to help you make the system more efficient. Hearing this information directly from the folks running the system is very important to us.

  • Nathan Reinbold - Specifically, we were hoping you might be able to tell us about the projects Pope/Douglas is working to put into place (Environmental Center, Materials Recovery Facility & Regional Organics Composting Facility). These are all very exciting to us over in Stevens county, but since we are not in your service area we do not often get to hear about them and how we could support the process. We are curious as to how these projects got initiated, where they are at in the process, and how we could engage more deeply with them.

  • Gail Boe - Specifically, we were hoping you could provide some thoughts on your work with the UMM compost pile. A key part of the waste system in Morris is the success of this project and how it has allowed for inter-institution work on waste reduction.

  • Vance Gullickson - Specifically, we were hoping you could share with us about how the waste & recycling stream at UMM works. We are very interested in learning how the similarities and differences between the on campus waste system, and the larger multi-county systems. As recycling gets harder to do in MN and across the country due to recycling plants shutting down we are also interested in hearing from you about the UMM recycling process.

  • Doyle Sperr - Specifically, we were hoping you could share with us about the Grant County policies regarding waste along with what Grant County is thinking about in regards to waste planning for the future. We are aware that there are currently some problems within the waste system here in Stevens County and are curious to know if those extend to Grant, Pope, Douglas Counties, etc.

  • Rebecca Young - Not going to send her a specific one, going to start her email with a, “we know you are on maternity leave but we wanted to keep you in the loop” blurb.

  • Dave Kleindl - Specifically, we were hoping you could speak to the work that the Solid Waste & Environmental Services department is doing in regards to recycling and hazardous waste. We would be very interested to hear about any issues or solutions your department has come across and how we as citizens can support you in your work.

The discussion for the day will focus around these questions:

  1. What is the process for handling garbage in our area? Where does it go? What does it cost?
  2. What is the process for handling recycling in our area? Where does it go? What does it cost?
  3. What are important policies in regards to waste in our area? Who sets these policies? How have these policies changed?
  4. We have heard bits and pieces about the potential for a local composting program to begin, what is the story behind that and where in the process is it at now?
  5. What do you wish people knew about the local waste process? How can our group be a helpful communicator for your waste goals?

We would love it if you were able to join us at our meeting and speak to one or many of these topics. We are very excited to learn from you! We also welcome any ideas you might have of other waste experts we could invite or topics you think should be covered.

The meeting is on Saturday, February 1st from 10:30AM to 12PM in the Morris Public Library Community Room.
In order to solidify our meeting agenda & attendees, we ask that you RSVP by the end of the business day on Friday, January 24th. Within your RSVP we ask that you let us know if you are OK with us video recording this meeting. We don’t want to miss any tidbit of crucial information you might share.

If you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you,
Sydney Bauer

Email to folks we specifically want to invite to be in the audience

Hello,

My name is Sydney Bauer and I am a part of a group in Stevens County aiming to become more sustainably conscious citizens. We have monthly meetings and are hoping at our February 1st meeting to learn about how the different waste systems work in Stevens County & West Central MN. Our group is interested in supporting our local government and businesses in creating sustainable, economical change but we cannot do that without knowing first how these types of core systems work.

The goal for this meeting is to invite some of our local waste experts to inform us about waste systems in Stevens County/West Central MN so that we are then able to put together a document that brings all of the key information together in one place. A local waste cheat sheet, if you will.

Your name came up as someone who might be interested in the information we gather from this meeting.

Follow up calls to Experts

If you feel comfortable, please sign up to give one of our experts a call on Wed/Thur Jan 22nd/23rd. I will update their RSVP status here (both if they are coming and if they have agreed to be videoed) and if they say YES maybe give them a call to see if they have any questions or concerns, if they say NO maybe call them and ask if they have any information they would like us to share on their behalf, and if they haven't RSVPd give them a call to find out!
  • Bob Kopitzke (Stevens County Commissioner) -
    • (320) 585-6418
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Ron Staples (Stevens County Commissioner) -
    • (320) 324-2650
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Troy Engebretson -
    • Engebretson’s business number, call and ask for Troy (320) 589-3804
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Nathan Reinbold (Pope/Douglas recycling) -
    • (320) 763-9340
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Gail Boe (UMM Plant Genius) -
    • Doesn’t have a “work” phone so we can wait on calling Gail. Maybe @syd will go visit her on campus
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Vance Gullickson - @syd
    • Same as Gail but @syd has Vance’s number and can call him.
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Doyle Sperr (Matt’s Uncle, Grant County Commissioner)
    • Doesn’t have a listed County Commissioner phone number, @syd can ask Matt if he knows how to contact him.
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
  • Dave Kleindl (Stevens County Solid Waste Director) -
    • 320-208-6558
    • RSVP:
    • Videoed:
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Here are the thoughts we had from the meeting today relating to Feb 1st planning:

Who should we invite (presenters & attendees)

Panel Planning

  • We should be intentional about telling them what this is- a way for us to gather information so that we can have one snapshot of waste in stevens county/West Central MN.
  • We want to come up with questions so that they will have time to obtain the answers/information we want for our resource packet.

I think the main questions that should start this planning discussion are:

  1. What is the language we should use to invite our presenters/panelists? I will start a draft invite in the main post wiki. Please comment (or just edit the post) and let me know what you think we should edit/add/remove from it.
  2. What main questions should we attach to our invitation? We want them to have time to find answers to the questions we are going to ask.
  3. Do we have any other ideas for who to invite as presenters or audience members?
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Here is my first go at a poster that we could send into the Friday Facts/get printed to put up around town/share via email. Let me know your thoughts!!

FebruaryWastePoster
FebruaryWastePoster1587×2245 214 KB

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Yay @syd for doing this!

One comment: Do we want more than just the word WASTE? I get that the three trash cans represent landfill, recycling, and compost, but that might be a bit subtle for some folks. Would it make sense to include something like “Landfill – Recycling – Compost” under the word “WASTE” and above the trash cans?

I really like how you’ve kept this minimal and easy to quickly absorb, and I don’t to mess with that, so feel free to push back if you don’t like this suggestion.

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@Nic_McPhee thoughts?

FebruaryWastePosterLRC
FebruaryWastePosterLRC1587×2245 226 KB

another option with orange text

FebruaryWastePosterLRCOrange
FebruaryWastePosterLRCOrange1587×2245 218 KB

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Love it! Thanks :grinning:

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Another thought I had for this meeting is that it would be nice if everybody had name tags or something. I don’t think we will want to spend the first part of the meeting doing introductions like we normally do, but name tags or name cards would be nice!

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Agreed. Standard name tag stickers are kinda icky from an environmental standpoint. Should we encourage people to bring/make their own?

My mom’s heavily involved in the embroidery world and they all make/stitch their own personalized name tags with rooms for pins from different events, and it’s super cool. I don’t have a picture of hers, but I found this example on the Internet:

I keep thinking I should calligraph my own reusable name tag, but never quite get around to it. Maybe this could be the motivating force. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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@Nic_McPhee I like the reusable one idea!

I do a similar thing at a camp I attend each July. We write our names & decorate a small piece of wood & bring them back each year. There are holes drilled into the wood so we can just loop some yarn through.

We could encourage folks to do this and then have some supplies available at the meeting for folks to make some if they didn’t on their own. I could also offer to keep the name tags in a shoe box and bring them to each meeting so folks don’t forget.

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Or you could encourage someone to volunteer to be The Keeper Of The Nametags so Syd isn’t doing everything for the group. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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It would be helpful if we could gather people’s thoughts at the end of the waste meeting. Both presenters & audience. This could be through an exit paper to fill out, this could be through a follow-up email/poll, this could be through collecting notes they took. We should think about what we think would work best.

This type of information is really helpful to this group because its through those small snippits of thoughts or potential connections that we are able to grow and continue connecting with new folks.

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I have edited the post above to include some specific asks for folks we are inviting. Please feel free to go through those and edit them so that they sound better, make more sense, or are more helpful/specific.
I work all day on Friday (assuming the Transit is still open in the blizzard) and was hoping to send these out tomorrow (Thur 1/16). If that makes sense to you all, that is the plan. If you have other thoughts (about the email, about people to contact, about anything) send them my way!

I am tagging you all so that there will be a higher likelihood that you will see this!
@Nic_McPhee @Susan_Gilbert @Athena @Nec @nomuzz @rjohnson @rd_denton @CKA @EmilyB @Heather

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I think a combination of some of these ideas would be good. A notecard for attendees to fill out is a good low-stakes way to get input/ideas from people, especially if you build in a couple of minutes at the end and give people a prompt to write down their ideas to turn in. Then we could have someone type them up to post here.

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I think the invitation that you’ve written up sounds really good. I like that there is a personalized bit for each person.

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Also since I am going to send out the email tomorrow what are our thoughts about changing the RSVP date to next Friday? This makes it a little easier in terms of knowing who will be there and being able to promote that right away on the next Monday morning.

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Yes, Friday is better.

Ron Staples - Yes, the same as Bob.

The personalized bits are great.

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Expert invite emails have been sent!

Next steps are to assign folks to do follow-up calls next week sometime. I will put names & contact info in the post and people can assign themselves to experts they feel comfortable talking to. I will also make sure to update the post with whether or not the expert has RSVPd to the meeting.

I think calls should be on Wed/Thur depending on the caller’s schedule and whether or not they answer the first time around. Let me know your thoughts!

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UPDATE 1/18/20
Troy Engebretson & Bill Kleindl have both responded to my email.

Troy will, unfortunately be gone on the 1st to a wedding. Troy offered to come up with answers to all of the questions and send them our way. Bill then responded and said that not having Troy there would probably leave us with a lot of questions unanswered because his brain is the institutional knowledge of waste in this area.

Here are their exact emails:

I am going to be out of town to a wedding, we are leaving 1/31/20 in the afternoon. I would be available Friday the 31st in the morning. I will work on responding to the questions below. Let me know if an alternate date is available, M-F early mornings and late afternoons work for me.
Troy Engebretson

It appears Troy will not be able to attend this meeting. I think his insight on their collection/disposal operation and experience with current recycling trends is the largest part of the solid waste system in Stevens County. They have been in the garbage business and a County hauler since the 1970’s. Without him at the meeting, you may leave with a lot of unanswered questions. Is there anyway to plan for a different day? Preferably a Monday – Friday. Weekends don’t work the best for me as well.
Bill Kleindl

They were both willing to attend the meeting but asked if we might be willing to change the time. They have both said that weekdays work better for them.

I told them that I would check in with the group and see what your thoughts were and respond by Monday.

Here are my thoughts:

  • I think it would be a great idea to change the date so that Troy can attend, especially since he seems interested in attending.
  • I think we meet on Saturdays for a reason, it makes it easier for folks to attend who work during the week.
  • I think we could suggest Saturday the 8th or 15th if we want. (I am partial to the 15th because I work on the 8th at noon, but also I might be able to switch that)
  • Troy also offered to meet with us before the meeting so we could get some information from him that way if we don’t want to change the date.

There are a lot of potentials: (1) don’t change meeting date, (2) change meeting date to a weekday, (3) change meeting date to a different Saturday, (4) something else I haven’t thought of.

Let me know your thoughts! Its good to hear that these folks are interested in chatting with us, it makes me excited!!

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I think it makes sense to change the date to a day that Troy can attend since he is such an expert, I don’t think changing it to a Saturday/weekday matters that much, people are going to be busy no matter what.
It might also be worthwhile to wait and hear back from the other experts and see if anyone else has schedule conflicts. I would hesitate to change the day if you have already told them that February 1st is the day, and it works for others, we will still have a panel and be able to connect people with new resources, and it seems like a bit of a hassle to contact everyone and announce we are changing the day.

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It does seem like it would be awkward to have this event without Troy or someone from Engebretson to be there. The question is whether there’s someone else from Engebretson that would be able to give the required overview and answer potentially detailed questions.

As @nomuzz said, it’ll be a little awkward to change the date given that we’re inviting these other people, but that still might be the “right” thing to do.

Personally, I would be unlikely to attend an event during regular working hours on a weekday, but that’s just me. I appreciate that we’re asking them to put in some extra time to meet on a weekend, but it seems like that’s likely to be a better time for a broader audience. The trick is actually getting an audience to come – if we have these folks come on a Saturday and only 5 or 6 of us show up they’re gonna wonder why we didn’t just come by their office and ask a few questions.

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