Minutes 01/08/09

Approved 02/02/09

The meeting was convened at 7:07 pm.  Jim Vaillancourt, Ben Edwards, Ken Curley, Doug Chamberlin and Lucy Edwards were present.

The minutes of the December meeting were discussed.  Ken Curley moved and Ben Edwards seconded to approve the minutes as presented, and the minutes were approved 4-0-1, Doug Chamberlin abstaining.

Mr. Vaillancourt stated that he did not get to meet with the finance administrator regarding the transfer station financials.  Mr. Curley said that he thought that meeting had been set up, he was surprised to hear it did not happen.  Mr. Vaillancourt asked if Mr. Preston, transfer station attendant, had been to the board of selectmen about items such as air conditioners that require a fee to be left at the transfer station being left at the swap shop without paying a fee. Mr. Curley said he had not approached the board about this.  Mr. Curley understands that if you left it off you had to pay the fee, even if it was going to the swap shop.

The committee discussed several e-mails Mr. Curley received regarding the transfer station not being open Dec. 31st and an employee being rude.  The station was open regular Wednesday hours on Dec. 31st, but it was possible that the person who complained arrived after it closed at noon.  Summer hours are in the afternoon.  Mr. Curley thought that the problem with the “rude” employee might have been that one of the highway crew was filling in for the regular transfer station employee one day after having plowed all night and might have been moving a bit slowly.  Everyone agreed that it was very important to have someone there who could inform patrons where the particular items should be disposed of.

The page for the recycling committee is now up on the town website.  Mr. Vaillancourt suggested that there should be a mission statement for the website.  When the committee was re-instituted they had written a purpose statement; to make recommendations to the selectmen to further improve waste management through recycling and other processes.  Mr. Vaillancourt stated that his mission was to make the transfer station economically self-sustaining, which everyone thought was a great idea.  Mr. Chamberlin asked if that vision included salaries, and Mr. Vaillancourt said it did.

The committee agreed that we should add the current brochure and hours to the website.  A link to the transfer station information should take care of that, so things can be updated at one time.

Mr. Vaillancourt did a lot of research trying to find a way around having a swap shop.  He found a free-cycling group in Barrington. Free-cycling involves setting up a Yahoo-group e-mail sharing where people can list items they want to give away, or items they need. Once the items has been given away, or received, they announce by e-mail that the transaction is complete and the item is no longer needed or available.  Such a group does need to be moderated, there are rules to keep things moving smoothly, legally and socially acceptably.

Another possibility Mr. Vaillancourt found was the idea of a free-cycle day. Here people bring items they want to give away to a central location on a specific day (or they may be able to drop them off before hand) and if they don’t get taken, they can be picked up, or if at a transfer station, they might be disposed of.  The committee thought that this might be a good idea a couple of times a year, perhaps limiting the kind of articles that could be free-cycled. Perhaps May, August and October, on a Saturday say from 10-2.    Items could be dropped off the week prior and stored in the swap shop shed. It might be good to get some volunteers beyond the committee to organize this.

If we did free-cycle days it probably would mean closing the swap shop.  Another possibility would be to have the swap shop only open once a month, say, with a volunteer on duty to police items left.

The committee agreed that on-line free-cycling should be set up and run by a private group, rather than the committee or the town.

Mr. Vaillancourt would really like to start a newsletter, perhaps twice a year, with any updates to the recycling process.  Mr. Curley said we really need a map of the transfer station, showing where the various commodities go.  Mr. Vaillancourt said that sometimes he found it hard to understand exactly what the signs mean, so perhaps that could be elaborated on the map and it could be part of the brochure.  It would be good to set up some sort of stand where people could pick up the newsletter as they were using the transfer station, perhaps between the main compactor and the cardboard.

The committee decided to table discussion of compost and the tonnage and cost for the plastic until Mr. Preston was able to join us.

It was agreed a display at town meeting would be a good idea.  Mr. Vaillancourt will talk to someone about how to get a table and we can discuss what we want to have on the table and who can man it next month.

The next meeting will be Feb. 2, 2009 at 7 pm at town hall.  Mr. Edwards requested if possible the committee meet in the conference room where the acoustics are better.

The meeting adjourned at 8:17.