ERGC Meeting Minutes

January 11, 2021 - 6 pm- 7:10 pm

PLEASE NOTE: The meeting inadvertently ended at 6:32 pm because ZOOM cut us off – April re-emailed a new link and most members rejoined at 6:35 pm to complete the meeting.

Members Present: Dennis, Don Solberg, Jill Ungar, Leigh Ann Harris, April Sheeley, Suzanne Noble, Jack Carpenter, Jim Cole, David Bouta, Susan Waddle, Marte’ Fallshore, Laura Garcia Bohnet, Raven Harlin, Kris Ernest

Work Party Friday January 15, 2021 at 10:30 am at the IOOF Cemetery, 1900 Brick Mill Rd, Ellensburg. Purpose is to assist IOOF manager Richard Gallagher with clearing out the shed we are using for glass crushing operations. Will give a chance for the glass ambassadors to eyeball our space.

Glass Ambassador System Instructions: 1. Collect glass from friends and neighbors – emphasize cleanliness. Turn down dirty glass. All bottles should be clean – that means rinsed out and even scrubbed if something like mayo was in the jar. Set the expectation that corks, lids and neck rings are off the bottles prior to pick up. If they want to remove labels – that would assist in creating a higher quality sand. Thank you!

April will be emailing a sample ‘neighborhood letter’ that you can modify to fit your own collection system. 2. Schedule a date and time to bring the glass to the crusher and make sand.

3. Weigh and record the glass you bring to crush so we have data that will help justify our existence and plans for expansion (via county take over of operations).

IN PERSON TRAINING ON THE MACHINE WILL OCCUR IN FEBRUARY!

Marte’ will be creating a humorous and non-offensive reminder note to leave with your donors that forget to clean their glass. Please consider thanking your donors profusely and often for participating in this grass roots program!

All ambassadors MUST have at least one other support person with them when operating the machine. Do not crush glass alone. Do not crush glass after dark. (‘Crush til Dark’ T-shirt?) Once the combination lock is on the shed – you will be able to crush glass at a time that works best for you.

We will not have glass drop off at the cemetery because it will be overwhelming. Our mantra is to start with deliberate baby steps and build our operation over time. There is no rush – the system will organically organize itself and we will gain capacity as we get more familiar with the ins and outs of what works best and modify our behaviors to maximize efficiency.

April is preparing a guidebook for glass operations when you are at the cemetery. It will be in the shed so you can refer to the guidebook as needed. If you need to be able to use the bathroom – coordinate with Raven to leave the bathroom open for you during your crush time.

City Engagement is part of our mission statement. We are educating the residents about how to recycle responsibly. We need to change mindset about recycling being someone else’s job. We need to encourage local municipalities to use our sand in daily operations such as winter traction, underlay, pipe bedding, pothole fill, filtration, sports field cover and more. Letters to the editor demanding policy changes that require recycled content in procurement is on the table. Incentivizing use of recycled product in projects instead of virgin materials needs to be policy. Currently WADOT accepts a 20% recycled sand sub for virgin sand.