SSRC Update Week of 2/11/2011
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SSRC Munis invited to join powerful regional disposal bid Through the efforts of the SSRC, our 5 SEMASS Tier One municipal members have joined fourteen towns on Cape Cod known as the CCC SWCAC (Cape Cod Commission Solid Waste Contract Advisory Committee), to procure a regional long term disposal contract. After nearly two years, all but one municipality are still actively engaged in this process, which could reduce long term disposal costs to all participants by millions. The aggregate tonnage of all the towns is about 200,000 tons/year. Patty Daley at the Cape Cod Commission has been facilitating this endeavor. The Commission issued an RFP and retained the services of attorney John Giorgio of Kopelman and Page to advise the group throughout the process. He has negotiated several regional disposal contracts over the years. At this week’s meeting, I asked the group if our non-Tier One municipalities could be included in this procurement. The response was “The more the merrier”. While this may not be literally true, certainly more tonnage means more clout, and could have a positive environmental impact on the disposal infrastructure in the region, in addition to getting all involved the best deal possible. The plan is for the CCC SWCAC, to issue a Request for Expressions of Interest next week, with a due date of June 1. The REI asks for disposal, recycling, and/or organics processing proposals, which may include multiple outlets under one contract at one price. The ultimate goal is to have a proposal ready for ratification in all participating towns by spring towns meetings in 2012. The term would begin 1/1/2014 and ideally run for 10 to 20 years. “Put or pay” is strongly discouraged. We will discuss this at our meeting next week in Hanson. |
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Bob O’Connor Retires after 43 years at Weymouth DPW Weymouth DPW Director Bob O’Connor retired on January 6, after 9 years as Director and 43 years with the Department. Given the winter weather, his timing was very good. He began as a laborer when he returned from a deployment as a Marine to Viet Nam. Water and Sewer Supt. Michael Chiasson will serve as Interim DPW Director until a new one is appointed. I have been working with Bob on their semi-annual HHW collections and with the ad hoc Recycling Committee he has run for several years. It always amazed me how such a seemingly laid back, soft spoken gentlemen could keep the department humming the way he did. I will miss working with him, and wish him the best I his retirement. |
Get some
local Bang out of MassRecycle’s Paper Campaign TV promo As we announced in the last Update, the MassRecycle's Paper Campaign is now airing its first ad on CBS! (see below for first week’s schedule). Your municipality can get more paper out of your residents’ trash and into the bin by getting some synergy with these low to no cost action steps:
The promotion will also produce a 4 minute video which will be aired twice in March and uploaded to YouTube. |
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MassDEP municipal waste and recycling data due Tuesday MassDEP is collecting municipal recycling and solid waste data for calendar year 2010 through Survey Monkey. This should be quicker and easier to fill out than the previous MRDS’s. It is due February 15, 2011. Data submitted by SSRC towns will be very helpful for evaluating and optimizing our member towns’ programs. There are some important differences compared to MassDEP’s earlier Municipal Recycling Data Sheet collection:
MassDEP expects that completion and submittal of this survey will be a requirement for future municipal recycling and waste reduction grant programs. Before you begin the survey, review the survey instructions (which include a blank copy of the full survey). Prepare all of your information before beginning the survey, as Survey Monkey does not appear to allow you to save the survey response and return to it later. It appears that some responses on page 2 were getting stuck due to a validation issue. John Fischer at MassDEP has removed that validation rule, so that should prevent these issues from this point forward. If you click on “done” at the end of the survey, and it brings you right back to the same page, that means there is an error somewhere on the page and it has not been submitted. Please review the page again and look for an error notice for one of the questions. If you can’t work it out, please give John a call at (617)292-5632 .
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Updated Bottle Bills score scores of cosponsors Over eighty legislators cosponsored the identical Updated Bottle Bills filed by Rep. Alice Wolf (HD263) and Sen. Cynthia Creem (SD 45), including the South Shore’s Representatives Tom Calter and Rhonda Nyman, and Senator Kennedy. (There may be more, I haven’t received the final list yet). A large and growing coalition, including the SSRC and 145 municipalities, has been promoting this bill (attached), which would add non-carbonated nonalcoholic beverage containers to the deposit system, increase the meager handling fee paid to struggling redemption centers, and relieve towns of the cost and responsibility to manage this nuisance waste stream. Two other South Shore legislators, Senator Robert Hedlund and Rep. Garrett Bradley, have filed separate bills that would also update the 28 year old Mass. Bottle Bill. This issue, supported by 77% of polled residents, has received a lot of media attention lately, and promises to be a hot topic this legislative session.
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