001All right, welcome everybody. Um, let's see. I'd like to get down to business and would someone like to move to approve the meeting minutes for September 8th was our last meeting. So, anybody want to move on that? Anybody who's here? >> Second on that. >> April Lang 2 seconds. >> April Lang. Great. All approved. Fantastic. Thank you very much. All right. So, make a note of it. And then Mari, you wanted to uh you want to take it from here, Mari? >> Sure. We'll just jump right into the pollinator pathway event possibly um to discuss. So, April, if you want to start on that, that'd be great. Whatever you want to talk. >> Yeah. So, um, to kind of give a tiny bit of a background, there's a a sixth grade science class at Hillrest
002Middle School who's actually doing a bunch of sustainability type projects right now, and several students throughout sixth grade are working on the pollinator pathway. So, I'm going to touch base with them next week to kind of see if they came up with any ideas. I kind of let them know that our struggle point was getting the information out to the community and how can we do that? um having limited resources, limited volunteers, and they were going to hopefully help generate some ideas for that, whether it's social media stuff, videos, whatever. Um or just ideas to kind of help with that. So, that's one piece that's taking place. Um I'm going to circle back to White B, get a new list, um and see if they have any new products coming in for the fall. And
003then more than likely, um, the last time we went to Stop and Shop, we had really good people stopping at our booth. Though they were donating money, which is wasn't exactly why we were there. It was there forformational purposes, but I'm thinking that that's a good location to at least try to be there for like in a Saturday or a Sunday to really kind of help get people signed up for this. um either with new plant um kind of bundles or old plant bundles and then seeing if we could do something for those who may be already signed up but want something different to kind of add to what they already have. So that's kind of where I am for the game plan. Any questions? >> Yes. What was the uh what were the students
004what was the uh ages on that? >> Sixth grade students. >> And are you talk are you looking for the fall to to do this? No, we'd be doing it for the spring. >> And do you have an approximate date >> for what? >> Like when I mean the whole uh I mean there'll be a sign up and then a distribution. So what like are you looking in April or May or >> Probably um a March sign up, April delivery. >> Okay. And what what what's the funding situation this time around, April? >> We have the grant money that's left over that we haven't used the last time. We have a couple thousand dollars. >> Uhhuh. Okay. >> Um Yeah. >> So, is it sign up until the the funds have been fulfilled, like the
005quantity reaches that fund limit kind of thing? >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um, are you looking for volunteers to table to do a signup day? Um, a library date? I know the library, if I recall, Courtney's was unable to join us today, but she said she, you know, can help with library um connections. I think like given ahead notice for a signup date, they might be able to offer it, but are you able to man it? Do you need a volunteer for that? Yeah, I think once we have dates, we'll have to look out for volunteers depending on the day I know what my availability is or not. Um, I know Pam is able to help a little bit as well. >> Okay. >> And then we look for, you know, student volunteers too
006if they could help and sit with us to one get volunteer hours and two spread the good word. >> Right. Right. And was there any um well what is the latest thinking about one of the garden clubs because I think Pam had been talking to somebody or other do you know do you remember >> um she might have been talking to a garden club but I didn't hear anything recently at all. uh is is it worth pursuing it so that there might be some you know benefit of engage working with them or if they would work with us or whatever it might you know spread the word. >> Yeah. I think once we have our list then if they're having a meeting or something or getting their contacts and spreading the word that would be
007fine. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, were you looking to see if they would volunteer and engage with helping us man something? >> Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what we Well, I I that's what I vaguely recall having talked to Pam about, but I, you know, I don't know if she made a direct, she may have made a direct contact with one of the groups, I think, but, you know, I'm not recalling the details. I just I'm just trying to think if there's some way to, you know, expand the community involvement somehow. >> That's the concept. So, I know that they had been one of them had been interested in the idea of all this. So, >> but Pam Pam knows. >> I think I vaguely remember that too, Janet. Which one that was, I do not
008know, and I don't know if the same people are still involved. So, correct. We h we have to do some digging, but >> should be a couple phone calls. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And you have your hand up. >> Yeah. Do some digging. No pun intended. Right, April. >> Love it. >> There was a a there used to be a Nicholls garden club I was in, but I don't know. They seem to somewhere. But um they actually um worked at uh sort of redoing a a slope there at the NIA in um native plants, but also there's other garden clubs. Um and actually the Nichols Improvement Association itself is um working to um to remove um invasives and try to plant. So there's another group to to touch base with and try to
009coordinate something so it's not a bunch of fragmented things. And then also uh Dean I noticed you're on the conservation commission. So the conservation commission also has kind of something in the works with removing vines and possible plantings and places. So rather than my suggestion is rather than people doing a lot of work in little places to just try and coordinate one bigger thing. Just my two cents. >> Yeah. So the pollinator grant just so you know is just for getting the word out there and kind of having more people throughout our town create a pollinator pathway. Not necessarily help remove stuff and then plant for town property. It's two different things. Yeah. I mean, the grant the the grant if we're talking about pollinator pathway is designed for planting native plants in Trumble. >>
010Yep. >> And the work around doing that. Yes, that's correct. >> Yeah. What do you need help with? I guess I just don't want you to walk away feeling like you have to call and make all these um arrangements for times, you know. Do you want to connect with Courtney, Pam? Um, >> yeah, I think I'll see Courtney next Saturday. Um, hopefully I get in touch with White Birch before then. I'll put a phone call out, see how Dave's doing. >> Um, see if his plant lists have changed or if he can give me a better version of what I looked at last time with a magnifying glass. Um, start to create our groupings and go from there. And then hopefully our my lovely sixth graders have some great ideas that I could use and
011steal um and give them credit for because I know they've been working on this for a while in their class. >> Oh, that's great. >> Is it just Hillrest or is it >> just just Hillrest? Just one teacher. >> Okay, >> Miss Duffy. >> Gotcha. >> Yeah, I'll be there next Tuesday, too. >> I know you're judging. >> Yeah, >> that's great. >> Um Um, so yeah, that's kind of my update. Um, I'll keep you guys posted as soon as I get some more solid stuff like put together and down. Um, but most people like to plant in the spring, though I I'm not going to lie, it's always better to plant in the fall. Most people are into planting in the spring. So that's why I'm kind of pushing for a spring thing versus
012a fall thing. I think we might actually get more takers. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Yeah. Any other questions or things I can answer? >> No, but you Janet, you could I can help you if I can. >> That would be amazing. >> You can always ask me. >> I would love that, Janet. We're a good team sitting at that table. Last one. >> Yeah, that's that's that's correct. >> All right. So, all right. I'm gonna mute myself and we can move on to the next agenda item. >> Yeah. And I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to leave you. So, I'll catch up later if I can. Otherwise, I'll watch the video. Thanks. >> All right. >> Bye, >> April. >> Mary, what do you got, Mary? You want to go back to >> All
013right. I was going to say we could have gone right on to the um coordination with other groups and conservation commission while Janet was on, but should we just go back to the top? >> Dean, I'll ask you if you whatever you want to do. >> Yeah. No, go for it. >> You want me? >> Do you want to do you want to continue with conservation of Janet already jumped off. That's fine though. Why don't you go ahead while we're on the topic of all this? >> Yeah, I'm glad to. So, um, so one thing that we've been uh trying to organize is uh regular uh vine and and invasive plant removal and we uh we get uh locations that the parks and recreation sends us to. Unfortunately, the weather has really not been our
014friend. So our first uh our first outing was uh in November and it rained so we went the next week but then that was you know right uh Thanksgiving weekend. Uh and then anyway the last two we've been snowed out. Uh the next one is going to be March 11th and and um so we do have a list of volunteers. Uh we've we've had some success in the high school. Uh but then you know when you change dates around that messes people up. But uh it's is it Susan Collins? Anyway, the the head of the guidance department very >> uh and uh she's >> something Samantha Samantha >> Samantha that's it helpful in uh helping us get the word out. So, uh, we're small, but hopefully if we can get in a a regular pattern,
015we'll we'll gather more people as we go along. The the next one will be, uh, working around the waterfall area in the, um, Twin Brooks Park. That'll be on March 11th. And the, um, uh, yeah, um, the, as I said, the the group's kind of it's kind of small. Uh we do we we've uh been going in the colder months to avoid po poison ivy in the heavy uh tick time, >> right? >> And uh personally, I I I like doing it in the summer myself because then you can really see what you're doing. But uh but we we probably won't do it in the summer. We'll just keep, you know, later in the fall and then through the uh winter and early spring, hoping the weather goes in our favor. another another project uh
016that's a longer term thing that we want to work on is um so there's a property called the Tashua tree farm and uh it's I think it's about 36 acres and it's off of Fuller Road on the north north end of uh town and uh so as the name suggests that I mean it was an old farmstead and then it was a tree farm I guess as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, but the town bought the land. It's a very nice piece of property. Uh but it's um just kind of been left empty there and um the conservation commission has worked, you know, we had the state forester out. We want to develop a plan to uh kind of restore that area and um get rid of the invasives and and make it
017um uh improve it uh somewhat. So that'll be a long-term project. Uh we'll also be looking at the uh the beach uh and uh we're going to be meeting with the forester there. I'm not sure when in March or April uh to see what what might happen in that property, but that's a big big park. So, that would be a lot to uh a lot. >> What was the name of it? Did you say, >> dude? Beach uh beach park. The one >> Oh, beach park. Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah, that's that's a big one. Um >> that is big. >> But we we uh we will be meeting, you know, we'll have the state forester out and we'll we'll walk that property before long. So there's a lot >> of Is that part of the
018vine team project or what is that going to be? >> Well, that's just the the um the the conservation commission is looking at ways that we can uh that that we can kind of address some of the town owned land and and >> okay >> uh what needs to happen, you know, a forest a forestry plan. I mean, we're going to we're going to lose a lot of of beach trees in that in that property. I mean, what should happen next? And a lot of this needs to be coordinated with uh with Dimmitri Paris and the >> the parks department and what have you. I mean, that it's their responsibility, but but we want to um we want to help with uh with that and um so yeah, so that's that's uh something we've been
019doing a lot of talk about and conservation commission. We we really do want to kind of raise our profile like so that people know we even have a conservation commission. Actually, we found like being out there in uh in the Twin Brooks Park and pulling pulling up weeds and stuff, people would walk by and be like, "What are you doing?" And so that's that's a good way to for people to kind of learn about us. >> Yeah. We'll be happy to support April in the um in her project. That's all that's all good, too. So, other than that, the the um conservation commission looks at the inland wetlands uh the the applications to that and uh weighs in on some of those. But, uh yeah, so those are some of the things we've been doing.
020Cool. Great. >> Thank you. Dean, have you um as a group thought about making a social media presence because like a uh Instagram or Facebook? >> Yeah. So, we do have one person on our committee that's uh a little bit more I mean, she's kind of helping with some of our communications. So, I mean, we do have the the web page on the town website, >> right? And uh but I don't think we've got much outside of that. Um >> okay. >> So yeah. >> Yeah. I don't know. It just um I just feel like with the um future uncertain of the sustainable trumble team and kind of the wheelhouse um if we're not doing our sustainable CT certification, which we'll talk about at later at the meeting. um you know would some of the
021conservation focused items such as um such as these you know best fall under conservation only and how can we beef up the like you said the presence and um engagement right of >> volunteers right >> right >> just a thought >> the ongoing issue getting volunteers right well it seems to me when you look at the I mean I'm on the on the conservation commission web part of the town thing and a lot of that stuff is the same stuff from sustainable trumble like we're duplicating efforts >> that's actually on my request I was going to get to later but I'll just bring it up now. Um, I've been updating the town web pages and under the sustainable trouble team, I was trying to uh narrow the scope a little to be a little bit
022more um, you know,formational versus program driven of what the town offers. And under that, we have a page. Can I share my screen? Hold on. Um, share screen. Hold on. Let me pull up what I want to do and then share. Um, okay. All right. Can you guys see this? >> Oh, now you can. >> Nope. >> No. What are you seeing? Ento your screen. Huh? I don't know. Okay. Well, under the sustainable team, there's a tab called land stewardship. Mhm. >> And I feel like the topics there are, you know, about invasive plants. Um I wondering if the conservation commission would be comfortable housing those tabs in the future. So Dean, maybe you can check with your >> Yes. >> group and find out. I just think um you know we as a group
023don't have that >> okay >> strength you know >> but honestly the conservation topics seem to draw the most interest from the community in terms of library events um and community involvement if you want my honest opinion. you know, recycling and waste reduction kind of feels like a slap on the hand, I think, to people, whereas um removing vines feels like a feel-good improve the environment. So, you know, keep going forward. >> I don't know. I think that I think what you've doing the recycling is pretty cool, but anyway. Yeah. >> All good stuff, right? >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Okay. So, that was my thought on working together. But, all right. So, should I get started back with the uh recycling report? Um, I was hoping to have a few more people here from
024the recycling drive, but thank you Kendra for representing in April. Um, I always like to kind of share the overview from the previous year. So, I started tracking things. Each year I get a little bit better with it and especially now in this position, it's really behooves us to track our um collection data. So I kind of just went through and created a u recycling coordinator report if you will and I'll bring that to each of our u meetings this month or this meeting. I went through with like annual total. So moving forward throughout the rest of the year, I think we would just do program updates if if there are any at that time. But um just um to you know kind of go item program by program. We'll start with electronics. Um just
025so everybody's aware the town is searching for a new vendor. Um I believe we've secured it and are going to be moving forward. So the transfer station um collection it will mirror pretty much what's there already uh with a few um little improvements. So once that vendor gets secured, it will still be the uh trailer collection, but we'll look to put out some additional education. Um you know, certain things like we were collecting hair dryers at the recycling drive. These are all accepted. Pretty much anything with a cord um can be um recycled in the electronic uh collection. >> Um vacuum cleaners, just to name a few things that we previously didn't uh know could be recycled. Again, we'll continue with batteries, light bulbs, etc. So, um the glass collection, just to kind of quantify
026it, we collect an average of 30 tons a year in the clean glass separated re um collection at the transfer station. I think I want to highlight the importance of this just so the community knows if anyone's listening or just for the team members here to kind of understand. I mean, it really keeps the glass going exactly where it needs to go and it keeps the weight down to our, you know, our regular residential recycling. And this is key because we are paying for it as taxpayers. So, if people choose to remove it and bring it manually to the clean glass recycling, it's a viable product that gets, you know, closing the loop right here locally in Connecticut. Um, textile bins, we are doing so great. Um we year-over-year continued to grow. Uh we had
027a 24% increase um in 2025 compared to 2024 and we collected um over 25,000 pounds of textiles. So um it's interesting because we collect more at Madison in the one bin than we do in the two bins at Hillrest. Um but we don't seem to have an overflow issue going on any longer. So I'm not looking to add a second one to Madison at this time. Um, I am, you know, looking to add one to the transfer station. I think that would be a nice addition to people that are used to going there. So, as you know, I'm sure everybody's aware they're reconfiguring the transfer station, widening the road, etc. So, it's going to be in phases, but we are looking at any and all programs to be added to the transfer station. That makes
028sense. Can I just remind you that that Hillrest is going to start to be under construction in the spring and those bins just at least need to be moved to the other side and I think where there's more visibility for them we might actually get more people too. >> Yeah. Thank you for reminding me about that, April. Really helpful. >> No problem. >> How much Murray was it in 2025 did you say? >> Um over 25,000. >> 25,000. Okay. >> Yeah. I didn't make mention of the help collection. don't have a lot of data on um on those numbers. Um that's curbside uh pickup of textiles through a different company. Uh while they are a local Trumbull um company, >> the uh revenue that uh we receive as a town on that is uh considerably
029lower. So if we can encourage people to do the drop off and we do take the items also at the recycling drive. So we're giving people a lot of opportunity um to to utilize the drop off, but it is available. So, uh that is on our website page. Uh mattresses, uh we've had the uh annually we've done two popup collections. Last year we did a a pretty low collection in May due to last minute notice and then a better collection in November. I I've already secured u the May date at the high school just u pending town approval. We'll sec uh we'll get that set up uh and then it's a little far out but we'll look to do another one in November. So if we don't get a ongoing collection at the transfer station
030permanently anytime soon, I'm hoping to create a little continuity by like every May and November we do a collection alongside the recycling drive. The issue is the school can't always, you know, promise us that November date this early in the year. But um that's that's the goal to be continued. Um >> how many how much do you have a number on how much mattresses or pounds or number? Okay. No, >> I remember there were quite a lot in November. >> Yeah, I want to say. Yeah, 30 something. I feel like we were >> Whereas the previous previous time it was like three. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Was really small. >> Yeah, it was really short notice waiting on approval. That's why I'm hoping to get the notice out. We were able to print posters
031that were out uh displayed at the transfer station for like a month prior to the November date. So people coming in and dropping off there um were notified. There was a poster at the library as well. So um all right, Beyond the Bin Recycling, which is our new overarching name for the Terracycle and other small items typically um you know thrown in the trash. So for Terracycle, this includes the cosmetic and beauty care, oral care, pens, markers, razors, deodorant, and pumps. We collected in 2025 442 pounds. That was a 68% increase from 2024 and an 192% increase from 2023. So we're like doubling it every year. Um >> so it's really great. And while the pounds if you equate that to um town cost for per tonnage for removing waste, it's pretty expensive. However, it's
032removing quantity because all those items, you know, are very light in weight and it's just the mindset of keeping contamination out of our regular recycling bin. Um, contact lens and packaging and eye care, we don't weigh those. Uh, but we get, as you you know, for those of you that come to our monthly drive, we get a lot of them. So, I was just throwing it out there. Maybe we want to have a way of quantifying it whether we weigh it or I don't know something um to think about printer ink. We're pretty um plateaued with that. We average about $200 in collection of the ink cartridges. That was about 400 cartridges last year. So, um again, just keeping things out of the waist stream. Um black plastic to-go containers. Again, we don't quantify this
033at all, but I like to think we do a, you know, a pretty hefty collection, and it's I think it's important that we get credit to ourselves for what we're keeping out of the waist stream. So, maybe we can all talk about this on at the next event on Saturday. Um, plastic film. April, maybe you can help me out here, but I'm estimating we collect about 100 pounds per month when we were weighing it for Middlebrook. Um, does that sound about right? Yeah, we're probably somewhere around that number. Yeah, we could always open that back up too if the town wanted to coordinate for like a um >> community competition. >> Yeah, community competition for sure. >> Okay. Yeah, we can think about that. Um Okay. And then some of the discontinued items over the
034year, we no longer accept the late July chip bags, phone cases, Entimman's bags, and any other brand specific collections. I mean, I think those um when we add those in, they come and go. It's I like to keep it streamlined with the categories we're collecting and really beef up education on those items. Um again, back to the Bayate textile bins, we're looking to add alongside those the um book and media bins. So, it's coincidentally Bayate Books unaffiliated with Bayate Textiles. So, I'm having a very challenging time contacting this company, but they basically took over the bins that are have been abandoned. There's one at Board of Ed building, Long Hill building, and there's one behind Hillrest overflowing. So, they've told me they can pick these up, remove them, replace them with their bins, which I
035would like to replace, have the replaced bins be alongside the Bay State bins at Madison and Hillrest, wherever that final location is April for construction. And the beauty is they collect books that are past their useful life and media. So, VHS tapes, CDs, DVDs. This has been a big gap in our town recycling collection. So, this would be great. The library would love to be able to host it in theory, but they feel it's a conflict with their friends of the library book collection, but they would love to have a place to dispose of their past useful life books. So, um I think the community is like thirsty for this type of collection. We just have to get um a contract from an agreement from them and have them deliver the bins. So, fingers crossed
036I can coordinate all that in the coming months. So, um, all right. So, that's all program update, contamination update. This is something that, um, in the last few months, I've become aware of, um, and as a town we're looking to address. So, if everybody's not already familiar, when your curbside recycling gets picked up by the hauler, it goes directly to the um, recycling facility in Shelton. And if the facility deems the load that it arrives in on as containing 10% or greater contamination, so this means items that are in plastic bags, items that are not accepted, and dirty items. Those are the three kind of overarching categories of contamination. They slap a fine on that load. Uh we are part of a regional contract for these rates and um fees, the fee schedule, but the
037town absorbs those fees. The haulers do not. So we are as a town trying to address how to reduce contamination and of course education is a big component. Um I'm working with other towns in the region of how they're addressing it. um and working with the haulers as well to hold them a little bit accountable for picking up uh loads that are so contaminated. So if anybody has ideas um suggestions wants to you know >> what were the three things Mari what was it uh >> items in plastic bags so obviously plastic bags themselves are not recyclable but when you bag your items >> right >> um because of like OSHA standards they can't open it it could be filled with needles, whatever else, they just remove the entire bag of items and trash it.
038>> Okay. Well, that's >> people that think they're being nice and neat with their recyclables. No. >> Yeah. I see it all the time. >> Yeah. And then dirty items. You said dirty stuff like >> Yeah. Excessively dirty items and just simply unaccepted items when there's >> wrong items. Yeah. >> Cylinders in there. Um styrofoam, luggage, uh everything else. So, >> yeah. Wish cycling. >> Wish cycling. Yeah. >> And Kendra, we talked about how clean things need to be. I just watched um another recycling coordinator's report and she said the Murf she went to said specifically like spatula clean for a peanut butter jar because they shred it down into plastic and wash it. So, um I feel better having someone else corroborate that as well. So, um, and then just again finishing on my
039update. Sorry. Um, it's a little bit long because it's a whole annual update here, but, um, website updates. I kind of touched upon that, but if you go to the town, um, public works department, you'll see the transfer station tab, which I revised and updated. So, all any of the waste reduction programs housed by the transfer station are there. And then on that page links you to the new page we created called recycling programs which you can also access directly from the public works website. So again all program driven on the town. These are all things we have going on and no discredit to sustainable trumble because as you know all these beyond the bin programs we can't run them without volunteers. So, I hope everybody feels that removing them from Sustainable Trumbles page was
040not to discredit anybody's efforts because, you know, I can't I can't do this myself. I really appreciate everybody's pitching in and helping and run making them run, but we just felt all the programs should be housed under public works. Um, and then from there, there's a reduce, reuse, recycle page, which brings you back to sustainable trumble, which is now more resources. It lists the ABCs of recycling, >> which I'm hoping this kind of keeps it consolidated. If people are like, "Where do I go to know, you know, what to recycle, the the reduce, reuse, recycle page is there. It um gives you an updated flyer." I I put together the um what's in what's out flyer and that's specific to Trumbull. So, um, yeah, I mean, I'll just kind of finish by saying, you know,
041as I'veked with other towns, kind of doing the website revision, I've gone to other towns and I feel so proud of the stuff we've accomplished as a town in a sustainable group because we offer the most comprehensive waste reduction and recycling programs I feel like across the state. I don't see other towns doing the volume of um Beyond the Bin programs with Terraycle and just all the other extras, the aggressive plastic film collection we're doing. Um you know, April, with you at the school, it's just it's really impressive. And I think if we can continue to educate and spread the message, you know, we're we're single-handedly addressing the contamination by offering these programs. So, >> that's my update. All right. >> Um, just in case you wanted feedback from someone who's been on the committee,
042I am by far totally not offended that things got reworked on the website. I think as long as people could find the information, >> I'm happy. >> Yeah, that's what we're shooting for. >> Yeah. Thanks. And April, please, since you have been u around since day one, please feel free to look through the pages. Um, I I haven't gone through every single page to update, but I'm trying to tackle the ones that are the highest priority. Like textiles hadn't been updated in a couple years with data, that kind of thing. Um, >> I had to present at town council last last month and I didn't want anybody to be like, "Oh, textile recycling." And go to the page and see it outdated. So, that kind of thing. I was like going in order. So, >>
043as much as I'm a paper person and I like something printed in front of me, I would say the more we could do even with social media videos that people we could get out to as many groups as possible would be amazing to get more people to recycle. >> Um, potentially get it correct. >> Um, >> I am going to be working with the woman at the Trumbull Community Television to make some videos. I'm going to do like a handful I'm hoping of like quick 30 secondond things like here's electronic recycling walk through the bin point out all the items accepted done and then do one quick uh or a little bit longer overview I'm going to be at the recycling bin in my driveway and going through what's in what's out exactly um but
044with the snow and the bright white background she said it's just not the time and I don't really want to film in 10 degree weather so hopefully we'll get those going this spring so >> sounds like a good idea though it'll be good. >> Yeah. >> And then that, like I said, that double-sided wish, we called it a wish cycling flyer, but the front is like a very visual what's in what's out. I modified it from um the state deep department. And then on the back is more text, but at least it's very informative. If somebody wanted a print at home, like you said, April, a visual, I I do like that as well. It's like, wait, what do I do with black plastic to go? It's it's on there, you know? Um, if we
045do come up with a list of videos or whatever orformational things, I wonder if I could reach out to some high school students who might need some community service hours over the summer and we could try to bang some of this out. >> Yeah, that would be great. I met with their like tech club to see if they wanted to make some videos. Not that the um, you know, content was, you know, maybe their focus, but I haven't heard uh back from it's the woman at the community TV again. So, I'll I'll follow up with her, too, if any students wanted to move forward with those. >> And she might come film at one of the recycling drives. So, that would be a great video as well, don't you think? To say this is walk
046her through the line of bins on video. >> Yeah, I absolutely think that would get some people watching. That'd be great >> with our new organized blue bins. >> Yes, I love it. >> They look very pretty. >> Thank you, >> Dean. Did you have a question? Did I miss you? Sorry. >> Yeah. So th this is a a slightly different issue but a contamination issue too. So so there was some talk and I think it came from sustainable um trouble but about separating out invasive type plant matter in and um and I and so we didn't have a lot of clarity about what we were looking for or how that would be accomplished. Is there a an effort toward that? >> I did I followed up on that. So the question is just for
047everybody else was there was some concern with the drop off of brush at the transfer station containing invasive plants and did it get transported to somewhere and you know fuel this invasive plant growth, right? And I spoke with the company who collects from the transfer station and he said he gets virtually no invasive species dropped off. So he did not feel that there was a concern or an area for education. So >> I know I just know at home personally when I pull bittersweet or whatever it is, I let it dry out in the driveway and I put it in the trash. I do not try to come that stuff. Yeah, it's not it's not recommended that things that are um invasive um are get composted because it could contaminate anybody if they break that
048down and hand it off to people. >> Right. >> That's like poison ivy should not go to that drop off center. Just saying. >> Right. That's true. I mean, if if your group, conservation group wants to put together a quick um, you know, bullet point, I can make a a you know, something on Canva and put it out to the community. I just was kind of told it wasn't a big concern and I would rather address a con if it was like let's say a high influx of poison ivy. Let's say let's address what's the concern is whereas it might be lost if there's not a big concern. >> I I agree. Yeah. >> Um okay. So next on the agenda is events for the year. So, I know I wish a few other people
049from recycling drive um were able to show up today because I know there is an interest from people to volunteer. But with that said, I have I'm happy to uh be the conductor on any and all events people want to run, but I can't single-handedly do um every event that someone suggests if they're not willing to show up to support the event. So, um, you know, I had put a call out for volunteers on social media, and I actually had a a mom who is overseeing the food donation program at Daniel's Farm reach out about doing a swap shop, maybe a clothing and kids sporting good um, kind of event where and we have um, you know, Ellen, I think, previously had talked about doing something and I'm not sure the library was in favor
050of hosting the location and that's kind of as far as we got with doing a a swap type event. Um, I'm happy to revisit it if anybody else in the group thought that was something of interest. Just feel like everybody kind of has their bandwidth and is able to oversee what they can. So, again, since the person who reached out isn't um on the meeting, I think we'll table that unless >> Okay. >> anyone's dying to take the lead on it. I'm not dying to take the leave, but I do think that that would be an amazing event for the town. Um, unfortunately, I think the the schools are now charging because they have to PTAs even for using their like space at night and charging janitor. So, we do have to look for outside
051space within the town that might have a large enough capacity to host something like that. >> Right. So maybe I don't even know what the senior center has available in regards to space. >> Um but I do think it could be a good event. I wouldn't do both clothes and sports stuff at the same time, but do one maybe and or the other. >> Well, so the woman um that suggested it was saying she kind of pictured maybe at the recycling event people like brought their their tables and I'm just relaying the what was stated, people bring tables and bring their stuff to share. Um, I think I agree, April. I I thought and u maybe I think we've talked about this in the past, narrowing the focus so it wasn't so much quantity of
052items. So, I went to I think it was in Fairfield the middle school. I forgot, but their their group did a like just a used item sale and it was a full cafeteria of every table. It was so much stuff. They had so much leftover. They wonderfully donated toys to our used toy drive. But I'm thinking maybe like a Halloween costume swap or a midsummer sporting good. Maybe it's equipment, helmets, um, lacrosse sticks, things like that that people are done with and want to pass on where we could do a couple of tables at recycling drive and maybe we do a drop off for the Monday through Friday leading up to it at my driveway or something or at public works or whatever. And then that Saturday we bring the items and people can come
053collect them or there's someone that can pick them up to be donated. Something like that. I don't know if that sounds reasonable. I like the Halloween costume swap idea. I always Wilton go green does that. I think Kendra maybe you even asked about that at one point. I thought that was a cute idea. I I was even talking with um someone about prom dressing. >> Yeah, somebody does that the prom dress in like the state. I I do like the concentrated effort. >> Um, you know, you could buy regular FL. I do like the concentrated effort of like sporting goods being my thing or like the Halloween costumes. Great idea. >> Right. Right. >> Both of those. >> You don't want to end have an event and have people just come and bring their stuff
054and set it down and go away. >> Right. Right. >> So, start small. I like that. Very targeted thing. Halloween costume. >> Maybe you can donate up to five items or something. see if we could do something like that. I would be willing to maybe I'm thinking July recycling drive. I know people are on vacation, but it's also a quiet recycling drive in the middle of the summer. Everybody kind of like a lull between sports, too. It could be cover, you know, people are kind of finished with spring sports, gearing up for fall sports. I don't know because we have manpower at our recycling drive. So, I always look to add something, you know, it's kind of like what's the extra of the month? Is it mattresses? Is it pumpkin composting? Is it um you
055know, Halloween costumes or something? We could try maybe the Halloween costumes only this year and see how that goes. >> Yeah, >> I like that. What? Maybe if you bring one, you get a ticket to pick up one. >> Sounds good. Drop. Yeah, like you drop one off one month, the following month we have them and that's why we do the swap. >> Oh, yeah. Right. Okay. So, you drop off in September and you pick up in October. >> Yeah. >> Then it's not a somebody's door step for a week or Okay. All right. Let's let's do that as a tenative just to get our feet wet with a swap maybe. Plus, it gives us time till October. >> You want to try in October? You're saying? >> Yeah, we'll do a drop off September.
056And this is something we don't need extra like you're saying. We don't need building space. We don't need extra permission. We're just kind of piggybacking on our event, right? >> Okay. Um, okay. Earth Day, I just reached out to the library to see if we can get a glass display case for April. Um, any other ideas, things we want to do? April, would you want to I was thinking, what if we do like a in March, like early Earth Day? We could call it um a day in March where you sell the or you know um sign people up for the polliner pathway. I could do a recycling kind of education thing. Maybe it's a presentation. I don't know if it's too late to get a spot at the library, but um April get busy.
057>> I would be good for that. >> Okay. >> Um just try to coordinate with me with dates with a a lot of um like family stuff that we have going on and different things that we have to be up. But I'm free. Yeah, I'll put on my calendar and I'm in. >> Okay. I don't know. I like the early Earth Day. It's kind of catchy maybe. And >> I like it. And then we And then the delivery could be during Earth Week, which is kind of what I was tentatively trying to think about. >> Yeah. I wonder if you could even piggy back with the tidy up Trumble Day. They already have a a designated that morning where people come and pick up. I don't know. Oh, wait. You do it at White Birch.
058Never mind. Right. >> Yeah, we're at White Birch. >> Yeah, never mind. Okay. >> But that's okay. Uh, speaking of tidy up Trumble, we've in the past done a location where we all meet. Um, it's mixed bag. I feel like even people within the group, Kevin, you go somewhere else. I'm hesit I'm leaning towards not participating as a group. Is everybody okay with that? >> Yeah. Yeah. As I say, I do my own I do Unity Park and the nature center. So, >> yeah, it's kind of their event and I feel like um it's maybe best if everybody just signs up, whoever wants to do it. Uh we can look to do our September uh cleanup event if everyone's still interested in doing that. Last year, we combined it with a recycling event. It was
059not overly successful, but um we could we could look for another date if we want. We could try that again maybe with a little bit more um advertising andor I think we need to connect with Sam Samantha Collins at the high school it sounds like to get students uh more involved. I think uh we could if students knew they could start collecting community service hours that early we might get a better participation. So I would say I mean that's then that becomes a cleanup at September recycling drive and drop off costumes. Is that too many you think? Kendra, April, Kevin, what do you guys think? >> Yeah, that sounds good. >> I'm wondering too if we let the high school know ahead of time and I know they're sending out a lot of information to
060parents at that point already, but we could also potentially post to their website, like on their Facebook page and say, "Hey, by the way, early community service hours, blah, blah, blah. This is how you do it." >> Right. Right. Um, I'm gonna try to work with uh Mr. payer at the high school to kind of combine our volunteering opportunities, particularly on-site Trumbull High School cleanups. So when students come to recycling drive, if we have them doing a combination of recycling, sorting and improvement of the grounds, the students can get inschool hours. It's a big challenge for students, I'm hearing, in high school, to obtain inschool community service hours that they need for uh different honor societies. the out of school hours are much easier to obtain and I think um sustainable trumble being an out
061of school organization doesn't necessarily typically fall as in school hours for the kids anymore. So if we look to pair up with the environmental club I think we could um fill that niche for the students which I would love to be able to do. So again, we can do this the participate with the save the sound cleanup in September or we can kind of do like a monthly school cleanup if we want and kind of piggyback that to our recycling event. I don't mind doing it. Obviously, every month it's going to be fluctuate whether students want to come. This month it's probably a moot point if the snow's still on the ground, you know, >> right? Would anybody be coordinating this overseeing the students or they just go out, collect garbage and come back and
062say, "I was out for an hour or whatever." >> Yeah. I mean, I I feel like if they don't come back with a bag, it's like, >> yeah, go to the garbage can and fill their bag. But assuming that they're assuming they're honest that they'll actually go and do it, that >> seems like a good idea to me. >> Yeah. I feel like um usually the ones that show up are pretty enthusiastic and they're like excited to try to get as many bags as possible. Um, but >> yeah, you know, >> I don't know. Let me let me talk to Mr. Hayer and Samantha Collins and see what we can arrange. That might be a win-win. So, maybe let's let's table the uh save the sound cleanup because I don't think we have to register
063for that till um late spring, early summer if I recall. >> Okay. >> Um yeah, that's it. I mean, the used toy drive with that wasn't huge success in December. Um, thanks to a couple of dads that love to continue the Tashua toy drive and I think it falls right in our wheelhouse. I'd love to support it and would look to do that again in December. Um, food rescues at schools. I've kind of um, you know, moved as far forward as I' I've been able to. Um, I think um, Courtney is still revisiting it at um, Jane Ryan to see if there's any parent volunteers. I think you know the the ask is are there parent volunteers at the schools willing to oversee the program as it gets set up and whatever is needed as
064it runs and finding parents that are willing to commit that level of leadership at the schools is challenging u people work people have other commitments um so that's where that's where we are with it I would love other ideas of how to move it forward April if you have being in the schools. Um we know asking staff to pitch in one more second of their lunchtime is is not reasonable and not permitted by the board of ed. So um I've gone to the PTA council and presented the program. I've gone to a couple of individual PTAs. Um so don't know. Yeah, that that was a struggle that I had like when we originally presented the idea. Um, and I think the struggle has only gotten unfortunately worse. >> Um, >> yeah, >> it just requires,
065you know, multiple parents in the house to work. So, we have less parents that are home and available to >> It's not like we're asking them to volunteer one day. It's five days a week these particular hours for like the school year. And it's, you know, unless they build it into exactly how they're going to run a cafeteria, then unfortunately I don't see this um working in our favor. >> Right. It's very heavy volunteer um driven. And I use the word heavy. Um, from what the feedback we've heard, I feel like every um, parent, teacher, staff member, people find it a a wonderful program. You're addressing food waste and addressing food insecurity in one fairly simple task. However, it's the implementation that poses the challenge. So, um I'll continue to ask for volunteers and that's
066that's where we are. So, um swap shop energy savings programs. I've been in touch with UI about offering um you know a fun uh program to entice people to take advantage of home energy savings opportunities with um United illuminating. they had some budget they were going to get back to me like maybe offering a free movie in the air conditioning in the summer where families could come and take advantage of that and get information about the home energy savings audits and programs that UI offers. Um so to be continued on that front. That's all I have. We have new volunteers and opportunities. I don't really have much to add other than what we've kind of already talked about. Um I I'm not sure how else to recruit volunteers at this point. Does anyone have any
067other ideas? >> What's been your most successful just during at the monthly uh drive? >> Yeah, I think everybody that's joined us has been a participant that says, "How can I get more involved?" Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. seems like the best way. >> Yeah. And that's why I love that event. I mean, again, I think we're so we're so forward thinking and progressive as a town with that event. And it's just kind of like, you know, I think George um his feedback was when he came and attended and saw what we had going on was he was just enamored with the level of community engagement we we presented and the enthusiasm of everybody that was volunteering. So, it's it's definitely noted. >> So, so uh the uh conservation commission, we sponsored a table at
068the farmers market last summer and we had a signup sheet on that. We we had games for the kids to play. Uh and um and we also gave away two very nice uh um mountain laurel bushes. But anyway, so we we got a nice list of potential volunteers. Uh maybe 15 or 20 people signed up. I can't say that any of them have actually shown up for things that we've done, but >> right, >> I I emailed them, let them know what's going on. Anyway, uh I don't know if uh Sustainable Trumble, do do you run a a tables anyway? Um >> I did. Yeah, I did twice last summer and I actually have, you know, a handful of presentation and events coming up for the spring. So, I think that's a great idea is
069to just kind of end any presentation and or tableabling with um signups. I do have to I I'm brainstorming with a couple other recycling coordinators. I'm just something um age appropriate. So, I'm going to do the Madison Middle School health fair farmers market if I can target um some of the younger audiences to get it to be more engaging. Kind of did a sorting game. It was a little too complicated. So, um one person Iworked with has like a Plinko game kind of like from Prices, right, where it somehow sorts for trash and recycling. So, she was going to share that setup to see if that was something that interested us. Um, but yeah, I think it I I think if you can engage people to get them interested in what you're doing and then
070ask them to sign up, that's that's a great idea. So, but yeah, I do have I reached out to the farmers market to hopefully get a table there. Um, I don't know. >> Yeah, do that. There's coming season. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I actually asked them Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. I just >> I was going to ask the farmers market about um possibly being a location for uh food scrap drop off weekly as well as uh maybe setting up a uh food donation there where people could bring their surplus produce from their gardens to be donated weekly to the food pantry. I'm not sure if any of those will move forward, but I just threw those ideas out there to the coordinator at park and wreck. Uh, go ahead, Janet. Oh, I was going
071to ask Dean, did you get people's phone numbers as well as email addresses? >> Um, no. We just we just got their email >> because, you know, in my experience in the political realm, um, what we're finding, um, is that it helps to actually try and speak to people. Mhm. >> Uh just a thought because I know how difficult this is, but you know I I'd be willing to call people um you know they're my neighbors so you know I would I would offer to try and do that >> and you know if we don't reach them we leave a message >> but you know a human contact can help sometimes >> depending on the cohort but it's worth a try maybe. >> Yeah. Okay, thanks. Um, okay. I forgot we added to the agenda
072quickly, Kevin, the sustainable CT certification. >> Oh, right. Right. Put that on our other business. Forgot about that. >> Oh my gosh. April, I know you like to keep to an hour here. I feel bad that we're going to go a few minutes over, but um I always try to be as quick as possible. Um, the sustainable CT um organization reached out to me. Kevin, I I think they probably reached out to you, too. So, sorry if I kind of took over the point of contact there, but um >> so basically our certification, we've um gotten bronze, then silver, then bronze again, and it is up for reertification the end of 2026. So, the reertification deadlines are April and August. Don't remember the dates exactly. So I just had them what they did was they
073went through an audit of all of the action items and let us know where we would have points carrying over from our previous certification cycle. And they came up with 170 out of 200 points carrying over. So now I went through each of those actions and you know I said okay in fairness some of those points carrying forward were we do nothing. Some said just showing that it's still active. So I said to myself let me go through and see are we still active at that item. U reached out to Mary Isaac who helped helped me clarify on um the spreadsheet as well. And then I went through the actions like category 10 is on um I forgot what it is food food insecurity or whatever but the town since we certified last time we
074the high school has created a food composting um program that they ran. The town has created a community garden. These are all extra points. So >> the bottom line is we feel confident that we can get the 200 points. However, we need one equity toolkit. So that's action item one that has to be fulfilled to get the certification. So I went through with the sustainable CT contacts to see if anything we've done in town would fulfill that. And the problem is the toolkit, it doesn't have to necessarily address only one group in town, but it has to be correlated. And Kevin, you probably understood this better than me the previous go-arounds, but it has to be correlated with one of the other action items we submit. >> Right? So Mary and I were talking about,
075you know, has all this leg work on creating a senior and community center and focus groups and, you know, town analysis has does that fulfill addressing like a need in our town? Yes, it does, but it doesn't go along with any other >> sustainable CT action. Same with a lot of the mall study analysis the town has done. So, the hangup is they're giving me suggestions on equity toolkits we could implement between now and the certification date. I'm just not sure. Does the town want us to even do this? Does anyone in this meeting today want to put in any time to work on this? Can we come up with a viable equity toolkit to implement? Like it could be something like the example they gave us is addressing the accessibility of our farmers market.
076How can we make it more accessible to seniors? I think by moving the farmers market, the town taking it over and moving it from Nichols to Twin Brooks might have done that, >> but did they do enough items in an analyzing it to meet the toolkit? >> I don't. Can you forward us all the uh whatever that information? >> That's fine. >> Yeah. >> And then we can get a link to the equity toolkit and look it over. It seems like if there if it's 170 points just practically in the bag and we only need 30 more in plus the equity toolkit. I'd say let's do it. I mean it's I did the submittals I think the last couple of times. So it was a little bit of work but it wasn't wasn't that bad.
077So since then there they have fellows who would actually if we I don't know how we would do this because we wouldn't give them want to give them access to our town drive but maybe we could create a share drive where we upload our stuff they'll upload it under each action for us. Um we would have to make you know documents screenshotting you know things the town sent out or you know different program brochures things like that. But um and actually Dean this is a point to note this is why you you know conservation has been included in this group from day one as well as many other groups is because of this certification. So there are quite a few action items under section three that pertain to conservation um and the pollinator pathway various
078other items that we would need conservation to um provide confirmation. They're still running stuff on the watershed. Kevin you might know about this too. Um, so I don't know. I just don't know that any of us have bandwidth to do a whole new equity toolkit if it's like creating focus groups and outreach and polling various groups and I'm just not sure. That's >> right. Well, let's let's if you can forward whatever you have. Let's all take a look at it and see what we can figure out. And maybe, you know, maybe we can do it, maybe you can't. I don't know. But it's worth it's worth a look. I will say just so everybody's clear, we are registered with sustainable CT. Therefore, even without reertifying, we are eligible for their grant match funding should we
079choose to take advantage of that. We haven't because I don't believe they match town funds. It would have to be like a crowdfunded or >> yeah donation. Um, so that's been the limitation and you know, I hesitate to say, but I feel like other towns have let the certification lapse and Trumbull has also kind of made that decision when hiring my role that that was not a big focus of the town to create keep the certification. But when I went to present at town council last month and in the hallway there's the plaques from sustainable CT that the town received. I do feel like we put a lot of work in and the town is a again not just our recycling programs. Those are only a couple of the action items out of the the
08013, but the town generally does do a lot of sustainable um programming and initiatives. It just seems like the recognition should be given, but if they make us jump through too many hoops to do it for not very much reward, >> I'm not sure, you know. >> All right. Well, I got I got I gota I gota run. >> Oh >> Mari, I'll talk to you offline because maybe we could come up with an idea or two that won't be too much of a stretch to implement >> um to get that equity toolkit in play because if it's really only one thing, I would hate to lose it for one thing. >> Right. Right. >> Because we did work years to get this. >> That's what I feel like. And that Mary Isaac said she
081would, you know, be glad to pull information. and she is great at going through minutes, resolutions, everything else. So, I think we we have the manpower to produce the verification. But yeah, April, I was thinking the whole high school food scrap collection that they it was a program that was implemented, it falls under the action. I wonder if we could go back to the toolkit and see if the items they're looking for were checked off. Do you know what I mean? >> Yeah. So, why don't we talk offline and see what we could do? >> Yeah. Okay, that sounds good. And Mary's doing a little leg work too on some of the farmers market um programming. Uh if there's a few others I can put her to work on, that would be great, too. >>
082Awesome. So, >> yeah. All right, everyone. So, next meeting is in March, I think. Hopefully, we can get a little bit closer to uh firming up our um you know, Earth Week plan, unless we decide to go with the early Earth Day, but we'll we'll cover that over emails, I think, coordinating dates and stuff. So, >> sounds good. >> All right. Thanks everybody. >> Thanks.