001it's the environmental commission the September 28th 2023 electronic meeting this meeting is in accordance with executive orders set in place in 2020 by the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of Co 19 virus we intend to conduct the meeting similar to an in similarly to an in-person meeting please be patient if there are technical issues public comment is welcome it will be available via telephone only to speak at public comment which will be coming up call 888 0099 and enter meeting ID 922 1644 and with that I'd like um to ask Sean to um read the land Heritage statement thank you uh I acknowledge that the land the city of an arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Anish shab including Odawa oju and badmi and W and
002peoples I further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the United States on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples The Taking of this land was formalized by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807 knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can Empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you Sean um and now would you call Ro please all right uh okay uh council member Amman uh Vice chairperson Brown uh commissioner Cowart commissioner Curtis here an arbor thank you uh commissioner Dale here an arbor thank you council member dish here thank you AR that's presupposed there right unless we say I'm in
003Las Vegas thank you uh commissioner Graham uh commissioner guber here thank you uh commissioner meron I'm here in an arbor thank you commissioner mki here in an arbor thank you uh chairperson Mitchell here an arper thank you commissioner NR here an aror thank you and commissioner weing all right and that is that is a quorum barely but it is a quorum barely okay great well we'll proceed then thank you um I would like to ask for approval of the agenda would I have a motion to um approve the agenda from commissioner Dale and second by commissioner Gruber um any discussion of the agenda any changes anyone would like to make all right hearing none uh I would like a motion to approve the agenda and everyone who wishes say I raise your hand hi hi
004thank you um and next I'd like to um uh discuss approval of the minutes from our August meeting that was the 26th I believe um I move the minutes be approved as written a second there a second okay great moved in second um by mki and guber um any discussion of the minutes okay I would like to move a vote call a vote and shall we say I or raise your hand I hi thank you all right um we'll now move on to um public commentary the first and this is an opportunity for oh thanks Sean that's great um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 922 96961 1644 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by
005one using the last digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand press star n on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak then press star six to unmute your phone when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments thank you and Sean do you see anyone who's wishing to make a comment uh we do not yet have anyone on the line okay we'll give it about 30 seconds all right do you see anyone on the line waiting to we do not have any callers that's all right okay thank you so um I would like to move on to
006our new business for today which is a presentation of the path to Citywide recyclables um by a a group called Perpetual or they'll be describing the program and so um I am not familiar with all of the people so I I will appreciate Sean some assistance from you in in introductions if you wouldn't mind um of course yeah thank you uh so um just with some brief background uh this is uh building off of a pilot that was started um by the city of an arbor along with four of our local restaurants um and since uh we have grown our group to include a whole bunch of wonderful organizations uh who are here tonight um so we have uh Samuel McMullan uh from zero.org a local nonprofit uh we have uh Alex from recycle and
007Arbor which I'm sure most of you also know is a local nonprofit uh and then we have Ellie Moss here um from Perpetual which is a national nonprofit that is helping out several different cities across the country with similar projects uh and it looks like we also just are joined right now let me promote them to panelist uh by Yousef um from El harisa and also with zero.org um and with that I will turn it over to uh Ellie I think you're starting us off with the present and you are on mute yes I will get us kicked off so I will it be able to share my screen looks like I will be able to um there we go well thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you all tonight um
008we are all really excited about this project and excited to tell you about it um our plan for our presentation is um to give you some details about the project um Sean gave a little bit of background but we'll give a little bit more um and sort of where we've been what we're doing and where we're headed um happy to answer any questions that you have about the project um or if we don't have an answer yet we'll tell you when we will have an answer and how we can share that with you um we'll make sure that you understand opportunities to be involved and how to stay informed about this work and then we're really open to whatever advice this group has for this work so if that sounds okay um we will Forge
009ahead and I'm going to actually hand it over to Alex I believe you are going to kick us off yeah thanks so much it's a pleasure to be here um tonight um so I'm just going to take a few minutes to talk briefly about the scope of the problem and why Recycling and composting alone aren't a solution obviously Plastics is a big problem uh threatens their climate uh human health and the environment yet despite all of the interest in reducing Plastics and all the attention it's getting fossil fuel companies are continuing to make significant Investments um in EXT action while making very little investments in recycling and even less in reuse so these Investments are projected to result in an additional 15 million tons of of um uh Plastics being produced by 2027 and it's
010projected that less than 10% of that will be recycled so since 40% of all Plastics is actually made into single use packaging uh reuse strategies like we're talking about tonight or really can have a huge impact next slide thanks um so new studies are continuing to come out that show microplastics and and posos are significant issues in southeast Michigan always some of the highest levels of microplastics in the Great Lakes region and some of our Waters and it's a serious ecosystem in human health um issue that a lot of times it doesn't show up on a light traditional life cycle analysis that say you know should we use plastic packaging or metal or glass um a lot of times these these ecosystem impacts and human health impacts don't show up so it makes it a
011really important issue next slide so uh Ty up thanks uh so most often the place we look to First is Recycling and composting but these strategies aren't the top of the the zero waste hierarchy you can see here that the top of the hierarchy is reduce and reuse and reduction um so you know even though at Raa we've worked really hard to ensure the items that we collect for recycling are utilized for its highest and best use um recycling alone isn't enough so most most of the plastic in our waist stream um it's not recyclable or it's downcycled and not recycled again and this results in the continued need for extraction of fossil fuels and then in terms of of composting um unfortunately compostible packaging as an alternative just doesn't compost well at the compost
012sites which is why um an Arbor's composter recently stopped accepting it so it's really not a viable solution either next there's some basic factors that that determine if something's recyclable you know like to sort it at our at our murf the value of the material um the volume that's generated unfortunately with plastics uh most of it a lot of it's made of mixed materials it's got a lot of toxicity issues and at the end of the day um one of the most important factors is manufacturers are able to use really cheap version resins um that makes it really hard to compete with Recycling and the cost that goes into sorting cleaning and using recycled Plastics so this makes recycling really challenging for for uh plastic and so even when an item can be recycled um
013it doesn't mean we should you know there's there's it's not always the best strategy to invest in so it's important to understand the full life cycle impacts um to guide the Investments to ensure that that the direction we go most benefits provides the most benefit to the community um over 90% of emissions from Plastics come from the production and conversion of fossil fuels not not from the disposal so if recycling doesn't decrease the demand for extraction by new products it's not really solving the problem um so systems like reuse address the need for extraction and Manufacturing upstream and that's why you know ra is really excited to be engaged in this as an opportunity to move up the hierarchy Beyond Recycling and we're also looking for opportunities to leverage the existing um Community Investments that
014we made in recycling um that might have a potential to make reuse more cost- effective convenient or or even lower Transportation emissions let's go to the next um yeah so you know from extraction to manufacturing to disposal single-use Plastics releases harmful toxic emissions and greenhouse gases at at every phase of its life cycle and this mostly impacts the communities um where these facilities are located and and those are often um you know disproportionately communities of color um so it's it's it's a really um you know it's environmental justice issue as well as a human health and E system issue um so you know these emissions along the whole phase would be completely avoided every time you reuse an item instead of have to extract uh resources to make a new one um and that's why
015you know at our a we feel recycling alone is not a viable or effective solution for the majority of single use uh plastic packaging and that it's really important for recycling advocacy um to be complemented by strong reduction and reuse strategies which is why this this work is so important and we really appreciate um the leadership the city's shown on this and and uh being part of this collaborative effort so I think with that it's going to Sam thanks everyone yes it is thank you Alex I am so happy to be here thank you for taking the time um I'm Sam McMullen executive director at zero.org um in my little section I'm GNA cover what role reuse plays uh a little bit of how this might work for those of you who aren't familiar hopefully
016answer the question whether it can be done can it be done successfully and give you a little bit of the history of the program um so let's get into it uh my good I I'm just gonna take a second because I'm really excited that we're talking about this with you all this is this is awesome dream come true um okay so this slide is from a a report about the about plastic leakage into the ocean it's if you'll see circled that's um yeah that that wedge this is looking at a business as usual case on the top line and then all the reduction possibilities in a sort of system change case um and you'll see that that reuse is the biggest lever that we have um to curb plastic going into the ocean um I
017really love there was in in the reports by Pew charitable trust right above this they say there is a credible path to significantly reduce plastic leakage into the ocean and it requires solutions to be implemented concurrently ambitiously and starting immediately I love that it's not a Panacea it's not the whole thing but it is something that we need to do quickly right out the gate um and it's a it's a really important lever to pull um so that's this is sort of the role that reuse is going to play on the broader scheme thank you yeah yeah Ellie you got it that was perfect um but this is obviously not if it were easy it would have been done already it's a complex challenge um but there's there's huge upside there's upside for the economy
018as you can see um it localizes Supply chains it brings things right into an arbor or Washington County um less ways to manage it's not it's not a hit for business in fact it creates jobs um it's good for people it's a better experience there's less uh toxicity if you choose your containers right obviously you're not sending as much to landfill not sending as much um not using many greenhouse gases there's actually a study done at the University of Michigan a life cycle analysis A parametric life cycle analysis which allows you to play with different factors and say oh how about we drive the containers an extra 50 miles see what that does how about we wash the containers a couple more times or wash them hotter or whatever um so that was a really
019it's a really good tool that we're going to be able to use um to make sure that we're never compromising the environmental sustainability if you can imagine you make a a more durable container um obviously more goes into making that container and it only comes out it only comes out right if you use it enough um so getting a lot of uses out of containers and um uh not having too much leakage not not too many containers that disappear is is important um next slide please Ellie thank you so how might this work what what's the vision what does it look like um I'm going to go through pretty quickly because we haven't made uh strong definitive decisions but we have had experience and we know what the general the general framework is and thanks
020to Perpetual they bring up ton of system design expertise as well um so we know what the what the universe of options is like and basically you'll see in yellow a nice sort of Anarbor theme in yellow is a customer journey in blue is the logistics Journey so we'll start with the customers they check it out by one of one of any number of ways it could be a scan it could be connected to their credit card obviously we're looking for the easiest most Equitable checkout um process meaning that people who don't have access to a credit card can still check out a container um they check it out when they're done using it when they would have thrown it in the trash um they put it in a return pin um one of the
021things we found in the life cycle analysis is that if you make a dedicated trip just to return a c that messes that all of a sudden single use looks better um so what's really important there the important conclusion there is to make the return bins as convenient as possible um so that's customer Journey done you check it out you put it back you're not charged anything if in in the way that we're thinking about it you wouldn't be charged anything if you just use it and and bring it back as as you normally would um then of course there's all the logistics to back this up so this this is more this is a new version a new supply chain basically that we would have to Institute but it's a really exciting one return
022bin people put cups in the return bin they get picked up ideally buy as low carbon an option as possible you see someone on a cargo bike there that's awesome picked up taken to a sanitizing facility washed sanitized inspected make sure that we're sending out good quality cups at the other end sent out sent back out this is called reverse Logistics back out to the to the restaurants restaurants in the way we're thinking about it right now of course this is all we're still in the system design phase so this is all open for discussion and for for smarter Minds than mine like like people on this commission to poke Hol in um but that that restaurants would pay um a similar cost to what they pay for disposables we we look to displace the
023spend on disposable containers um so so that's generally how the how the system works as you can tell this is grossly simplified um I'm sure you'll have lots of questions we're here for them um excited to answer them as they come up but this is the general General flow um okay so next slide this has been done before it these kinds of systems exist it exists in an arbor you can do this um the challenge that that we're coming up against is is can it be done successfully can it be done at a scale where you can say I'm really proud of the we're actually displacing single-use plastic like we're we're we're doing something meaningful here we're we're be participating that chunk that you saw at the at the beginning of my little section um
024and that's been a little bit tougher to to get to and the issue is scale you can't if you if you start small it's really hard to get big so the the Insight that Perpetual came to us with and I'm so grateful for is that this needs to be done at a much larger scale um it it needs to be coordinated it needs to be Citywide needs to be a big public sustained effort um with lots of buyin from across a lot of sectors so that we can get the kind of volume that we need to support this kind of system and so that it's not it's not you know you know for restaurants where the people the ultra committed people are going to come in and and use the system and no one else
025will do it because they're confused by it they've never seen it before it's new oh I have to do this checkout I just do the I'll just do the single use one um so this Insight that Perpetual has come with about um immersive scale being a a real um Lynch pin in making the system work and sustainable in the long term um we've really bought into because we lived the alternative we lived the small scale the challenges of trying to um figure out a good washing solution for you know 50 cups a day good luck like good luck making the real estate work on that um so getting to a good volume right off the bat is a really important step um and that's what's so that's what drove this project to the to the
026scale that it's it's at now and and we're really excited for that um Ellie I'm sure you'll be able to elaborate on that if you need to um I just wanted to talk briefly little sidebar about where we've come from so this was started by OSI this program was started by OSI with zingerman and Alara Yousef is here from alhara um a couple years ago uh we were not involved in the initial pilot it was great they learned a lot we came in and and tried to brush up some of the tech bits and bring on these these Partners um bringing on the partners was a really important move because we did not have the capability the logistics the labor any of the any of the things that we needed in place to make this
027work at a large scale um and so we're we're really really lucky to have a recycler who sees the problem this way we're really lucky to have Perpetual here with all their design expertise and we're really lucky to be in a city that takes this seriously and is willing to be to lead this effort it's really exciting it's a to me it feels like a a sort of a perfect storm and I'm I can't wait for it to go down um so Sean Sean and Yousef were both in from the very the very beginning and then we stepped in to help sort of uh administer the program and following that recycling Arbor and Perpetual got involved which brought this this the POS the possibilities just got so much bigger um so how do we think
028about this this larger scale system um I'm sure you have questions about why why make that call for the bigger bigger scale but if you if you'll just stick with me for a second that it's the way to go how do we think about it Ellie next slide um so there are really four elements that that we need to look at economic viability can this be sustained as its own thing what kind of funding mechanisms do we need to have in place to make this work um you know ideally this is something that we that is becomes a basic service of of the city and exactly how that plays out cost-wise is still it's all all the clay is still moist so time for feedback right now but making sure this is economically viable making
029sure that the per use fee isn't too too onerous on businesses making sure that this is something that can work um is really important obviously sort of Baseline condition environmental viability we don't want to set something up like I was saying earlier we don't want to set something up that technically is reuse and in practice is worse for the environment in single use that's a fail failure on on our part so we got to keep that front and center um technical viability just making sure that all the systems work um the the washing Works everything is as promised and we're not um sort of failing on the on the underlying service provision that that is the sort of Promise of the system which is that you can you can have cups as a service or
030or you know containers as a service rather than containers as a as a good um and then social viability making sure this is not something that violates our basic uh understanding of everyone should have access to this kind of thing no one should be excluded for for any reason really um making sure that everyone in Aaron Arbor has a fair shot at using this and does no one feels left out um so those are the four sort of parameters that were that we're working with and Ellie's going to take you through some more of the system design and timeline um they have been such a such an important and exciting partner to have um yeah so I'll pass it over to her thank you Sam um and thank you Alex uh you guys have gotten
031us off to a very strong start in this presentation uh so my name is Ellie I am um the executive director of Perpetual and um you've already heard a little bit about us um Perpetual is a nonprofit um as Sean said we're a national nonprofit and we were really founded with the intention of helping bring reuse systems to scale on the recognition that reuse when it is subscale doesn't work very well and isn't going to unlock those benefits that we saw on that first chart with the purple wedges so the role that Perpetual aims to play um we are not here to operate the system so we're not going to be washing dishes and in Arbor what we are going to do is support and facilitate the overall process needed to go from where we
032are today to have having that full-fledged system in place and running um the Perpetual team brings significant technical expertise um my colleague and co-founder dagy Tucker actually ran and operated she founded and ran um a reable cup program in three different US cities over about eight years starting in 2015 so she has very good and real on the ground expertise and one of the reasons she gave that up and said I can't do this anymore is because she recognized that the larger system design piece is such a key for this to be successful and that single operators are just not going to be able to do it on their own um you need this larger structure in place for this to work and so that business is um not something she is involved in anymore
033and she's fully committed to the system design that we are um working in in aror to to facilitate um Perpetual plays a role in helping to mobilize funding so we write a lot of Grants um on behalf of Partners on behalf of cities as a way to try to bring as much funding as possible into the system um as Sam mentioned we believe that reuse can be a self-sustaining uh system over time um but the more of a jump start that we can provide by um providing grant funding um and other very um affordable funding to get the initial infrastructure in place you know the faster we can get to that self-sustaining model get to scale you know get the volume going um perpetuals in this for the Long Haul so we are here to
034facilitate this process now and you know we're going to be around until um well after things have kind of gotten started um we really want to be be that extra support that helps things um work um in a really big and significant way um we also are really excited about the work that an arbor is willing to do in this and peret is partnering with three other cities as well so an arbor is one of four cities that we are currently focused on doing this similar process in each city is distinct in an number of ways um I'm really excited about some of the unique things about what an arbor is able to do um but we want cities like an arbor to become models for other cities to look at and say oh if
035an arbor can do it we can do it and now we understand how so it's really kind of a demonstration project in some ways of proving the case for reuse such that it can be adopted in a very accelerated Way by many additional cities um next slide I will say to myself uh so we um have a lot of different partners that we work with on this so there's the partners that you've met on this call who are our partners in haror additionally we are working with a number of academic partners and and other also program Partners uh the University of Michigan Sam mentioned the um life cycle assessment tool that is a tool that was um built and has been published about by uh Professor Dr Greg Hulan at the center for sustainable systems
036at unas of Michigan and a staff scientist Christian hit and so we work with them every week on informing this LCA testing different scenarios making sure that this that whatever system will be implemented is going to be environmentally better than the Alternatives of disposables uh we have a couple of other academic Partners as well the circularity informatic lab is led by Dr Jenna jamc if you follow the world of plastic waste you may have heard her name she's been doing a lot of interesting work in this space for many years this is an assessment um or this this lab does an assessment called the circularity assessment protocol which is essentially a system level Baseline of you know what's happening now what materials are coming into the community how are they circulating what's getting what's ending
037up overflowing trash bands what's ending up in streets what's ending up at the murf so it gives us kind of a a before uh so that once the system is up and running we can compare that before to the after that we're creating and have a real sense of what the change has been um the University of Chicago has a data Science Institute team that is working with us on um different types of modeling around placement of assets um efficient routing how do you think about logistics the reverse and forward Logistics in a way that's going to be really optimized and make a lot of sense in this system and then the scad which is the Savannah College of Art design um they're in Savannah which is actually one of our other partner cities and
038they have a design for good course that is doing some interesting design work for us um on a number of different topics um happy to go into that another time but in the interest of time I'm going to forge ahead um we also partner with the US epa's trash free Waters program and pr3 uh which is a program of resolv an NGO they are working on standards for reuse uh and reasonable packaging generally reasonable foodware and packaging and so we are both working with them to make sure that we are aligned with the standards that they're creating and also using these four cities as a way to provide feedback to them on where the standards seem to be working and are appropriate and where the standards need to be refined based on what's happening in
039the ground you know based on not just theoretical reuse but actual real reuse um oh I guess I've already spoken to these so I'll skip these so this is the circular assessment protocol which I just spoke to and then Dr Kean um both really wonderful resources and great Partners in this project and then this is the data science so you'll have these slides if you want to go back and read them but I think I've probably covered it by now um so just to give you a sense of our process and where we are we started working together um kind of the early days uh over a year ago I guess you know back um sort of in spring of 2022 just really starting to explore you know what what could this look like is
040an arbor a good place to do something like this what are some of the community assets that exist how might um how might we approach this kind of a program together you know working out the details of Partnerships all that kind of stuff um some of the work that Perpetual has been doing additionally to support this type of design work is engaging with corporates to understand we really want this system to be designed by and for local communities but it'll be important from a volume perspective and from ultimately an impact perspective to have corporates be able to participate in the system as well um you know all of the cups that you see going out of even thinking about gas stations convenience stores you know Chick-fil-A like all the places I actually don't know if
041there's a Chick-fil-A in AR there probably is somewhere they seem to be everywhere but any fast food that you want to think of giving them the opportunity and knowing that the system can be available to them will enhance the impact and enhance the user Behavior impact as well you know if the more normalized this can be for any and all populations the more effect effective it's going to be um Perpetual has also done an extensive reuse capabilities landscape I think we're actually over 40 now of speaking to people who are operators the ReUse service fighers that are actually running these systems on the ground today to make sure that as we think about the different design choices that we want to make in an arbor that we're not being Wishful or fanciful in terms of
042what's possible but we're actually grounding that design work in what people are operating even if it's at a small scale but in other places around the world um so that we know that we can effectively draw on the people who are most successful and doing the best work in other places and make sure that whatever we stand up in an arbor is going to draw on the best reuse programs that are happening around the world um so that's all work that has been done uh before today where we are now is really in the sort of The Orange Box um continuing with Community design input we did a week of community design workshops back in May where all of the teams got together and ran a series of workshops there were some at the public
043library there was uh one at the at the recycling drop off center there was um one at the farmers market uh and we had a um also a meeting at Bloom the the Mew Works in town um which was a discussion of other community leaders understand you know what this what this is and how they can be a part of it so that process continues um we are really committed to making sure that the design process is inclusive and that we are hearing from all perspectives so that we ensure that when the design is finalized that it is representing a system that's going to work for the whole Community uh the life cycle assessment is ongoing as we've mentioned we do also have a five-year financial model that we use to understand different versions of
044how the system can work and what that tells us about what the what's a viable price per use for these things if it's if that's the revenue model that's chosen um how much volume does it take to um make it worth it to drive a truck or a bike around all day picking things up and then putting them through a washing machine so really looking at all of the different operational um pieces of this and understanding what's what will work and what is less likely to work um and we have weekly meetings now with our Design Group which involves uh it's a growing number of folks and that is how we're working through these design decisions piece by piece um um as you can see we are still relatively early in this process and there's
045a lot of work left to be done um at a high level how we imagine this going is the design process you know continues for quite a while um and then we ultimately get to a point where we say okay the design is ready um we have mobilized the funding that's needed we've gotten ready to actually go ahead with this and then and then we begin setup which is the beginning of implementation and there are time there's a timeline at the top of this um page which I would say is a an optimistic timeline um I don't think it's impossible but I think that there will be many things that need to happen for this to be exactly where we end up um and as you can see from these columns which really are sort
046of the tip of the iceberg in terms of the work that needs to happen uh you can just get a sense of how we get the system set up we move to pre-launch the system can be launched and then there's an ongoing period of improvement and refinement over time so um that should give you a sense of how this can work and uh the devil is in the details it it's amazing to me how it's really a very simple idea this idea of reusing a cup but actually putting it into practice at at scale is is devilishly complex um absolutely doable um but it requires a lot of of careful thought and planning um I wanted to walk you through the system design framework that we are using just to give you a sense of
047the kinds of conversations that our system Planning Group is having and then that is the last of the slides and we're happy to answer questions and make sure that we don't um take up the whole meeting here so there's three slides here that represent the system design framework um and in each case what we have here is sort of what is the design decision to be made and we think about these as design requirements in the sense of this is how this system in an arbor will um seek to operate and so this is our chance to say you know this is how of all the options of all the different Tech platforms that one might use you know we recommend choosing a tech platform that has these different characteristics and these elements and so
048this just gives a sense of for a tech platform you know this is where we specify what are all the things that are most important to this system around how an asset manage management platform will work the tech platform is basically sort of like the the database of record if that makes sense um it's where it's the single source of Truth on on inventory and how you know where things are at any given time part of how we think about this is we expect that reuse systems need to be able to handle more than one provider it doesn't mean that they will but that we should be thoughtful as we design them to allow for multiple providers and then thinking about how to make sure that the design can can provide for that should we
049end up in a situation of needing multiple providers the reason we think that's important is just because there are very few organizations I might even say none that do every single one of these things really well and so being able to if we want to kind of bring the best of the best we're going to want to probably draw on certain aspects from one provider certain aspects from a different provider so that the whole thing fits together and is the best the best thing that we can achieve so um Tech platform is one piece the actual assets themselves so whether it's cups or containers what do we want it to be what should it be made out of how big should it be how many should we have um you know where are we starting
050with what do we expect to you know move to over you know year two and year three so these are all things that get specified in this design document um asset tracking is another decision to be made whether you use an RFID tag a QR code maybe both maybe something else so there's a lot of different decisions to be thought about there um in terms of the frontend tech so this is on that chart that that Sam was discussing you know right now some systems use an app some systems use um a QR code scan um some systems just use a simple tap so as you are checking out your cup um you just tap your cup on an RFID reader it links it to your credit card transaction and you're good to go so
051there's a lot of different options there we need to Define what are the ones that we think are going to work best in an arbor based on everything that we know about the community and about the kind of the frontier of technology today collection bins so there's a whole decision here around what types of bins do we want do we want Tech enabled bins do we want analog bins do we want some of each you know are we going to actually try to Leverage co-collection recyclables which is something we have a really exciting opportunity to test with recycle in Arbor as a partner um are there ways to leverage existing recycling uh infrastructure for reuse and how might we do that so again this is another area where there's just lots of interesting questions to
052look at and um and this is exactly where this sort of landscape of capabilities comes in um and our our sort of deep knowledge of how this works in practice so we can have conversations not just about what sounds ideal and lovely but what we think can actually work in practice um another set of design requirements to consider is washing so which type of washing ma machine should be should be used how does the uh thinking about how you leverage existing washing capacity in the community versus adding new washing capacity um and requirements for who the washing operator could be um Sam talked a bit about logistics so there's work to be done thinking about how should things get picked up maybe some things get picked up by bike other things get picked up you
053know with an electric cargo van you know how how do we think about what the ideal would be there and how do we work that out surge events so we know there are some very wonderful festivals and um music events and art events that happen in an arbor throughout the year and that can often create surge moments where maybe the existing inventory of the system will not be sufficient and the capacity of the washing and the logistics is not going to be sufficient to keep up with demand at those events um so how do we handle that there you know you can have extra inventory so that you're able to um you know keep up with that when it happens but then those assets are all just sitting around the rest of the year so
054it's a lot it can be a lot of money to sit on the shelves most of the time and there's different ways to look at that you can have additional um providers come in in support when needed you can have contract providers uh for certain aspects of it if not a whole system uh extra provider return incentives is a really important one and I don't know that we'll get into all the details on this today but one of the things we do know is that you cannot achieve the return rate needed for the system to be economically or environmentally sustainable without providing a tangible incentive for return um typically a financial incentive for return so uh this is something that we need to look at very carefully and understand what are the pros and cons
055of different options so some people use deposits we know that there's some pros and cons of using deposits other systems charge a Fe Fe if you if you return it late or charge you a you know a return a non- return fee to replace the item so all of that um is stuff that we've looked at in in great detail additionally it's really important that any item have value for anyone to return to the system so that if you know if I pay a deposit on something and then I you know abandon it someone else should be able to pick it up and go get that deposit or if it's attached to my credit card I'm going to get charged for it but we still want someone to pick up the cup and so how
056do we make sure that that's going to happen so like a Redemption value can be an interesting way to look at that where people who are motivated to pick up things with Redemption value maybe bottles or cans which I know that exists in Michigan um so could could we piggyback on that idea to make sure that that items are making their way back into the system to be used again and again um almost done uh just a couple more to highlight here um governance is a really important question these are systems that have not been established in this way really anywhere in the world yet and we think it's really important to think carefully about how a system like this you know we're going to work really hard to get community input into the initial
057design but that's not the end of the story we hope these systems will operate for Generations in an arbor and we need to make sure there continues to be the right types of um oversight and opportunities for input and for this to be shaped and managed over time and so the the thinking about the role of the city you know is this City the governance model or is it the city plus other entities that are co-gn this that's something that we need to figure out um so that's a really interesting piece of this puzzle um the last three I think are pretty straightforward labor you know it's a chance to say how we want to um what kind of requirements we want to set for the people who will be actually working in the system
058one great thing about reuse is that it is a it's a job creating business uh because you actually need to move stuff around and wash it and you get it back where it's going Communications is a huge piece of this um that's probably a whole other presentation another time but making sure you're using the right messaging um we're working closely with some behavioral experts to make sure that we think about how to talk about the system and how to make sure people everyone feels like it is for them and feels like they understand why and how to use it and then finally the revenue model which is last but certainly not least is to understand exactly how the system pays for itself over time and what are the different um es of different types of
059funding that might be available to support the system oh my goodness I know that was a lot I apologize no one seems to have knotted off uh that is it for now so I'm going to drop the slides I'm happy to put them back up if that's helpful at any point but I can't really see you all so um we the collective team are happy to answer and oh no there's one more slide I completely forgot my fault um let me put this slide no there's two more slides I apologize I thought that was it but I forgot to tell you how you can stay involved and that's obviously a really important part of us and I also forgot to tell you about funding so this gives you a sense of how this work has
060been funded so far uh so we have four funders that are supporting the work of the nonprofits collectively on this work um the funding for University of Michigan's LCA has come from Morgan Stanley um the funding for the research that the University of Georgia is doing is coming from EPA and then additional support um has actually come from the a20 program so that's really important to know and understand um and then I think this is in fact there we go the last slide um so it's really important to us that this be a transparent and kind of inclusive process so we wanted you to know how this is working so I mentioned already that we meet weekly um as a multi-stakeholder group to work through the design process and coordinate all aspects of the project
061and you can see the members of that group here um we also have regular communication so Sam sends out a very short update email every week or two that has um just kind of the headlines of what's been going on um and we also have a newsletter that will go out to a much broader list um every six weeks or so and you're welcome to sign up for that at that link um you'll have the option to sign up for as many of our cities as you are interested in as well as a general newsletter um if you sign up for all of them you will get a newsletter every Tuesday and you can pick and choose it's sort of on a rotating basis so once we've actually got a solid draft of the system
062design um there will be many opportunities to weigh in on that so certainly look forward to the opportunity to get your input at that stage um but happy to have your input now or at any moment between now and then or after that okay that really is the end of the slides sorry about that thank you Ali and uh everyone um I um appreciate seeing this information and I guess I want to have ask one particular particular question and then I would like to open it to the group um is this program um already in a contractual phase is the city planning to implement it beyond what the original pilot has been is that a decision that's been made think one the facilitating the process of scaling this program is in our contract with the
063city our circular economy Services contract no the city has made no commitments long-term commitments about participating in this program in particular but they are funding the the development we're working towards that okay all right thank you is that fair Sean okay um any questions from others I hope I have I have a few oh sorry go ahead yeah yeah let's do the raiseed hand thing that will be help ful yeah John mki please uh I written down about 10 points and I won't go through them but I will send them to Sam who I interface with regularly um and I don't think any of them necessarily Ben would benefit from a lot of discussion here so I think maybe I just send them to you um Sam maybe just one question with Anya um involved
064is is U ofm dining um Andor vendors that are on U ofm properties at all involved in this program and the other ones like I said I I'll just leave it at that and I'll send an email and um I'd be happy to uh be a sparring partner on any of the points that that I send some of them you probably will just discard because they're nonsense but I'll still throw them out there so but go ahead Anya you can take a from there and you can maybe answer my question Sam can probably answer it even more um yes I think they're part of the conversation I think they're not in a position to be you know any sort of operator um but I think this is something that we would we are hoping it's
065very much a city and an arbor thing you know using the same services and have it be fluid across that boundary because the the fluid between and arburn and you of them or the boundary is fluid between those two so yeah they're part of a conversation um for sure Sam I don't know if you want to expand on it at all yeah Allison from this the from on his office did an incredible job Gathering stakeholders um and we're having meeting tomorrow with just just a Powerhouse list of um stakeholders say hey how how might this work um and I know Ellie you are you are in contact with the corporate that Services certain aspects of the both the public and public schools and university is that correct yeso yeah sedexo and actually there's multiple service
066Riders uh for the University of Michigan sedexo is one of them and there's at least one other maybe there maybe there's two others and they're planning on joining the meeting tomorrow as well um along with procurement and a lot of other folks so tomorrow is going to be the first full full group with all the University of Michigan stakeholders it's going to be a very large and exciting meeting um but it sounds so far like yeah as an was saying like there's C interest um and if this system that is being designed sort of spearheaded by the city can ultimately act as a service that serves both the city and the university so much the better right we get volume you know lower everyone gets lower prices so that's really a path to that we're
067interested in looking at Brooks so on the uh containers have you thought about selling like naming rights to the containers this is a question that often comes up um yes we've thought about it and it's something that um is part of the conversation there's pros and cons to it um anything that makes something feel like a souvenir is not as helpful as something that feels they should be but the way we think about the design is they should be something that people are excited to use and excited to give back um we don't want people to be getting too attached to them um what we think about more rather than naming rights is you know some when we think about the corporates some corporates are very attached to having their logo on things a lot
068of local restaurants just have non-branded food wear so there's no issue with kind of a Universal Design there but for companies that are really attached to having their brand um we think it's absolutely possible for Branded items to to circulate in the system but there would be they would cost a little bit more for those companies because there's an extra sortation cost um so that's more commonly what people want when they want to to Brand the items as they want their brand on it I would I'll stop there it's certainly something we could talk further about but it's a great question and it yeah it's one that often comes up any did you have more I'm sorry I didn't sorry go ahead I have lot lots of questions um but I'm also assuming that a
069lot of the questions I have are things people are still working through around the logistics um I think you know about the who actually does the picking up and the the washing and all those things but um two things that you might have some insight on at this point is do you picture the the um it all coming back to a centralized place for washing and then redistribution or would it more likely follow a model where there's like sort of regional hubs um that do it at a smaller scale that's first question the second one is um is part of your analysis and the eventual recommendations going to be about you know is just the city hire somebody because I I imagine this is quite a bit to as it grows to do the administration
070aspect of it right so is that something that gets hired as a position from the city or is that something that's contracted out to a different entity is that going to be part of the discussion and recommendations as well I'm happy to jump in on those Sam happy to tag team with you um I'll answer the second one first because that's the one that I can remember right now um that's part of the governance conversation and so it really depends on what role the city wants to play I think there is absolutely there could be a role where there could be a world where the the city of an arbor says we would like to create this framework and we would like to walk away from it and let some other entity own and manage
071it um you can have if the system is self-supporting from a revenue perspective it can be just an operating business that the city oversees to some degree so it doesn't need to require staff time from the city it doesn't need to require oversight um if the city wants to own some of the assets for example let's say the city is successful in getting a bunch of grant funding and wants to own certain they want to own the bins they want to own the washing machine whatever then the city is in a position of deciding do we want to hire people to operate these do we want to contract that out so I think there's still a lot of options in that in that scenario um we haven't gone down any particular path yet in an
072arbor I'll tell you one of the other cities we're working in is galvaston Texas and in that case what we'll be doing is actually establishing a um a nonprofit that will serve as the governance entity for the system and the nonprofit will be funded by a portion of the system Revenue will include representatives from business representatives from government representatives from Community organizations and that will be the oversight entity so then they'll have a part-time executive director that kind of oversees the management of the system and um but the city has no responsibility really other than sending a have steing a person beyond that committee so I hope that answers the question there's a broad Continuum of options for the role that the city might choose to play I think your first question was around was
073it Logistics or was that a question that you didn't actually you heed up but didn't ask like very centralized collection and washingt and redistribution are more like hubs so that's something that we're looking at in the um with through the LCA model and it really it comes down to how much volume we think there will be because if you're going to have multiple dishwashers you want to make sure they're all operating at capacity otherwise it's really to your benefit to have one dishwasher in one place that hopefully is not too far from anywhere um but that can just be ma util utilization can be maximized um and you'd be amazed some of these dishwashers their capacity is there's dishwashers with the capacity to wash like 100,000 units an hour or something you know just really
074really really massive that might be a little bit overstated but like to maybe 10,000 units an hour I think I'm I think I'm getting my but anyway massively powerful dishwashers where it's like humans can't even keep up with it you have to build these additional systems that automate the the loading and the uh the unloading of dishwashers so we have we will make a data driven decision based on the tools that we have basically another thing that and I'll I'll use Galviston as an example because they're just a little further along in the design process in Galviston there are certain restaurants that want to be able to do washing for the system because they'll get a better price on the on the you know the or wash items that they're using and so you can
075end up with a kind of a hybrid model where you have these little restaurants that have extra capacity for washing can do some of the washing for you as long as they can be certified to the right standard and you still have your main washing facility to cover most of the washing so that can be another way to help manage things cool thanks any I hope that answered your questions lber dish thank thank you this is really exciting to see how far this has come since May and not just since May but since a couple of years ago when even the pilot happens so I'm I'm just I'm loud and thrilled and I have a couple questions so getting back to an important point that Samuel made is that for this to be something that's
076attractive to corporates and to individual restaurants um it really the reusables have to displace the cost of disp they have to displace disposables and so they have to be more cost effective than disposables and the one and I'm sure that you've thought this through um but currently disposables the C some of the cost of disposables are externalized because you land for it and nobody makes you pay pay for l so very you know I mean you pay your Solid Waste fee but nobody's going to raise that fee when the reusables come to town and so I'm just wondering how we I think that there has to be yes uh a financial thing a financial bonus to shifting from disposables to reuse but there also just has to be a culture shift where um consum s
077won't go to restaurants that give them mountains of disposables and restaurants see a benefit in being demarcated as here you can get your Middle Eastern food and you can bring back the containers there are other places where they're going to hand you disposal but we won't so yeah um if if you can speak to that question of how we deal with that and then I have a couple more questions it's an excellent point what the system we're in is is broken in in so many ways and in ways that makes it harder to do something better um Point well taken I think there's there are exciting opportunities for the city to play a role in in whatever way that it can um given the given the state state level policies that exist um and maybe
078sort of working on that state level stuff as well to pull any policy levers that would make it easier to make this happen there are also there's also in the governance conversation a chance for the city to you know take on take on levels of leadership that are you know the the road is open ahead of us um one thing I will say is that especially with the compost decision that just got made um from the composter and Yousef you might be the best person to talk to this in fact can you just talk a little bit about that purchasing decision from a restaurant perspective all right just unmuting myself um yeah I mean we were we were talking a bit Sam last week about like uh how to incentivize businesses to to make this
079transition um and I I really just think it comes down uh to some external benefits because it it will be difficult for um it to be like I I think in in um at the beginning to be competitive with um disposables specifically like Styrofoam right we mention I mean there are some businesses uh that are still using these extremely cheap disposables that um uh that it would be just you know very difficult to compete with but it's it's um if this is working at capacity in theory you could um because at elesa we have we devote an incredible amount of our square footage to just storage of disposables uh and if this uh program is is uh working smoothly you could in theory reclaim um a great uh bit of your physical space and devote
080it to other operations um I mean there there are a lot of these kind of knock on effects um that I think um stand to to have an economic benefit to businesses Beyond just the the initial expenditure uh on on getting this stock in place um and but yeah Lisa you you really touched on it I think ultimately it comes down to like a big culture shift um and not within the consu not only within the consumer base but within um kind of the the community of of of um business owners in in an arbor and I I do think that there is already a sizable cohort of businesses and we've communicated with a lot of them who are like really on board with this um but to make it a really truly Citywide and
081you know in theory beyond that um wide program it's going to require um a shift from customers and um initiatives to get them to to reach out to local business owners restaurants that they love to go to but feel kind of Mor the compromised to attend because um they're they're receiving their food and and disposables um and reaching out to these business owners and telling them that we your food but we really you know would appreciate if you would at least consider this program and then and then you know we we can explore ways of of easing new businesses into this program letting them be able to test it out and and be for themselves that it is um a a viable kind of replacement for for the status quo that's really wonderful and you
082you bring a really important perspective to this because you've just stuck with this the whole time and yeah coming to your place you can get any dish in reusables there isn't like you know some of the restaurants that piloted this with us initially was you could have there was one thing on the menu that they would give that doesn't work so but I think that what what I take from what you just said was that um just as we are worried about making sure that this doesn't feel punitive to C consumers it needs to not feel punitive to businesses either we need to really make it something that they want to do and I I think it's really interesting that you're saying that there are other Financial benefits that you might get other than just
083that you don't have to buy disposables anymore so that this is the other another thing that I wanted to bring up was that um the return incentives issue because this is from the consumer perspective and I have on top of my refrigerator right now I think eight or nine containers from Alara will bring back but that's where they all win oh my gosh now all I hope that's not your whole stuff um but you saw me I mean that was three weeks ago that I think I was at your place and brought food and so and the thing is is that I don't go by El harisa very often and so um I will take them back it would be I I hope that we would have bins and also that you could return at
084any participating restaurant because I definitely eat takeout more than once a month and but the pl the other places that I tend to take out don't have this program and so for me the ideal way of dealing with it is every time I go for takeout I just take the things off my fridge and I take them with me and so um that would be that I'm sure you're all thinking about that but I just wanted to put that in because otherwise I might not want to take reusables because I don't want to be fine for not being able to return them and you know like many people in an arburn a lot of things are very closely timed for me so to commit to something that means an extra trip especially an extra car
085trip which I don't want to make is more difficult so and then so you're all n and so I know you get that and then just um what I remember from May Ellie was that the goal was I think some percentage of entities participating in just one piece of reusable it sounds like that won't hit the scale that you all are now thinking about and I wondered if that's if that is still a goal and you feel like that would hit the scale that you're thinking about or do you have a different goal in mind for what would count as success I think that there's a couple different numbers that we need to look at there's part of the analysis that we have done and will continue doing is what is the total volume of
086disposals of different kinds being used in order how many cups how many containers you know how many you rakins like there's a lot of different things to look at I think it would be smart to launch the system with one type of item so either only cups or only containers or something just to reduce complexity um and so to get people sort of up the learning curve um ultimately though I think for the system economics to work you do want many if not s of all different types of disposes replaced by reusables um so there's a couple different answers like there's the answer based on the economics but there's also the answer based on Behavior change and I think even if there are restaurants that are reluctant to do it for all of their items
087having them adopt as many items as they're willing to at least then everywhere people go they see the option and it normalizes it and it becomes part of people's habits so we want participation to be as broad as possible possible and we want there to be a phased approach that allows the system to get up and running successfully with enough volume fast enough but without um drowning in its own complexity is everyone still learning how things need to work does that is that a sufficient answer for today that's helpful and I I can see that cups might be a pretty high volume thing and so a fairly easy thing to start out with um but I feel like from a behavior change standpoint things like ramak kings would be bigger because that's what we're doing
088when we take out food we're taking out packages of things and so it would be so nice to not have to cringe every time I do every time yeah I hear you I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask and one is just um I think you just touched on it but how are you going to set a baseline you know in terms of of the volumes that will be displaced from landfill is that is that part of the plan absolutely yeah there's a number of impact metrics that we plan to track but it starts with figuring out what the Baseline is um and units you know used so number of uses which effectively every use displaces something that would have gone to landfill or less and less um to compost given some
089of the new roles but some of them may still be headed that direction um but we would focus on the landfill ones of course um the tech piece of this makes tracking usage really easy you need to track everything for inventory and tracking purposes anyway so it'll be really easy to do that tracking when we get there in terms of the Baseline that's still pretty manual um so I can tell you in Galviston we have a team member on the ground in Galviston who has spoken to every restaurant in Galviston at least once and some of them many times and he talks to them about what how many do you go through a week how need to go through in a month what are you using so there he's creating kind of a manual map
090of exactly how much is being used and where um in the system my hope is two things I think we can do a version of that in N Arbor but probably learn from this is where our data science friends get really helpful is that when we have really good data on restaurants with these characteristics tend to use this much these many cups and these many containers then it becomes a lot easier to extrapolate some of that for other like how different is a coffee shop in Galveston of a certain size or you know type than it would be an N Arbor we can do some calibration to kind of test that based on D data from n Arbor and then we can get a better sense of how many cups how many containers are being
091used in inor um so that's that's sort of the data piece of it um I'm not sure I've completely answered your question though well I I think just knowing that you're going for data oriented as a as an approach is important and and related to that I guess um do you feel like this is the place you know to get the biggest bang for the book on reducing Plastics in our landfill is this the place the is place not the not the city no the project um I think that reuse has extraordinary potential to displace single use Plastics I also think it's a huge system problem you know and and that's why we're doing it the way that we're doing it I think Sam and Alex both gave really good um points of reference on
092exactly kind of how we've thought about this and why we've ended up working on this particular piece of the problem um my sense is that if you think about the millions and billions of even just disposable cups that are getting used every day um if we could displace those not just with reusable reusable cups but with systems to support their circulation the impact is extraordinary and it's not just landfill it's greenhouse gas emissions um you know there's a lot of of impacts that can come from this if it's done well so I think that's a way to help with the shift you know once you start talking in that way we have some slides thank you no that's super helpful one of the things and um we can adapt this slide for an arbor for
093sure but we we've done some of the math to say okay you know this many uses you know an arbor would have this many uses and would offset this many greenhouse gas emissions but when we've proved a model in an arbor and then we look at the top 10 cities in the US you know then we're offsetting millions of um tons of uh plastic to landfill and millions of of not thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions so um this scale gets really big as but we're proving the case here like that's really what an arbor can do is create this model that can then be adopted and scaled much more broadly with that much larger impact it's a catalyst project sorry Sam you look like you want to jump in yeah I love the
094question yes um one other thing that I just want to highlight is that once you get it right for cups once you have reverse and forward Logistics tracking all that stuff um the possibilities for a detergent for for all these other platforms um the the groundwork is laid so it's a really exciting chance to say we can do this once we can do it for one thing we can do it for a lot of other things and then I think about this a lot R like is this where we want to be putting energy and I think the reason I I keep saying yes is that is exactly Lisa's question the culture change thing it's a very public very uh ubiquitous way to start the little conversations along the lines of what Alex said like
095this is about extraction this is about more than just like how do we throw stuff away better it's about coming to a deeper understanding in the culture of an arbor and I think an arbor is primed for it like like not many other places are and we can lead the way here but like getting that conversation and getting that understanding of of like oh this is about Upstream this is actually has a human rights component like there is so much meat here that a little reusable container can be the this sort of first first step in that conversation and I hope that we can my my dream is that this becomes something that that can start those conversations and can help people better understand and support the culture change that I hope will happen over
096the next decade in an aror thank you um I do have another couple of questions that I want to go to youf go ahead well just to follow up on on what Sam was saying um I mean when we have of course no decisions have been made but we were when we were decided to kind of lean towards starting with cups we just thought that cups were far more um uh when people are using cups they're typically walking around they're in their hand if you're using containers they're put in a bag they're they're stowed away and as a a tool for um kind of spreading awareness of of this program uh and kind of nudging um behavior in the right direction cups are just much more visual um and uh might kind of accelerate that
097um that um that change faster than other containers might yeah great um I think I need to close but I just have two things that I want to mention one is that um the material and I know in your full set of slides there was a comparison of stainless steel versus plastic um and so I'm just curious about that given that we're trying to do away with Plastics but we're talking about plastic containers we don't really have to debate that right now I think it's a question um and the other one is using one's personal um utensils one's own mug one's own container to take food home is even less materials Lea is saying no but um okay um but anyway that I just thought I'd raised that no I just meant that Health codes
098they won't let you I mean I've gone places and handed my own they're like sorry we cannot take that and give it back to you no one is looking right right I know but yet we can do bulk food you know and we do so I I think maybe that's something that could be in the future you know um something to think about anyway um are there any other additional burning questions because we are um a little longer then I had anticipated but I think it's been a really interesting discussion and I appreciate all of your information and enthusiasm uh I'll just step in very briefly and say um just in regards to the governance um you know you saw on that slide uh that um myself from OSI um and Sarah Mason from public
099works and Jenny patoski from Public Works um have been in on these meetings um and uh you know perpetual and zero.org uh are really helping us to think about these different models in these different ways that governance Could Happen um and we're having internal discussions about what the city's involvement will be um so um as has been said that is that is still very much up in the air but those conversations are happening um and we have a short list of other uh internal departments um that we are going to be talking to about these uh this sort of government uh structure and um and thinking about like you know talking to Transportation um and and the downtown to development of authority because if we're going to be putting in the these return bends they're
100probably going to be on sidewalks um and so you know we're thinking about all these things um and these internal conversations are happening uh within the city okay great um so with that I'd like to move on to our next item which I hope we'll be short um that is to close out um and once again thank you all for joining us tonight really appreciate it it's great to thank you so much see A New appr Concept um uh okay so our goal is to complete the review of our bylaws for um the environmental commission um and I had some assistance from commissioner Curtis and commissioner gr um and we prepared a Redline version of the bylaws um which we could go through if you'd like um let me just ask with a wave of
101hands has everyone had a chance to read them um and which we attempt our goal was to integrate biodiversity into the bylaws and the whole concept of the work groups those are basically the points does anyone have any questions and do you want to crawl through them and look at them they're on three separate pages that I tallied for admittedly I have not I looked at the agenda the minutes and this present but I did not look at anybody why don't we um Sean if you don't mind um pulling up the the redline version of the bylaw and what I'll say is that everything in red is the only thing that changed from what is currently approved bylaws um and here we go um this is in the first section um we advised adding to
102number five that that we add challenges to biodiversity to those things that affect environmental risk and pollution issues so the topic really is environmental risk and pollution issues and we um added challenges to biodiversity in number seven the focus is on matters related to sustainable development um we added biodiversity and those activities of the a20 carbon neutrality program that are associated with solid waste and natural features as differentiated from a20 um uh issues that address energy specifically and other aspects of a20 a real quick comment there um zero should all be capitalized carbon neutrality should be capitalized and I would Sy plan instead of program and I think we have to decide whether activities is right or the the plan uses the terminology strategies and actions so I just throw those out there for consideration
103um that seems good to keep things consistent thank you anyone else have any comments so far let's go on all right in this section where we are talking about enhancing awareness understanding and commitment um to uh local citizens and so we want to in include in that stewardship as of natural resources and enhancement of biodiversity and then um further down you can see we addressed the issue of work groups just added to create sub Quorum work groups designated to report back to the commission as a whole um and that's one of the things that we design in our work groups last week or last month um and that would be followed by ruming the ones that are currently numbered 15 and 16 and I think it's second last page good um a question oh this
104isn't the last one um a question about our um uh conflict of interest um statement and just how do we have an annual disclosure so it's a question to the legal team to address what's the process um it's really not intended to be part of the bylaws we're asking um the legal team to advise us on how we do this uh and the last seems so long now okay here we go last one um the commission may Rec create work groups which was said and the last statement is work groups are required to be sub Quorum so it's just a parallel to the prior um uh point in this document any other questions um Corrections comments commissioner dish council member dish um I wonder if there's language that we could use on even local citizens
105I'm sorry I'm having a little hard time hearing L I'm sorry um I'm wondering if there's other language we can use other than local citizens because that was a conation there was expion um so I'm wondering members of the sure that sounds good I don't think we was that on that 15 uh I don't remember which the new 15 yeah there it is 11 it's an 11 we might have more than one reference to but yeah 11 in local citizens citizens okay so that is what's been in so we didn't change it but it's okay for me from my perspective I don't have any strong uh feeling about it if you don't mind just saying again what you are suggesting well I'm kind of losing because it's a little difficult to figure out we don't
106want to say local residents because there might be people from outside the city you know that that we want to be you know in the county that we want to be involved I'm thinking really either just active involvement of members of the public members of the community Community to yeah maybe maybe yeah that's a word that we use I don't know maybe um I don't know if Sean might want to tap on Jenny P's door and think if there's a word to use because citizens in this day and age has a pretty intense connotation of legitimacy and card carrying paper and documentation thing think and I'm sure that we have this in lots of City documents I bet we do um my suggestion then is that we do a word search on this and be
107sure it's not in other places you know so that if we if we' make this change that we might want to make sure we do it elsewhere throughout the bylaws yeah yeah yeah so I don't know members of the public or Community would be I think fine but maybe I would check in with our public engagement specialist yeah um how do we want to leave this I was hoping oh uh I see comments from um commissioner nric and I I just had a question um about number nine I think if you scroll up a little um about publishing and presenting an annual report we didn't do that last year did we no we didn't in the past it's it's um yeah it has slipped you know and so um my goal will be to set
108up some kind of a template that we'll we'll work on together um I certainly would prefer not to be the sole author of something like that um but to have input from the group and and um maybe it'll be structured around our work groups you know um because we have those kind of levels of focus that's what I'm thinking but um so do you do you have a question about it in particular or are you just concerned that we make sure to do it I just think if it's in here we should do it or we should remove it if it's not feasible um yeah that's all I I I think we should try and do it personally um commissioner mki um I support the idea um the energy commission did it a few times
109it's been while but it's a useful exercise um and I would recommend that uh if this is pursued at Rita you and Steve work together with a chair and vice chair of the energy Commission because the climate is an eff part of the environment and I think a lot of things would carry over and it certainly makes sense to have the two be similar um as 2 point1 um I would Echo council member Dish's point and recognize that um people who live outside the city of Ann Arbor can serve as Commissioners they just need an you know extra votes to be confirmed and at least in the energy commission we regularly have people um calling in and providing public comment that live outside the city but you know have ties to the city because they
110work here with the University or whatever so coming up with some formulation here that is um more inclusive um and a little bit more broad is uh something I think is definitely worthwhile and it should be potentially since there this I think it's somewhat of a template that's used for other bylaws this should be then shared with um the city attorney's office and they should look at that language across and do a read across all the other commission bylaws yeah that makes sense um thank you that's all yeah okay um Comm council member dish you have another comment want to unmute first um I wanted to follow up on commissioner Med's point I'm not opposed to us doing nine but an annual report on the city's state of the environment sounds very large and I
111think it makes sense for us to report on our work but I think I mean I remember the first year I was on this commission um chair Brown tried to have us do that and it just was too much and you know so and also redundant because the city does this it doesn't do it in ways that are easy to find but you know we would be using all kinds of city data and putting it into a report and if if if we actually did what that says so if you're thinking about a report on our activities chair Mel I think as you said you know it might sort of center around our working groups is that what you meant or yeah that's what I was suggesting right well maybe we should reward this then
112because because if we did our a report on what our working groups did it would not add up to a report on the city's state of the environment it's definitely ambitious right um yeah if I can chime in quickly on that it's really important to think who is the audience and what are the objectives and then and then we can design a report that meets that as opposed to designing a hypothetical with not really a clear understanding of what we want to accomplish and who it's for um so I'm just going to interject that I had hoped we would finish these today today um and send them off to the legal team and get them to review but if we need to review them um that can be done um and those are different aspects
113of the bylaws than what we talked about last time so um I guess I would ask the question of does the the um commission want to proceed with the additional suggested revisions finish those up and bring them in and finalize it next time that's my question I'm trying to State it in a positive way so we can figure out an answer commissioner dish and then Curtis Miss commissioner Curtis first so I would say yes we should um reword number nine and make it real realistic okay so how about if we just do that no but if we take five minutes and see if we can identify our audience and then reward it along the lines that chair mes already suggested and then I would be happy for either we decide that we want to say
114you know members of the public or members of the community tonight or we take advice and get receive advice and an email from if Mr Reynolds would be willing maybe to check in with MOSI who does public engagement for solid waste and let us know the kind of words that she would use because I bet she wouldn't lose czen um so and then in terms of the report I mean it the report has typically been conveyed to council as anything else from the environmental commission would be and so Council probably is the audience and any members of the public who are so go-getter as to look at it it might be them as well which is good um but you know I think it I think it'd be useful and interesting for Council to know
115what the environmental commission and its working groups have done because we're supposed to be advising Council MH and surfacing you know policy issues that council is either not looking at or right you know need need to get a higher profile or you know I can see utility to that I can't see a utility to the state of the environment I just it just we weren't here when that was written right yeah exactly I think that was a Matt nod thing that was really really ambitious and reflected lack of reporting around other things you know and we have the office of sustainab so um I just don't see that we I don't see us wanting to do that work or having the capacity right no it sounds massive so um I appreciate it being raised so
116um I I propose that we report to council um and the question is how do we want to word the rest we're going to report to Council on um actions of the work groups on recommend recommendations about activities and recommendations of the work groups maybe activities of the work groups and recommendations drawing from the work groups and the body as a whole I'm running out of paper that has not got stuff on both sides um you need an iPad with a stylus okay um I can pick that up um okay all right let's try it again activities of the work groups report to council on activities of the work groups that are that include recommendations that may include recommendations I know there's a hesitancy to do this but I think redlining in a meeting like
117this is very in terrible yeah I really we've already discussed everything I think it would be great if you could just bring a new version back and we dispose of minutes that's that um anyone else let's do that um I will uh put it together I don't think there's that much more I'll leave the red lines that we have to date um and add these particular items so great thanks all of you for your comments um so let's get back to that's the end of of the our scheduled agenda agenda items um let's see I will ask does anyone have any particular items that you would like to bring up for our next meeting which will be um October 28th I believe or 26th I looked at that October 26th if I don't hear anyone
118in 30 seconds I will work on it and put out a call um okay our next so I told our next scheduled meeting we're now at a point for oh wait a minute I'm jumped way ahead to we we're at reports from committees I'm sorry excuse me I was more organized than that all right I'm G to just call now we have our new um I'm going to put them in alphabetical order um we have our new biodiversity group um that includes myself Commissioners Curtis mki Gruber um Dale and Graham um it is going to be um chaired by commissioner Graham and would anyone like to report on our our first meeting that we had two weeks ago I will okay go ahead good go i' say we had a meeting uh we bounced around
119a number of different ideas I don't think we really want to get into them in detail here because we're still trying to figure out what will work or what won't work but everybody came so that was good and we got some assignments out there and so some things are moving yep and I will say that um we're hoping to bring some information to the group or some discretion to the group for all of us to talk about which I think will be really fun um okay circular economy um council member dish do you want to take this or otherwise I'll read okay good thank you so um the circular economy group as a whole is moving monthly um and it has some other sub meetings of you know sub working working groups um and we
120are like now revie a combination of ordinances and other ities and Bre and practices in other cities around uh construction and demolition ordinances we are trying to come up with a definition of well it's cndd ordinances so um sometimes we can call it constructive ination actually what we want to call it to think about it live is a cross do you mean deconstruction uh because that may end up being being what we end up targeting um we are also at the same time um having conversations with cities that have had these or in place because we want to understand what what sorts of businesses they need to have in place and um and what kind of markets they need in order for these C andd ordinances to actually work because you can't mandate something if
121it Curr be deconstructed and sold or done something and right now it looks like in concrete is extremely easy to do and to have done but I'm not sure how great that is from an environmental perspective um and um so so we are going to be continuing to doing this kind of Market capacity research and other cities ordinance research and we're making a SWAT analysis of it um in October for our meeting the later next month we'll be talking with representativ from Madison Wisconsin about their experience with their CN ordinance and we're also going to have a meeting lined up with Austin Texas and we're taking these as kind of a preliminary exploring how to meet with people that have them and then we would do a more systematic engagement effort um and and a
122broader engagement effort so that we can um identify what if anything can be accomplished in an arbor around this we want to do something and so we would at some point be able to bring you some some conclusions from our research and Outreach but right now we're too much at the beginning stage and it would be boring because we're sifting through websites and stuff okay sounds like it will be really good um let's go to the energy commission really the only thing of note uh is that the energy commission uh considered in a first reading a resolution recommending a carbon impact fee for new construction effectively a social cost of carbon um the approach is modeled after a fee uh based uh system that was implemented in Burlington Vermont um I know that that probably
123is not viewed favorably outside the commission but the commission generally was um supportive of it there was a lot of discussion about a number of concerns and uh there was a vote at the end to table it and bring it back for a second reading and discussion so it it wasn't dropped so that's that was really the main agenda topic um for uh the energy commission you um water quality um nedrick it's you and me and Steve Brown who here yeah I don't think we've met since the last um I know I've had some back and forth with Steve he's working on theer accountability act revisions um that that's state level legislation but it if it does go to the state congress and get passed it could have really big implications for the Gman da
124and Bloom um because some of what they're proposing is a little bit more strict um so that's very interesting right and I know Rita you sent me some emails about Gman as well that we're going around regarding um concerns about the monitoring Well network not being protective enough particularly in the Scio Township area which is outside of the city limits but um yeah so there's been a lot of Gman stuff going about right and I think that the issue with that has to do with the the flow toward City water source in Barton pond so even though that's outside of much of that is outside of the city limits it's certainly a concern so yeah stay tuned um all right let's move on to thank you um let's move on to Planning Commission again council
125member dish um I don't think we we haven't done anything that bears directly on this commission um yeah okay thank you um Parks commissioner Marson hi yeah um so going back a couple of meetings um we approved um moving forward on an acquisition of an addition to the Hansen nature area it'll be a about one acre that will be added um I think you probably all heard that there's Oak Oak Wilt that's been uncovered in bird Hills um and at the last meeting here we discussed issue MD do um who owns the railroad tracks that run along the river they will be putting up some fencing um that's somewhat um controversial I guess for Citizens that live along the river and would like to have access to all of the um to the river and
126parks along the river um but there is going to be a public meeting about that uh this coming week I believe it's on Tuesday and it's going to be at um I think it's over at washing Community College perhaps yeah yes thank you um and then the other um environmental commission related item is that parks and urban forestry received a $1 million Grant from the the USDA forest forest management uh Forest Service um for urban Forest management and so I think there will be some more activity along those lines in the upcoming months that's it that's great thank you is there any um specificity as to how those have to be used or how they're planned to be used I am not familiar with that uh we were mostly just uh notified that they received
127the grant um I can take that as I I was one of the um folks who helped to submit the grant um so the funding will be going towards in the first year primarily doing a new um canopy canopy analysis um to see where we uh need to put in more trees uh to help our canopy um will'll then be using that and Equity data um to drive uh decisions uh around the second year um and moving forward which will be focused on private property tree planting um through the 10,000 trees initiative um that the office of sustainability Innovations runs uh there will also be um funding that go from it that goes towards uh Natural Area preservation for their um strategic planning uh and then finally um some of it in I believe the
128fourth year is going to go towards a feasibility study to determine if the city uh and or County um could uh start their own tree nursery to grow our own trees for these programs thank you pretty exciting um all right council member dish back to you anything from Council that is um important for the environmental commission to know oh I'm not used to having to do all these reports uh I know so sorry no it's okay it's just I didn't think about that um I mean we haven't taken anything direct we haven't taken any action directly on whats on this commission but I promise next time I'll review okay and and let you know all right thank you and if Mr Reynolds has anything that pops to mind [Music] um all right well um I'll
129just make a quick chair's report which is really short um we have a couple of Youth candidates that we'll be reviewing and um I'm hoping we'll make a decision soon and and a recommendation um uh uh I want to congratulate commissioner Curtis for visiting every Park and being a top naap volunteer you keep getting written up it's really good um thanks for all that work um and I want to thank Sean for organizing the pollinator walk that happened on um September 10th was really a great day we had a a smallish kind of group of people that showed up but they were for a self- selected group they were all really interest Ed in um pollinator plants and pollinators and taking walks around town and I appreciate the support from um ana and others the
130well ones who came as well was it was a good um and fun event um so that is my oh oh and I don't have any word yet on the environmental manager but I will let you know um uh soon on that decision and how it affects our commission um I expect to know next week uh so with that I'm back on the agenda um we did our reports report from staff Sean submitted his report thank you very much Sean um and we did through any other it any items for the agenda anybody thought of in the meantime raise your hand or send me an email um our next scheduled meeting October 26 and now we're at a point for our second public comment um here we go this is an opportunity for persons to
131speak for up to 3 minutes please call 888 78899 and at a meeting ID 96961 1664 I'll say that again 922 1644 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand please press star nine on your phone you'll hear an automated announ announcement that the host is allowing you to speak press the star six to unmute your phone and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments Sean do you see anyone waiting to speak to us uh not yet okay we'll give a brief pause um I want to thank
132everyone for um participating tonight um I think it's very interesting and um to see where we're going to go with this um the reusables um be very very interesting um okay uh how about that that was my interlude Sean anyone waiting to talk we do not have anyone on the line all right then I will would like to have a motion to close the meeting commer Curtis second from commissioner guber thank you very much uh vote to uh adour the meeting is your hand we are adjourned thank you all good night