2017-06-05 Regular MeetingSOLID WASTE ADVISORY BOARD
REGULAR MEETING MINUTES
June 5, 2017@ 5:15 PM
Kodiak Fisheries Research Center
Call to Order
JUN 2 8 2011
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Chair Szabo called to order the Regular Meeting of the Solid Waste Advisory Board at 5:15 p.m.
on June 5, 2017 at the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center.
Roll Call
J. Clay conducted a roll call and a quorum was established. The following members were
present; Chair Nick Szabo, Jeff Stewart, Scott Arndt, Jennifer Culbertson and Nathan Svoboda.
Absent was Steven Neff.
Also in attendance was Bob Tucker of the Kodiak Island Borough, Stephanie Mason of
Threshold, Mike Shrewsbury of Alaska Waste and Dennis Symmons and Matt Van Daele of
Kodiak Island Borough Assembly.
Approval of Agenda
ARNDT moved to approve the agenda.
VOICE VOTE ON MOTION CARRRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
Approval of Minutes
ARNDT moved to approve the minutes of May 15, 2017
VOICE VOTE ON MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
Visitor Comments:
Kelly Krueger — She wanted to thank SWAB for all the work on the plastic ban and would urge
them to keep going. A ban was the best for Kodiak. While driving to the meeting, there were
bags smashed up against the fences. The bags are everywhere especially in the high wind. Who
knows how far they are traveling.
Larry Van Daele — Being a long time resident of Kodiak he was really impressed two weeks ago
as part of the clean-up, he noticed how amazing the dump was compared to what it was 10 to
20 years ago. It has a lot to do with what Alaska Waste, the Borough and the City has done. It's
a real big compliment to all of you on that. He wanted to thank the board on what they have
done with roll carts. He has had a long history with roll carts and they have done what he could
not do. In regards to the ban on the bag, he wanted to express his support. I see that as a
logical progression of the last two items he talked about. He thinks SWAB was going in the right
direction. He strongly encouraged to keep going. He would like to know why SWAB does not
want paper bags. Per the draft ordinance 8.20.020 C. ...a bag made from plastic and/or any
plastic material marketed or labeled as "biodegradable" or "compostable"... To him it means a
paper bag as we used to get. If that was your intent, he would like to hear about it. Thank you
for all the hard work you are doing and please keep it up.
Marissa Koller Williams —She runs the Healthy Tomorrow Wellness Program. She has spoken
previously about efforts that she has been making with Stephanie and other community
members to go to the elementary schools and talk to them about plastic bags and the
environment and making reusable bags with them. She has gotten positive feedback from the
kids and teachers. Everyone was on board and they understood the importance of using
reusable bags and avoiding the use of plastic and why. She has not found anyone that thinks
this was a bad idea. We recognize it might be inconvenient for a very short period of time. The
long term effects for all of us would be worthwhile. She thanked everyone who has put effort in
this and would like to see it move forward.
Lindsey Glenn — She thanked SWAB for all their work on the plastic bag ban. She teaches a
leadership class at the high school making bags from t -shirts. They plan on putting them at
Safeway for customers to use. They have 54 bags ready to go. They had a "donate your t -shirt"
sign at Threshold this past weekend. She thinks you might forget your bag once but then you
will never do it again. She was glad all the leaves have come out this spring so it hides bags that
line the road out to the dump. She offers her support for the plastic bag ban.
Don Roberts — He supports the plastic bag ban for all the same reasons. He has done some
clean-up projects and the plastic bags are a pain to chase down. Plastic straws which take 500
years to decompose are a concern. Cigarette butts are in large volume at the landfill and also
take forever to decompose. We need to figure out how much it costs for the landfill to hold on
to all of that for a long time as it never collapses. You run out of space. People could make an
informed decision if they knew the cost. They may choose not to use plastic.
Mary Ruskovich — She wanted to express her support for the ban on plastic bags. It makes good
economic sense. It was ethically something we need to look at. We have a unique Island with
lots of water. The bags get into our oceans and trees. Kodiak is an old timey place and we could
go back to really caring about our community. This would be a really good step to show people
how much we do care.
Janet Wente — She commented she was the only dissenter in the group. She was not in favor of
banning plastic bags. She remembers why we went to plastic and it was to save the trees. She
has cloth bags in her car and a cooler. She composts, recycles and burns yard waste. She was
very conscientious about being stewards of the land. She runs an art gallery and the art must
go in plastic bags due to our weather. She was hoping for some exemptions instead of a
complete ban. Swab needs to have a litter campaign.
Discussion/Action Items
a. Plastic Bag Discussion
Svoboda stated everyone received the legal opinion from KIB. The ordinance was modified with
suggestions from the last meeting. Matt Van Daele explained the changes. They changed the
date of the ordinance to be effective February 14, 2018, reworded to say banning the
distribution of single use plastic bags and suspending the ordinance in case of emergency.
Board discussion ensued.
STEWART MOVED to recommend to the Assembly the adoption of the ordinance banning
plastic bags.
ARNDT MOVED TO AMEND MOTION to change paragraph C. 1s` line, between "any" and
"material" you would insert the word "plastic".
ROLL CALL VOTE ON AMENDED MOTION CARRIED 5 TO 0. Board discussion ensued.
STEWARD MOVED TO FURTHER AMEND MOTION on paragraph C. add additional sentence
"Paper Bags are exempt from this ordinance".
ROLL CALL VOTE ON AMENDED MOTION CARRIED 4 TO 1.
ROLL CALL VOTE ON MAIN MOTION AS AMENDED CARRIED 4 TO 1.
Visitor Comments:
Larry Van Daele — He wanted to reiterate what Ms. Culbertson said about how many bags come
from one retailer: 15,000 boxes of 2,000 per month of bags, which was 30,000 per month and
360,000 per year for one retailer. That was maybe 1,000,000 bags per year. That was the kind
of thing people need to hear.
Jody Spivey — She asked, what gets in the way of using a recyclable bag? Scott said he likes
plastic because it's better when he walks up the stairs. Try cloth bags. She has cloth bags that
are 10 years old which she uses every week she goes to the grocery store. They last forever and
you can throw them in the washing machine. We have to think about the future. If we don't do
something now it was going to continue to get worse.
Lindsey Glenn - She presented Scott Arndt with T -Shirt Bags. She understands the issue with the
cruise ships. She went to the fabric store and they gave her some reusable bags to take her
fabric home in. Princess Cruise Lines knowing they were docking in Kodiak could consider giving
their cruise ship customers bags to shop in Kodiak with. It would be good marketing on their
part. Any time you go to conferences or training, they always give out reusable bags with their
logos on it. Surely our environmental stewardship and protecting the Island we live in was
worth a minute or two at the check-out. She was impatient as anyone at the check-out. She
thanked everyone for their time. The bags she was making would be for anyone to use and
return or keep and reuse.
Jody Spivey— We are behind the times and she believes people from other places and countries
will be on board with this. They have already experienced not using plastic bags.
Janet Wente —She believes some customers have bags but a lot do not. When government says
ban she doesn't like it. How will you enforce it? If we hate the ban then could it be reversed?
David Zimmerman — He went to Disneyland where there was a plastic bag ban. He went to
Target and they offered to sell him a thicker reusable plastic bag for 15C. He wanted to know if
it was possible for our stores to do the same.
Marissa Koller — When we started talking about the bag exchange, people came out of the
woodwork to donate their bags. She would be willing to try and make a bag exchange work.
Board Member Comments:
Jeff Stewart —There was a company in Kodiak that makes bags from Kevlar which come from
old sails. We have talked about recycling glass and he has been doing research. He found out
that mixing different types of glass does not work because of the different melt temperatures.
He found that it was going to cost us money to recycle glass. One of the many problems was the
collection of glass. The only use of the recycled glass would be to use in the Landfill as cover.
Stephanie Mason —She wanted to thank everyone who worked on this plastic bag issue.
Dennis Symmons — He wanted to thank the board and hope they continue to attract
participation. He also wanted to salute the citizens who took the time to come here and
participate. It was rare to see so many at a function like this.
Matt Van Daele — Thanked the board for having him.
Jennifer Culbertson — She thought it was nice to see some community participation. She felt like
she was doing something positive here.
Nathan Svoboda — He agreed with Dennis's comments that it was great to see members of the
public here whether you are for it or against it. He thought it was important they were part of
the process. He encouraged everyone to participate as it made our community stronger either
way.
Scott Arndt— He had a hard time with an outright ban. He would like a little bit of choice. He
understands what Bob said about having a choice on the reusable bags in the stores and how it
had not accomplished what we would like. He understood the progression but just had a
problem with a ban.
Nick Szabo — He passed the Banning of Plastic bags over to Matt Van Daele and Dennis
Symmons to take to the Assembly. He offered to come to the next Assembly meeting to report
on what SWAB had done. He hoped that they could engage the City into adopting the same
thing so we don't have to go to the expense of an election.
Meeting Schedule
The next regular meeting was scheduled for June 26, 2017.
Adjournment
ARNDT moved to adjourn meeting.
VOICE VOTE ON MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:20 p.m.
SUBMITTED BY:
Je ny Clay, Secfetary 61
KIB Engineering/Facilities Department
APPROVED BY:
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Szabo, Chair
Solid Waste Advisory Board
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