recycling coordinator in belmont she works in the department of public works highway department highway division yes and she's a part time there she has really interesting information for us regarding the end of the whole recycling issue and in particular dual streaming which is what we do in this town i will let her explain to you what that is ok and move right along the so the town of belmont has a contract for dual stream recycling so we would like our residents to put out the recycling in two streams one is paper and cardboard and the other is contain is plastic glass tin and aluminum and they can't be in one bin mix they have to be separated out and i have some props here that i can show you right now if you want to see the lewdly already so here is a recycling bin and i'm right here is a garbage bag it's probably a kitchen sized bag and if you recycle you could probably reduce at least once a week i can buy kitchen day so here is a food container it says the number five on it that can be in the containers i'm sure some of you notice this we get a lot of questions on styrofoam  be put curbside it has to be thrown out or twice a year we have a collection for this and we can talk about that later another thing straws recyclable they need to be thrown out that goes in our aluminum cans aluminum just going through here all of this is plastic bags or they call it plastic film most of it will have a number for our number two it's recyclable but not curbside this ziploc bags as long as they're clean and dry can go to the supermarket usually in the front of the store there is a van for this now i'm going to pull some things out some people use another bin for their paper or some people in a bag so no supermarket sales anyone that still reads a paper or two a day that can go in here your cereal boxes they can be broken down and they can be fit in here more this plastic water bottles with the containers can go in and the aluminum top and the aluminum top they can stay attached to it yes up here at cracker boxes this actually isn't cardboard it's called paper board in the industry usually when people say cardboard in the industry they may corrugated cardboard in your bathroom people just think of their kitchen but in their bathroom there items to recycle here is this this is this can go in and the other two need to go into your paper stream we get a lot of this which are plastic pouches and there's also  foil poaches at this time gives have to be thrown out they can't be recycled i drink a lot of yogurt so as you can see it's just here's a glass container caps now can go on the container and be recycled i know in the past they told you throw them out you don't have to do it all of this do not some people when it's raining like to put this in a plastic bag don't do that no plastic bags at all at the grocery store and there we go just more in as you can see  here's a bottle cap from the toilet paper roll those can be recycled even little posted and so as you can see we have now take in a bag of trash and we your pay fors during the true we should be kept i'm just going to put this away and it was so appealing i know your paper should be kept dry during the two weeks that you're collecting it if it is raining on the day and it's one day that it gets wet it's ok but they do like paper dry yes ok yes and so it's not prohibited to put it out because of the drizzle no no raining you can put it out ok it's best to be in a habit and put your recycling out every two weeks best to break your cardboard boxes down and put them out every two weeks so you don't stockpile but we have pitches i went around the neighborhoods of belmont and i've taken some pictures to show how residents put out their recycling in different ways that are convenient for them if we could show some oh here we go so here's someone who does a lot of recycling and they use a variety of containers and it's done well because you can see on the one end is all the paper and then there's plastics and then in the middle this paper again they didn't said i don't use paper bags i don't use plastic bags a use the usable bags so i don't have any and i told them to get a bin i recycle bin to put it in don't put paper in a barrel because it tends to be heavy because the barrels have to be under fifty pounds and they should be thirty two gallons so here's another resident and they did a super jaw on the cardboard the cardboard dimensions have to be under three feet by three feet and if you bundle it it can be no high than nine inches and this has this really has frustrated our residents and we don't want them to be frustrated but it's the only way that will fit in the truck and the how so that's why we have those dimensions he is someone else this is a very good set out i don't know if i would recommend stacking it as such but in the bins they have put their plastic aluminum and glass containers and then the paper bag is their paper and on top that i measured that and that does fall under the thirty three feet by three feet and no more than nine inches and no more than nine inches and he has another set out one bin for paper another been for plastics next and here is someone that does a lot of recycling and they used an older barrel and i don't know if you can tell but on the side it has recycled stickers and we will give those out free you put two one on either side and then they put their paper in bags also next unstacking is ok like that yes you can as long as it's in a bag you can put it on top of the plastics like this person did so they have filled the bins with plastic glass and aluminum containers and they put the bags on top of it with their  paper and as you can see on the very far and they fit their cod board into their paper bag and that works next and he has another example of paper bags in can a been full of containers and this one's really nice because the containers are in a wheeled barrel that is thirty two gallons and that's what we want thirty two gallons are under and they have all their bags next to it filled with paper and cardboard next oh this is different yes this is that this didn't get picked up and this person is a good recycler in terms of they recycle a lot of things and should be applauded but they said it out incorrectly these blue bags i've seen in the neighborhoods and i i don't know how they are sold but i think they're touted as recyclable bags or bags used for recyclables not in this community and in most communities around us will not accept these bags so this person has to empty those bags into another container and the other thing that see at the and they have a cardboard box that isn't broken down and they shoved cut board in it folding it all up they won't take that you can't nest cardboard in cardboard best to lay it all flat and bundle it or if you can fold it put it in a bag a grocery bag so no is the objection to the color of the bag border it's the plastic in our recycling is taking by our hauler to a material recovery facility shortened to march and at them or if they put all the recycling down on the floor and then it gets lifted up onto a conveyor belt in plastic bags get caught in the screen have to shut down the conveyor belt which they do not like to do because time is money and they actually it's dangerous because then they have to have the workers climb up on the machinery and actually with a razor blade or hook take it off that makes sense yes so that is why ok no bags curbside they are recyclable but you have to bring them to the grocery store i want to say most grocery stores at the front of the store have a container for grocery bags but you can add the film around your this should give us all an incentive right to go home and do it right i hope so i mean i think belmont residents do a good job at recycling they want to recycle they want to do the right thing i think that things have become lax because there was a lot of money to be made in the recycling business so we have this complaint that i've been putting out my recycling last three years single stream and it's been picked up well now that there's some little market changes for the recycling businesses and the becoming very strict and they want dry clean recyclables and they will charge for single stream so our hauler does not want to get charged so our contract is dual stream so we have to follow our contract so this is not something new we bend all streams since one nine hundred ninety one but i just think people have come from other communities that have single stream in the communities around us some of them a single stream and so they thought that they could do that  but it won't get picked up so we've had the last two weeks residents have call that their recycling has been stickered we've told them if they correct it will send the truck back and pick it up and that has been happening but studying this monday if it's done incorrectly it won't get picked up so i really hope that people do it correctly because if you're going to recycle you might as well do it right to get it to where it's going now i've seen so of gigantic proportions sitting on curbside yes those get taken the sofas are considered a bulky waste and you're allowed one a week and they get taken in the trash but i know that some week and then an armchair two weeks later yes i mean residence here in belmont a very lucky in that and we're i can say we're an outlier compared to other towns because the state has a new way of measuring your trash which is tons per household and when we do that we're we weird very good we're not as good as pay as you throw towns are just towns that allow one barrel  for bulky waste they'll offer you money in terms of grants if you do that so belmont's very lucky we don't have a trash the city that i live in we have to pay two hundred fifty dollars a year for our trash to get picked up by the city so belmont we're an outlier because we don't have these restrictions and we still have good household tonnage of trash per household rate so hopefully residents will continue to recycle and recycle correctly i really wish that they saw that in the beginning that kitchen bag of trash which really wasn't trash it all could be recycled so you visually when you see it it's haha it does make a difference now are there any particular areas of improvement that you  could be done better and i know it's very convenient to get your things items purchases through the mail right to your house but when that happens you're going to have a lot of cardboard and if people i think people are going to have to realizing that when you purchase things it comes with a cost at the of and how am i going to get rid of it and if you keep that in mind in your pretty you know about that that might help out in terms of the curb and how you put things though do you think the restriction on dimensions due to the size of the truck is perhaps a hindrance yes a lot of there's a lot of frustration around the cardboard i can we you know what and we don't mind telephone calls and i know that some residents when they're call and they're calling a moment where they're very frustrated and i mean the women that answer the phones at the d p w they do they do other things with besides trash recycling so if everyone just took a deep breath and we can get you to where you need to go and if people just understood it's the dimensions are not to frustrate but to help you and the town of belmont get it in the truck to get it to the recycling you feel is the biggest contribution we can make right now is just to continue to do it as yes try to recycle i mean even if it's as simple as you get the mail that i know someone who told me i keep a little been right where my mail is and i just write them in there one time management people all the junk mail goes in it and so at the end of the week i have something to take i think a lot of people get crazy washing out their recycling i do the one quick rinse and that's all it takes it's just i'm in of some things like peanut butter or m a o if it's just too messy i would throw it out it would throw what about the container because because some people leave a half a job of peanut butter and ice and it just contaminates the recycling that's not doing any good at all i see you know half a jar spaghetti sauce that's in a glass jar that's not good a quick little rants put the exactly that will be fine i have one resident who told me they have they fill up their dishwasher with recycling just to run it wow that's ok you know if that's very clear yes i should say yes yes water is expensive too yes but she wants to wash your dishes so there's room in it so she asked i see yes well you know there's probably no totally right totally wrong way you know as long as you do it right that's why i showed the different set outs because it needs to be convenient for you so there's no right or wrong way as long as you're separating i well that's wonderful mary beth what a pleasure let's see what difficult question can i throw your way you can whatever how about i mean is there an actual problem with people recycling do you feel that there's something that we can do to stimulate people to do what just we're not even talking about sorting properly and not just is that an issue or not yes some people do not want to recycle and i think i have i my the schools when i go into the schools in the elementary schools the the message of you want to save the planet just resonates with those kids and in one line and they do it to save the planet the other for a lot of us that are older and save the planet it also saves the town money because it's not going in the trash and we also have we have a tipping fee for our trash so not only do we pay to haul our trash but what our trash ways we get charged by the time  so the less trash the tipping fees for us will go down ok well that's something to keep in mind focus on what you think it all matters doesn't it does matter and  so what about the milk and juice containers oh yes we're going to go back to those that something new and the companies that make those containers have formed the carton council and the current council has done a big p r to get residents to recycle milk juice which are the gable tops and then the broth and other juice or even some milk comes in the aseptic containers which has their squares so the material the paper in that is very valuable so they want people to do that so it's almost like that they have given money to a lot of the recycling facilities to put something on their conveyor belts to help sort this material and i've gone into the schools the schools have done a great job and so all the kids pour off their milk and they recycle their milk cartons so they've done a wonderful job with that for them yes so while they're definitely doing their part wonderful i have to give a big shout out to custodians they've done a wonderful job with recycling excellent listen to that folks well mary beth it's a pleasure to have you here and this is a great topic that i think affects us all yes and welcome thank you i enjoyed myself thank you and that's it for what's going on until next time bye bye