All right, welcome everyone.

Today's February twenty-seventh, twenty twenty five.

We are here for a solid waste and recycling program overview workshop of the city commission.

Thank you to everybody that's in attendance here.

We have uh vendors and industry here.

We have of course uh public works uh and uh city management.

Um see even Chris Rostreck is here, he's always uh looking a ways to uh better deal with trash.

Um and so a lot of folks are here and involved.

Um City Manager, take it away.

Good morning, thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Commissioners, and to uh all members of the public and uh interested parties and the staff that are here today.

Yes, I'm gonna bite my tongue with all the puns that are laying out there on the on the table today.

So um you might remember it, of course, many times in the past we've had discussions on uh subjects related to solid waste, and the commission had asked for workshops so that we could dig deeper and spend some time into some of the different elements that are involved there.

So here we are today.

Uh you know, we will obviously talk about our uh residential contract, uh commercial and roll off services, and we'll spend some time on recycling, disposal processing, and some other related topics.

So the uh the presentation is fairly long.

Uh and we will get through it as quickly as we can.

If we can hold off some of our comments till the end, it'll help kind of get through it quickly and kind of have it as a piece, and then there'll be plenty of time for questions and comments.

The solid waste and recycling division manager for the city of Fort Lauderdale, and uh had contributed greatly in terms of uh time and information to this effort today and works directly with Nancy Gassman, who's the uh assistant director of public works for Fort Lauderdale, who I used to work with.

And uh and our presenters today will be uh Gus Ambrano, Tony Tarou, and Joseph Kroll.

So um with that I'll I'll turn it over to Gus to lead off and we'll get those to you shortly and move on through the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh City Manager.

Yeah, we have some copies coming down for you.

So I'll be brief up here.

Uh, but this is uh our agenda for today.

Uh we'll talk uh one slide on introduction to solid waste.

There's actually an official EPA definition.

And then we'll uh uh I will hand it off to Tony.

Um and he will talk about the rest uh in regards to solid waste collections, and then uh of course uh Joseph will take it on uh to closing.

Uh but we have the solid waste collections and processing and disposal.

We're gonna get into uh all the processes and options of processes that we have available.

I will give you a snapshot of expenditures and revenues, and uh we'll remind you of the solid waste authority of Broad County that's uh currently underway and the status of their work and then some potential next steps for consideration as we look forward to improving this process and our uh our methodology for solid waste.

So next slide is the EPA definition.

I want to take a second I'm not about to be here very long anyway.

Uh I want to take a second to actually read the definition because it's very interesting.

Um for those of you who love to I hate to say this, talk trash.

Uh solid waste uh actually as any garbage or refuse sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution.

All air all pollution, um, air pollution control facility and other discarded material resulting from industrial commercial mining and agricultural operations from community activities.

You'll see some acronyms you might hear throughout the presentation that's used uh often in the industry, municipal solid waste, MSW, construction debris C and D, Household Hazard Waste is H HW, electronic waste.

Uh but these are all the different kinds of waste and how they're categorized.

That's it for me.

I'd like to pass it on to Tony Tarou, who is our environmental services manager.

Tony, take it away.

All right, good morning, everyone.

Sorry about that.

Where's my so I'm I'm here to talk about uh our waste provider, which is Waste Pro, Waste Pro USA, and I work closely with them daily with the uh manager from Waste Pro.

So the contract began in uh October 1st, 2019, and it is a 10-year term, which will be expiring September 30th, 2029.

And there is a one, three-year renewable option that will need commission approval.

At this time, I'm just gonna talk about the services that Waste Pro currently provides with the current contract that we have.

So we have twice a week.

You have garbage collection, curb site, and alley service.

You have once a week for recycling, you have once a week for yard waste, and once a month for your bulk waste.

Now, Waste Pro also provides illegal dump pickups for us when needed, cart delivery, and um they actually have containers for us when we have special events for city-sponsored events.

So the city pays for garbage and recycling disposal cost, and waste pro is responsible for bulk and yard waste processing cost.

We also have the recycling uh program that we we're in in the process with with uh revamping that.

And since we did have in the past some issues with waste pro and they have improved tremendously, but when there is an issue, we do have liquidated damages assessed to their performance.

We also have a waste pro contributes 110,000 annually, and we use that for educational purposes and for recycling.

So I want to talk a little bit about composting, which the composting we have with a contract that was passed through resolution in 2024.

It is a one-year pilot program, and we uh set aside fifty thousand dollars for the program for residents, and we at the time had 17 people participate in the city, which saved the it um they they actually generated with the compost and over 1,620 pounds of material that would have gone to the landfill.

So that is a cost savings there.