Everyone today, Thursday, May 7th on this National Day of Prayer.

Thank you all for being here.

Started my morning off at a prayer breakfast, which is really nice.

Good way to start the day.

I am Twyla Carter, Chair of the Resilience Committee.

We have a number of uh council offices represented today.

We've got staff from Councilmember Castillo, Councilmember Salinas, Alcorn, Peck, Castex Tatum, Thomas, Ramirez, Jackson, and Cayman.

Today, I would like to certainly uh welcome our partners in Solid Waste FCC Environmental Services, had the opportunity to tour the facility a while back and thought they would be a great presenter to talk to us about recycling and specifically as relates to contamination.

I would encourage anyone to go out and take a tour of that facility.

It's it's pretty eye-opening.

So I'd like to welcome on behalf of FCC Environmental, Andrea Rodriguez, VP of Engineering and Post Collections, and Cesar Garcia, the general manager.

Come on down, join us.

Y'all sure you don't want to sit down?

You want a stool?

Good to stand.

I bet you do a lot of standing throughout your day.

Thank y'all for being here.

Thank you.

All right, good morning, everyone.

I see a lot of familiar faces.

Some of y'all tour our facility.

And if you haven't, you're more than welcome to come by and uh and tour our facility.

Um thank you for having us here today, Councilmember Carter and everyone else.

Uh again, my name is Cesar Garcia.

I'm the general manager at FCC, Houston Murph.

With me again, it's Andrea Rodriguez, our uh vice president of engineering and post-collection businesses for FCC.

So we're here today to talk about a few uh pressing challenges that I would say that we have in our uh Houston Recycling Program.

The contamination and the recycling stream.

We would like to discuss what's causing it and better what we can do to fix it.

But before that, I do want to give a quick overview of FCC and who we are.

FCC has been providing uh waste manager waste management services since 1911.

Our first facility was opened in 1964, and as of today, we have over 200 recycling operations worldwide.

We've been partners with the city of Houston since 2014, starting with our biosolids contract, and now we've been processing Houstonians recyclables since 2019.

And we're proud of that.

We're proud of serving the city of Houston and every single residential customer under this contract.

Within the first year of the facilities operations, we received the National and Waste Recycling Association Award for the best recycling facility in North America.

A big part of it was due to having state of the art technology that we continue to invest in.

As you can see with the contract, it's a it's a 15-year term in the contract.

We do accept cardboard, paper, plastics, metals, and even glass.

Something that wasn't recycled uh before our contract.

While the contract allows up to 25% contamination, uh Houston's actual rate is closer to 40%.

Uh common contaminants, I would say would be electronics, styrofoam, tanglers, and hoses.

Thank you.

Uh, as well as wires, textiles, bag recyclables, and hazardous materials.

Um, a few examples of these uh tanglers would be something like heavy-duty uh ratchet straps, something that can potentially damage our equipment, as you can see in this photo, and of course, causing us to shut down.

Um aside from that, we also have uh contaminants that shouldn't be allowed in the recycling bin, which are batteries, lift amount batteries, and uh propane tanks, which of course they're explosives.

Um here we have another example of a fire we actually had right on our tipping floor, where we have all of the materials uh combined.

A lot of it is fiber, paper, and cardboard.

So you would think, you know, that's um that's just filled to the fire.

Another thing that I would say gives us a problem would be something easy like tarps.

These cause uh major problems.

Tanglers can break the motors, belts, batteries and the propane cans that I mentioned frequently cause fires, and simple items like these um this tarp and this uh metal, I would say metal cables can shut down the equipment for a few hours.

Every contamination event, whether it's a fire, a jam or equipment failure means downtime.

A downtime means higher operation cost, delays in processing, and ultimately a direct financial impact on the facility.

With that context in mind, I would like to turn it over to Andrea and she'll walk us through our financial side of the problem and some potential solutions.

Andrea.

Thank you, Cesar.

Good morning, everyone.

As Cesar explained it earlier, the contamination rate on the city recyclables is 42% according to the last audit that we did in April 13th.

To put some perspective on this, the national average is 30%.

When FCC bid on this contract, the information provided by the city showed that the contamination was lower than 25%.

The contract contemplated that if the material comes to the facility with a higher contamination rate of 25%, we could reject it.

The financial impact of this high contamination in our daily operations is high.

As Caesar was mentioned before, we have higher processing costs because we have to slow down our system in order to be able to process this material.

So instead of being processing at 30 tons per hour, as it was designed the facility, we have to process 25, 30 tons per hour.

This means that we have to pay more in labor, in power, in fuel, etc.

We also have more maintenance cost.

As is shown in one of the slides before, the taps or wires that we receive in the facility can cause motor uh failures, breaks, and everything.

I want to remind all of you that the equipment as well as the facility is owned by the city.

So it's in the best interest of the city to make sure that it is well taken care of and is as good as possible.

We also have higher disposal costs.

Whenever we did our financial model for the beard, we never contemplate that we have to bring this extra 17% of material to the landfill.

So we have to pay extra disposal fees as well as the transportation of the material to the landfill.

I also want you to have in mind that that 17% of material was considered to be revenues for us.

So we have also a lost impact in the revenues.

Also, the quality of the commodities that we have, which is really good, is more difficult to achieve because of the high contamination.

That means that we have to stress more the process to get the good material able to be sold.

Next slide, please.

In the table, I did a breakdown of all the processing costs that we have during extra processing cost that we have during 2025.

As you can see, the impact is around 2.5 million dollars that for that year.

This is not sustainable for any company.

Losing this much money, it's really hurting the financial of the business.

So, what can we do to lower this impact?

So FCC is working during the past years with the different solid waste directors to try to get into an amendment to try to solve this issue.

The city even go forward and hire a consultant to help us clarify this issue, and the consultant agreed that it would be it will be for it to um uh to amend the contract to give us some money back that is impacted due to this contamination.

Let me be clear.

The moment that the city gets this decontamination where it should be to what it should be, we will not receive any financial from the city.

It's just until that contamination is reached.

Council members, the city now pay a maximum of $20, $21 and some cash dollars at town for the process of the recyclables.

If we were to reject that amount of material, that's 70%, that it's over the 25%.

Yes, the landfill fee for the city is $33.94 a ton.

It's in the best interest of the city to decrease the contamination.

Also, the contract contemplates a revenue share formula.

The more the more um commodities that we get, the less contamination that is in the stream, the more money gets back to the city.

Also, FCC helps the city with a hundred thousand dollars found every year that is supposed to be uh going through educational purposes.

We believe that these funds should be invested in programs like tech cards, bean labeling, have loads out ETN, so we can really decrease the contamination.

Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Um we do have some questions, and also too, I'd like to welcome Councilmember uh Martinez, who has joined us in the chambers.

And first up, Councilmember Martinez.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for coming and helping inform uh my colleagues and staff of what's happening, specifically on this on the recycle side.

Uh understanding that um we know solid waste department has has had trouble because we haven't been really funding it correctly, we haven't been investing in it as well.

Are you all following what we're looking at wanting to do now with this budget with the administrative fee?

And do y'all see any positive or negative impacts with that?

I would say that whenever the citizens are charging a fee for their solid waste, we have seen that the decrease of the contamination um goes down.

I mean, the contamination decrease.

So I would say that's how.

Right.

Okay, it's a good question.

That was what I was curious about too.

Is what what you all are, you know, uh uh what you know so far regarding uh the uh change on the solid waste, how that will impact you.

Um because uh I think certainly on the council side too.

Uh you know, I I keep glaring at public education and outreach.

And uh certainly when we were uh we were out there at the facility, you know, if the contamination rate is 42 percent, my limited knowledge, I'm like it must be a hundred percent because there's it's a lot.

So, however, we can help you to get that word out and some creative ideas, certainly within newsletters and through town halls and such.

I think um mostly um, you know, word of mouth and and really reaching out to the to the com to the community is essential.

And I had a follow-up as well.

Um, just on the on the load auditing, what does that look like?

Um, how does that work?

Um in order to be able to get that that data to look to show uh any corrective actions.

So right now in the facility, we do uh load, do we do check loads randomly for the city and we give them uh some type of uh feedback on how the contamination it is?

Uh that helps to know identify the route, identify where this the truck was coming from and where maybe more efforts needs to be put in order to have more educational outreach in that area, and uh and then the last one um understanding that you know y'all are the last stop for recycling.

Um what conversations have been had to find other locations throughout the city to help, maybe like at a transfer station.

Uh, how could that be helpful to some of the operations for you all as well?

So I think that that would be the transfer station that was discussed in the past, I believe it's the one that is located in South Post Oak.

Um, that would be helpful for the city in order to reduce the transportation cost, the logistic cost.

Uh, for us for FCC, right now, uh we don't have any cost of transportation associated to this contract because the city brings the material to us.

We do believe that if we were to have a transfer station open, we will get more material and it will be better sorted in the point.

Thank you.

Sure.

Staff from Council Member Alcorn's office.

Good morning.

You mentioned in your presentation that there was some information from the city about lower contamination rates when y'all bid.

Was that within the advertisement or what kind of information?

In the RFP, in the RFP.

Okay.

Council Member Castex Tatum.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you for the presentation.

Yeah.

Pro Tim regrets she's not able to be here.

She had a prior um commitment.

But I do want to ask the question.

What how many meetings have been conducted with the current um solid waste department on this amendment?

One so far.

Can you elaborate why or what's we've been trying to get in?

We had a meeting back in January in which we explained the problem, our financial constraints, and we uh we were uh told that there will be more conversations about it that we will need to get together and resolve.

We've been trying to get in contact with the office with uh no success so far.

Okay, if we can just find out more, because I think you know, you public outreach is important as well as um the department uh communication as well.

I think you and we can certainly follow up with uh solid waste because I too I think that's I'm curious as to what the conversations and and knowing um that solid waste is shifting to public works, you know, it seems like they're very timely to have these conversations in regards to FCC.

Also, um on the um uh contamination, um, the uh auditing and such.

So would solid waste have uh uh I guess a report as such that would show routes, zip codes where you would think targeted outreach and education is more needed because of the higher contamination rates in certain areas.

Is that something that you all can pinpoint and and help us to help you?

Right, try to reduce that?

We can definitely help to do that.

Um council member Carter, in the past, I know the city has done a lot of studies on that, and I believe they already the city has already a lot of data on that, but we can definitely keep bringing more data about all the loads that we are auditing.

So maybe we can uh follow up with solid waste as well.

Yeah.

Um staff from Council Member Ramirez's office.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh it's good to see both of you.

I appreciated the tour of the facility.

I wanted to start off asking you about the contamination rate.

Uh uh, you reference around 42%.

Has that been consistent over the six or seven years you've been doing this, or what what are the variations and trends been in that contamination rate?

So the uh the contamination has been around the 40 percent in the majority of the time.

We'll say that the city at their third-time point hire also a third party a consultant to help them doing some tagging of the current uh recycling carts, and it was decreased to I believe it was 35 or 36 percent at a point, which helped, you know.

I mean, it's still a little bit above of the national leverage, but it was going on the right direction and then increased again.

So, uh, with regard to uh I'm a little bit unclear about the communication uh or or uh interaction between you and Solid Waste with regard to public education to try to lower the contamination rate.

Um is that is that completely on solid waste or do you uh does FCC have a role in that as well?

So FCC provides funds to the solid waste department to do their part on the educational outreach.

As a company, we offer tours for free on the facility, and we do provide through um our uh linked in Facebook uh all our um communication system.

We provide some educational outreach as well.

And uh with 200 facilities worldwide, do you have um some experience or data that you could share with the city with regard to what's working educationally or or other efforts to reduce contamination and other in other cities uh that uh that we can take advantage of right was uh we do uh we do not only have a lot of uh data and a lot of uh experience but also we have a lot of materials published in so many different languages because we are present in 35 countries uh we know what it works uh we did convey these conversations uh to the solid waste department during the last years and um we will be happy to keep having them i understand um okay and uh uh last question um the contamination uh being at an unacceptable level uh there's there's uh the weight of it which has to be i guess processed back to to a landfill but then there's uh uh also the financial impact are there are particular stream of or two of contamination maybe the straps or or or yard waste or whatever that that are particularly impactful of your financial results that would be uh good for the city to try to attack first right so right now to me the most important thing would be the propane tanks because those cause fires and fires are really dangerous for everyone at the facility uh and batteries that would be uh that those have huge impact we can have a lot of uh fires uh in a month due to those so those would be the ones that have a huge impact plus any wiring tangling that can just cause the system to stop but at least it's not a hazard itself thank you and um on that note if you will send materials um in various languages um digital we'll get them out to all the council offices and see if that's something that the you know I'm sure everyone be would be willing to push out on social media or perhaps and newsletters and such just to try to help communicate some of the do's and don'ts because one of the pieces I recall being out there I was kind of surprised to know that on plastic bottles the lid has to be off yeah most people I would bet my right arm most people have no idea that that's the case but that level of detail and I again I know you you all have the the materials for education but it's just not commonly known I think and also to the cleanliness of you know some to that contamination if it's not clean recyclables and you know I think it even just at the very basic level if we can help you just send it my way and we'll get it out to everyone so thank you appreciate it staff and council member pack's office thank you chair uh and just adding to outreach uh is the FCC let's say we our office had an event and we request can we request FCC staff to like set up a booth or a resource table uh essentially to you know at a community event where people can come and ask questions is that something that we can do or the FCC can do we will definitely think about it yeah for sure I mean we we've been in a lot of events so yes thank you.

Thank you uh any other questions um at this point I think that's uh all the questions from the the horseshoe thank you both for being here uh we do have some public speakers signed up and and they perhaps have some questions and if so uh we may bring you back up but at this point thank you for the work you do oh I'm sorry council member Joaquin Martinez has popped up go ahead so we're we're talking about amending the contract uh what what is it if it's not amended uh what does that look like with the partnership with FTC um going forward that's uh I don't have an answer for you that would be more of a uh upper management decision, but as you can see, it has a huge financial impact on our accounts.

On both of our accounts, you would say, or just more so on FCC.

What does that look like?

In FCC, I mean, for asking FCC, Destiny 2025 it has a 2.5 million dollars of losses.

Impact, you know what accounts, you know.

So, thank you.

So I think that completes the questions.

Um, so thank you both for being here again, send materials.

However, we can help you.

Certainly, uh, I know we're willing to, and we will uh reach out to Solid Waste and have some discussions based on the questions that we've had here that none of us really have answers to.

So thank you all.

Um, and good to see you again.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks, everyone.

So uh we do have some public speakers signed up.

Uh, first up is Rich Herwick.

Come on down.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll pass out a paper that will uh help you keep up with what we're talking about.

I think it's providential while he's doing that.

I think it's providential that uh this I follow the session on recycling.

I at the state capitol, I'm a clean energy advocate.

I asked the staff members.

I'm giving you a hint.

How many, what's a percentage of thermoplastics that we recycle in the last 20 years.

Watch 91% of the thermoplastics is still in our environment.

These people need some help getting their job done.

Thank you for my passionate speech there.

I'll go ahead and read the rest of it.

My name is Rich Herwick.

I'm the VP of strategy and hydrogen safety culture leader at H21000, a Houston company whose mission is to standardize infrastructure for hydrogen refueling stations for uh HRS at for hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.

We call it H2-FCEV.

My CEO Martin Kirschman is here.

Um we have a board member that's a former city councilman.

You might recognize that name, Bert Keller.

I call him Sir Bert.

At some point, he's working for the uh County Commissioner of Precinct 3, Tom Ramsey now.

Uh, has some things going on that keep him away.

Um, although I'm not here to talk about hydrogen, it is part of the Bush IAH long-term future.

My objective here is to discuss an overall master plan that outlines a strategic vision to transform Bush Intercontinental Airport to a support airport that is going to be double passengers in the next 14 years.

The high-level conceptual um components are as follows.

Let me put a parenthesis in here.

We were at DFW last month.

They announced 12 billion dollar infrastructure improvements.

I'm speaking to Houston.

We got to compete.

That's what they're doing.

Um, identify and thank you.

Identify and uh optimal locations for terminals, parking support services to accommodate future passenger demand.

Identify which roads to remove and where the new ones need to be for the increased traffic, uh determine where the new CHP that's combined heat and power.

Those older guys call that co-generation, if you've ever heard that word.

Um it's now called a micro grid.

Uh facility and it's its utilities, those are power, chill water, hot water, uh, everything that's in uh will be located, how these internal utilities serve, uh engineer necessary changes to the utilities, the energy translation to hydrogen requires identification of the uh all the things that have to do with the hydrogen refueling stations, uh, to create the community focused.

This is my uh probably most important bullet to create a community focused solution that ensures resilient, sustainable, redundant, dependable.

I could put some more comments, uh, systems for airport operations over the next 60 plus years.

It is crucial to identify the relevant public part public-private partnerships with organizations such as the city, United Airlines, our electric company, Texas AM and other area universities, uh NGOs and others.

These are the high-level uh components that uh make up an effective business plan.

The reason I'm presenting this is our engineers at DFW.

I can answer any questions.

Well, uh thank you.

Thank you for speaking.

Uh just curious.

Have have you spoken with the director of the airport?

Our engineer has.

Okay.

We're at the point of setting a meeting for May the 22nd.

I don't want to get too far out in front of myself because the meeting is still being set up.

Okay.

So I'm I'm sure Director Sezniak and his team will certainly uh take a look at what you've got and appreciate you being here.

Thank you for the information.

Yes, ma'am.

I just wanted to be sure we got this message to you folks before somebody at the airport calls and says, What's going on?

Now you know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh next is Alex Landon.

Alex Landon, uh, with the University of Houston.

It looked like you've got some friends with you.

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, all.

My name is Alex Landon.

I'm a professor of practice at UH's Cullen College of Engineering.

I am not here advocating or speaking on behalf of the university.

Um, I'm just here with five of my students and my um co-faculty to share a bit about a relevant course that we're running, um and to invite you and your staff to the final presentations of that course.

Um, so this year for the third year, um, I'm teaching a learning abroad course called Connecting Coastal Resilience from Greater Houston to the Netherlands.

Uh, before we depart for the Netherlands in about a week, our students are tasked with understanding the resilience challenge here in Houston, including coming to this meeting and reading the resilient Houston report.

Uh, we then go to the Netherlands um next week for 10 days, um, where they'll get to understand the Dutch approach to living with water, as they are global leaders in the topic.

Um, that includes seeing the famous storm surge barriers there.

Um, when we return from the class on May 29th on UH Main Campus, our students will give their final presentations, showcasing what they learned and how it could potentially be applied to Houston.

So they will each give a three-minute pitch on an idea for a more resilient Houston.

And we are just here to invite you and your staff to attend those final presentations.

I know our students would learn a lot from you and also enjoy being in conversation with you.

So we'll share the information uh for those presentations with staff so it can be circulated.

Um, but thank you so much for letting us be here today.

Uh, and thank you for all you do for our city.

Well, thank you.

Y'all stand up, we'll recognize you.

Took time out of your busy schedule to come down.

And safe travels to the Netherlands, and and certainly would be interested in in your presentations.

Uh, it's always good to to uh see what our young young I say young folks are doing out there and and uh what's what you're looking at.

So certainly, once you get back and you're ready to present, reach out, and we're happy to take a look and listen and probably learn a whole lot from you all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next up, Bill Kelly.

Mr.

Kelly, come on down.

It's like the price is right.

Big money, big money.

There you go.

Good morning, council members.

Uh Bill Kelly on a hat on behalf of Environment Texas.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today on our shared goal of increasing the city of Houston's recycling rate.

As an organization that has been advocating for a solid waste fee, we are very encouraged to see the administrative fee in the mayor's proposed budget.

Moving solid waste under public works and funded by the combined utility system has the potential to provide more resources for this badly under-resourced department.

Now, to be clear, the solid waste workers are some of the hardest working employees in the city of Houston.

As noted in the controller's report, the average solid waste worker is working 22 hours of overtime per paycheck.

That means an extra week's worth of work per month, costing the city money and potentially burning out our employees.

We are proud to coordinate our advocacy with Hope Union and want to make sure and appreciate and advocate for our shared mission.

After touring the FCC facility and hearing their presentation today, we should come together to understand that it is in everyone's interest in FCC's interest, in the city's interest, and Houstonians' interest to be able to reduce our contamination rate.

The most recent numbers of 42% is reflective of a number of factors.

Unreliable pickup, major underinvestment underinvestment in public education campaigns, and frankly, a lack of priority to directly address this issue.

In the FY2026 budget, the 101 million dollars the Solid Waste Department is projected, was uh given was projected to provide once a week trash pickup, biweekly recycling pickup, provide heavy trash and yard waste pickup, and operate various neighborhood drop-off centers for approximately 256 dollars per household.

Now I don't need to tell the staff that are here at this meeting uh that three of the top four 311 calls were directly related to a lack of these services.

You guys have been answering the calls.

This was unrealistic, was not sustainable, and applied increasing pressure on the general fund.

Now, recently in the Burns McDonald report, which was literally released yesterday, it contemplates the total cost of providing that service at about $27 per household.

That compares to Fort Worth's $25 a household and San Antonio's $33.

That is well within the range and very realistic.

However, just securing the resources is not enough.

Listed in the report is the cost of services breakdown for residential solid waste fee for public education and outreach, which I think the chair mentioned here.

It is listed as.04 cents.

Literally on the chart, it rounds to zero percent.

Given the last year's physical diversion rate of 16%, which is less than half the national average of $34.7.

It is unacceptable.

From local area students, hell, if you really got to get some students, get some U of H students, they will get it done.

Uh, to civic clubs to super neighborhoods, to a myriad events that you as council members and staff attend on a weekly basis.

We should have a major public outreach and education program that helps inform Houstonians about recycling and obvious the obvious do's and don'ts.

The cost benefit, especially among younger Houstonians, could pay huge dividends.

Let's make this a priority.

Likewise, we should not ask Houstonians to now pay an administrative fee for services they do not want and that you have not voted on.

Under the last administration, and yes, I bear responsibility on this, an MOU was signed with Exxon and Lionel Basel to segregate plastics for their chemical recycling program.

Recent developments at the EPA under the Trump administration have added urgency to this issue.

To quote our executive director in his recent op-ed for the Houston Chronicle, under the current interpretation of the Clean Air Act, chemical recycling facilities are treated like incinerators and have strict limits on their toxic emissions, which is correct.

The EPA is proposing to regulate them instead as a manufacturing uh facility, which could weaken those protections or even create a regulatory gap where facilities face few, if any enforceable standards.

Mechanical recycling, which is what FCC does, is what most Houstonians think of when you mention recycling.

Turning a plastic bottle or aluminum can into another plastic bottle or aluminum can make sense.

We do not think, nor should we want a process that pollutes the air while incentivizing the creation of more and more plastic.

Instead, we should all be incentivized to improve our recycling rate by working closely with our partners.

That just makes sense.

A transfer station on the southwest side of town that can handle recyclables would literally cut our fleet mileage in half.

That just makes sense.

Hot showers that can sanitize those trucks so when they transition from picking up garbage to picking up recyclables can decrease the contamination rate.

That just makes sense.

By the way, that's only something you get from listening to those HOPE employees that are there every day doing it.

We applaud the optimized and balanced routes that Director Hassan has been working on and can see the results.

But let's hire more workers to lessen the overtime burdens on our city budget and the burnout on our employees.

We can make this happen.

All of these things, what we want and what we don't want, will only happen if we work together.

I look forward to Director Hassan's presentation on the solid waste budget for FY2027 and hope you will provide him with the resources he needs to make these things happen.

We are not naive to think that imposing a new fee, no matter how small will come without public attention.

At Environment Texas, we stand ready to provide information and context, just as we did two weeks ago with the League of Women Voters, and that we've done in various media reports across town as solid waste has been in the news.

We will do our part to work with you.

During this budget season, we need your help to provide the resources for our to increase our recycling rate.

We urge you to protect our budget and our natural world by making these badly needed investments.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Bill.

That was very good, and I agree.

Some of it's just logical.

You know, get the trucks clean, get the transfer stage.

Like there's a lot that I think we can do.

It's it all comes down to to uh um the plan moving forward, and I I think certainly I'd like to say I think we're on the right track.

Uh, we do have a question from Councilmember Alcorn's office.

Thanks.

Hi, Val.

Um, you mentioned, you know, transfer stations and cleaning, but are there any specific actions that environment taxes or in in your knowledge go towards education?

I mean, passing out pamphlets doesn't seem to be the best idea, in my opinion.

I am very much with you on that.

Um, Katie, and first thank you for the question.

What we have seen be most effective in other cities uh is literally the tagging program that FCC mentioned, where you identify who is not doing it correctly and try and make corrective action.

Now, in some cities, they will literally fine and ticket if you don't have that.

We're not advocating a fine and ticket, but frankly, if folks know what they're doing wrong, they tend to correct it, right?

I mean, in our neighborhood, one of the things you mentioned the cap on the plastic bottle gets as basic to just not bagging your recyclables.

Some folks just did not know.

I'll admit I didn't know that when I first got my recycling can.

So being able to directly address the folks that are by either just ignorance, not knowing, or trying to do the right thing, they just have misinformation.

If we invest in getting them the right information, a lot of those problems I think will take care of itself.

The other part too, having more reliable pickup, which I I think and as staff members, you guys are answering the phones on it, so you know the director has done a good job of improving those services from where we were a year ago.

So I think we're on the right track.

But when you are, if you miss a recycling turn and somebody has to wait another two weeks, you're gonna have an increased contamination rate.

So reliable service is probably the number one thing, but those tagging of individuals that are just doing it wrong, I think can be most effective.

And frankly, we've seen case studies in city after city, those tagging and having folks ride along with it.

That's that's been the biggest difference maker.

But again, it costs money to do.

We need that on the public education and outreach side.

Good point.

Uh, and in my community, the north end of district E.

Of course, are we're not on the city's solid waste, and and they do tag, and you if you want your recycling picked up, you know next time to correct that, but the because they will tag it and leave it.

So I think that certainly is effective.

Thank you for coming down and thank you for your input.

Certainly over the next few weeks with the budget uh presentations.

Uh your input, especially regarding solid waste, is is very much welcome.

Very much appreciated.

I'm gonna give you a copy of Luke's op-ed that was in the chronicle on that chemical recycling.

Thank you.

Uh does Dominique Mazlock here?

I don't see him.

No, Dominique's not here.

Um, is there anyone else who uh signed wanted to sign up to uh speak and who did not get the opportunity?

Yes, sir.

If you'll come on down and state your name, we'll gladly let you speak.

It's open mic at council today.

Council Chambers.

William Martinez William.

I was gonna turn this letter in.

I didn't know who to turn it into.

Um, it's pretty much dealing with um gang stalking, gaslighting, bullying.

Um, I've been going through something the last two and a half years, and um I'm still having trouble with it.

It happened at a facility at the Will House in um Deer Park.

Um, I try to reach out to them.

I have proof of the people that did it.

Um I got hit with hypnosis, um, recordings and reverse psychology.

I had an overdose because of it.

Um, I just wanted to turn in the letter.

I'll take it.

We'll get to stage.

Okay, with that, it looks like we're finished.

Our next uh resilience meeting is June the fourth at 10 a.m.

If we have no further questions or comments.

Thank you again for being here.

Thanks to our friends at FCC for coming on and uh coming on down and presenting and uh expressing your concerns and needs, and certainly we'll try to try to help you address the constituents as well as solid waste and what we can do to help.

Have a great day out there.