workshop and we should be recording now welcome everyone I'm going to share my screen here and we can get started all right awesome so welcome to the 10th Annual School recycling Workshop this is the fifth time we're doing this virtually all together uh so for those of you that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet Ali Vandercook and I'm the Dakota County School recycling program coordinator I'm so happy you're here today uh the goal of this Workshop is to provide Creative Solutions and resources to assist schools in reducing waste and improving their recycling programs so we're going to kick off the workshop today learning about highlights from schools that use stainless steel products in the cafeteria and issues and solutions for shredded paper and then later we're going to learn about State contract available to schools a cafeteria liquids collection improvements and some more school recycling resources so we're not going to have a breakout session this year for small group discussion we're going to use our Zoom tools for interaction uh questions and sharing insites as a large group and I encourage you in order to stay engaged to take breaks stretch your legs when needed um maybe bring your computer with you to get more coffee you know just make sure you're kind of um able to keep keep yourself in the workshop because I know three hours can be a long time um and 3 hours is the kind of uh continuing education unit uh time that we've been approved from the Minnesota Board of school administrators as well as the Minnesota school nutrition Association so I've been asked to verify attendance and since we're not in person at some point in the workshop I'll just take a quick tally of who's in the virtual room and then if you reach out to me after the workshop I can happily email you those certificates um for your ceu credits so if you need that feel free and I'll say that again at the end of the workshop um to shoot me an email uh you can see the agenda here on my slide uh and you may notice our Workshop goes until 11:35 because introductions don't count for the cuu part so I had to make an extra five minutes um we're recording this Workshop currently and the recording as well as the presentation slides will be shared on our web page following the workshop uh after each speaker our plan is to take a few questions and then we're also going to have time for questions during the Q&A section after the first panel on the stainless steel products um and then if there's additional questions that we don't have time for each presenter's contact information should be on the last slide of their presentation so you can reach out to them individually to learn more so my colleague K's here she's going to be assisting with providing our polls and compiling any questions from the chat um is going to just briefly explain a few Zoom meeting reminders and tips for us all right well yeah I just wanted to Echo um what Ally and Rene said thanks everybody for being here today my name is Kiren I have the pleasure to work with Ali and Renee um I manage the Environmental Education Program so um I'm helping out on the zoom and the um technical side of things so just really quick run through of how Zoom works um when you log into the meeting today you are being muted don't take any offense to this uh it's just because it's distracting as a speaker um to have somebody like wrestling papers in the background so um if we hear something going on I might go through and um meet you but if you do have a question we do want you to unmute yourself ask and then mute yourself again um it's actually really engaging as a speaker to have somebody ask questions like as you're talking because then you know that people are actually listening so that's great uh we just recommend that you limit your distractions uh so what I mean by that is as uh we are presenting on Zoom it's really easy to you know like oh I wonder if I got that email I've been waiting for what's what's happening on social media take the time and just really focus in take notes um we know that's tricky um being online but uh and we miss some things being in person so just really try to focus in on the content the alley works so hard to pull together for you today and um we would love any sort of interaction that you have so like I said unmute yourself if you have a question also use the chat I think probably most people are familiar with how to use the chat um I would love to see you all practicing using the chat um I've been a part of Zoom meetings where people are like what's your favorite sandwich enter in the chat um you don't have to do that but um I will be watching the chat Ally will be watching the chat when she's not speaking love questions in the chat also your reactions um should be on the bottom panel the toolbar there too um speakers love to see you know after they present like the Clapping hands Emoji we can all practice with that right now um little clapping hands it's just kind of a way for us to break up the day just a little bit more excellent love the reactions very cool so thanks again for being here today um like I said I'll be in the background kind of answering questions as I can um providing resources things like that so I think that's all I have for you take it away Ally awesome thanks Kirsten so we're gonna just kick it off with a quick practice poll uh so I think Kirsten's gonna activate that for us so we're gonna have a few polls just to stay engaged throughout the workshop so when you see the poll come up on your screen um you can answer the question and our first question is what do you find the scariest of these op options more exciting than is a hot dog of sandwich I think and you should just see one poll right Ally yes okay it might have launched all three questions so I'm sorry oh I think I see the second one but that's okay okay okay so just a couple more minutes it looks like heights is winning and then maybe we'll just end it whenever we think we've made it to 70% we can do it do three more seconds one two three all right and Pull and then I'll share the results for the first one so it looks like heights is our winner uh small spaces close second um only 6% of us said work is the scariest or what we're finding this scary so thank you for sharing that was our that was our one practice and then we have a few more so I know we might have launched other ones but um we will just jump into that second poll so I don't know if Kirsten we can launch that second one maybe again um just the number two question of and if it's in on your screen maybe you already answered it so our second poll question is what type of cafeteria tray is your school or District currently using so we have the options here of paper molded fiber styrofoam reusable plastic meaning melamine or polycarbonate and then reusable steel this will lead us into our first discussion here and our first panel and if you all answer the first time um just answer again the second time sorry about our technical difficulties we're we're getting there we got this getting there yeah it's gonna be great awesome all right ready 30% 40% okay so we we had for our number one it looks like uh actually reusable Steel I don't know how that happened that's exciting maybe that is the case and then paper molded fiber um was the close second so that'd be maybe a compostable tray um you know or some sort of other paper tray that may might not be BPI certified but still is paper so awesome okay well great I think we're gonna jump into our first panel this is a good segue uh to get started and I'm going to start by introducing monissa she pulls up her presentation so our first speaker will be Dr monissa mantraa a pediatrician and entrepreneur her founded aimsa a line of safe sustainable science back stainless steel food wear for kids she launched the company in 2019 after learning about the harmful effects of chemicals in plastic on Children's Health from the American Academy of Pediatrics Dr mantari holds a doctor of medicine from Indiana University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at Northwestern University lorri children's hospital and her Fellowship in endocrinology at Cincinnati Children's hospital she's now on the council for environmental health and climate change and the council for school health at the American Academy of Pediatrics and in 2019 she received the physician mentor of the Year award at Indiana State or Indiana University School of Medicine the largest medical school in the country and 2021 she was named to Forbes next 1,000 entrepreneur a list of rising business owners in the USA so if that's not enough most recently she was also named in the Inc Magazine's 2024 female Founders 250 list so take it away monissa uh I think you should have presenting Powers but I'll stop sharing my screen here uh just in case you're not able to share until I stop sharing we might need to unmute can you see my screen oh yes yes okay awesome well those were a lot of titles but I at m at home I'm called Mom so that's like the most important title for me um so thanks for that nice introduction um um I am my name is monissa like Monica um but not um and um I'm really here today to talk about kind of the health impact about um the health impact that school nutrition can have on children and kind of a little bit about my journey let's see ohang think I need to use my um there okay um this a much you know when pictures on the internet float around uh you're like oh it's the one day I put on makeup um now people think that I should look like that at all times it's like no Photoshop and makeup do wonders but I'm typically look like this and I'm wearing scrubs and I'm in the hospital treating children who are otherwise sick enough to be um admitted to the hospital so I'm a pediatric hospitalist but in 2018 actually the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a very formal policy statement talking about harmful chemicals in plastic affecting our children's health um and to use glass or stainless steel instead and I'm Indian I came here when I was three years old we eat off of Steel all the time and I thought how can we have science that says one thing and then you know not great solutions for children when they're swimming in um baby bottles that are plastic and you know disposable food wear so I decided to launch um a company called aimsa um which is a line of Steel food wear um so I'm here to give you Mini Medical School uh 101 today and so really helping uh the masses of decision makers of parents of caretakers of legislators to understand the health impact Plastics is having on human health specifically our tiniest members of society um our children so this is the formal recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics like I said which is this is the statement and policy um of a group of 67,000 pediatricians the largest of its kind in this country um and they really talked about these chemicals um affecting our children's brain development their normal growth everything from cardiovascular health immunity uh to puberty and fertility um and this is echoed not just by Pediatrics but by the greater science Community from endocrine Society um to World Health organization to now even the United Nations you might have heard about the global Plastics treaty the second largest global treaty after the Paris climate agreement so there is a global um kind of magnifying glass now that the impact of plastic is not just the planet it is also to human health so how does that work well um Ali kind of told you I did Endocrinology as part of my training and um you know if you're an adult we think about endocrine we think about fertility we think about adult kind of stuff but actually everybody needs hormones and hormones is just a system within our body of glands and hormones and organs and it's this intricate communication pathway between basically our brain and all of our organs um to grow and develop and um you know Thrive normally and so they're really essential for um even Child Development not just in adults and so what happens is normally a hormone um will be released so your brain might release a hormone uh called thyroid stimulating hormone it goes to your thyroid your thyroid produces thyroid hormone and tells your brain to grow or it tells your um you know weight to be at a certain level based on how you're metabolizing things so it's just a pathway so the hormone is the key and the receptor is in your organ so that's just normally what happens a nice little lock and key that's supposed to work um but these chemicals in plastic look like those keys so that's why we call them endocrine disrupting chemicals um you can raise your hand in the pole or in the with your little um emojis here how many have heard that term endocrine disrupting chemicals or endocrine disruptors a lot of people might have heard it in the consumer good a lot of personal care products uh but that's what that term actually means it means uh that it's disrupting your hormones um by the synthetic manade um chemical so that's essentially what it does that's kind of the big science lesson for the day it goes in it replaces that key and then it reeks havoc in the normal kind of communication pathway so what does that mean though like what does that actually mean it means that we see huge Health trends that we've never seen before so when I was a medical student not that long ago um I'm 43 so like you know I did medical school scho um not too long ago but um when we were taught type two diabetes uh was a adult disease type one diabetes was a childhood disease morbid obesity was an adult disease um and since I've been practicing uh I routinely have to see and treat children for type two diabetes who are nine um and morbid obesity at very young ages and premature puberty we're treating children as young as uh six for um who are undergoing puberty so what does that mean it means that we see big Health Trends in a short period of time and that means there's something environmentally happening because genetics doesn't change that quickly and if you look at school lunch uh we used to have school lunch that looked like that first picture using reusable materials using um proper you know Healthy nutrition that's fresh from scratch and um then something happened the Advent of fast food and Plastics and everything in kind of that 50s 60s era and you will see that the commercialization of school lunch really started happening in the 1970s and you can see very clearly what happened after that so we have an epidemic proportion of obesity is it all related to plastic no is it partly related to plastic yes is it related to our food system 1,000 1 million per yes and so we have to look at the food system as a whole on the food that we're serving the children from the chemicals and the processed food to the food wear that we're using and collectively um all these kind of chemical exposures and lack of proper nutrition leads to health problems in children so parents are hearing about this this is all over the news New York Times it's in you know you'll hear it on Fox News doesn't matter where you come from it's on both sides this is science so it's being um you know shared out with the with the masses which is basically hey our children look different than they used to and huh like plastic actually is bad for human health and now it went from kind of a scientific Community knowledge to the masses starting to understand this which can be scary and that's what I'm here to tell you all it doesn't have to be scary um there are choices that we can make that can decrease the exposure of these harmful chemicals like bisphenols and phalates everyone um how many people have uh how many people think BPA free plastic is safe plastic it's okay um to raise your hand or not know because that's the common philosophy is a lot of people think oh it's BPA free plastic so it's it's okay but the problem is BPA is just one of the chemicals found in the greater family of plastics called binols and so um unfortunately the substitutes that they've created BPS BPD whatever else um are equally as bad if not worse than BPA so it's just it's just I want to help everyone understand that there are classes of chemicals that are routinely used in our school um systems that um you know affect our children and we see it maybe not on an individual basis but we definitely see it um with a population study um I'm just watching my time here and so uh this is a disgusting picture um but I promise you hope is coming I'm not going to make this all doomsday like that things are things are going to be good and a lot of this is happening happen in Dakota County which I'm so proud of um but you know in addition to the plastic chemicals we also talk about microplastics um I assume that people have at least heard that term because it's also all over the media um and this is how much microplastic these are kind of very very um small uh pieces of plastic so every week we consume about a spoonful of plastic every month a bowl every year a plate of plastic so it is a big deal because we are consuming it we're getting exposed now it's not just in our food system we inhale it we absorb it so I don't want to pin this on just one thing is it's definitely but what can we do is definitely uh we can affect schools in terms of our food system in a way that is more um targeted and focused at decreasing these exposures for children so that's why the American Academy of Pediatrics really came out and said stainless steel and glass are better for human health um just because they've studied it for a long period of time it's an iner material if you go around to your commercial kitchens you're already using steel and if you go to your um hospitals you're already using steel and if you have an implant in your body it's probably steel or titanium so there are just kind of other case studies in which um you know steel is just overall better for human health and so um we launched launched a you know I launched a company in 2020 called a himsa it's a Sanskrit word a Hima meaning avoiding harm it's the first oath I took as a doctor and certainly when I became a mom is the first o I took as a pediatrician and so this is my new version of practicing medicine at scale in a preventative form we have a consumer line for home but I realized really the more effective way to make massive population Swit uh swings back to healthy uh kids is through the school system so launched about uh 18 months ago um a line for schools um and so I I'll kind of go through this because I know uh this group probably knows this but in terms of environmental impact certainly stainless steel uh is infinitely recyclable it has a lower carbon emission especially if it's recycled which ours is um and uh you know we need to be thinking equally about the current health of our children but also the health of the planet we will leave behind for them um and so these were some pictures from Earth day that the children made um in some of the schools and so really the big picture here I'll send this out um but you know it just it takes so much energy and water and waste generation and carbon emission to produce kind of these single-use Plastics um and the cafeteria is the greatest source of carbon emissions and toxic exposure to children so this is kind of a great way to laser focus in on enacting change in our school system so on an environmental standpoint it is better to use reusable steel um and uh one you know when we looked at some of these schools including Dakota County um every school saved money in the first year every school decreased their carbon emissions significantly every school decreased their uh waste impact and their water impact so these are real tangible changes that can happen instantaneously which is really exciting and hopeful um and not doomsday so hopefully you get that one kind of cautionary thing that I just like to always speak about health is um while um and so this is school saved money so these are just some of the the costs associated with school saving money because that's an important financial decision for a school um one of the things I just want to say is we know that polystyrene these molded fiber wees paper boats they're bad for the planet they're bad for health because they also have uh these chemicals in it people have probably heard about the term p class uh you will find that a lot even in the paper boat so just be mindful of the materials you're bringing into your schools or into your districts into your cities um from a disposable perspective but also from a health perspective uh when we do reusable um plastic uh the American Academy pediatric say they say please don't use plastic if you have to use plastic please don't put in the dishwasher because it leeches more chemicals um into the food and drink and please don't use it when it's etched and scratch which is what most schools are doing um in America but globally they're not and globally uh children are eating off of Steel um and they don't have the same Health outcomes as our children so again it's not just plastic it's our food system but here are like some certain ways um that we we can help um and you know we'd love to share more about our company for anybody who wants to know we really value uh quality and safety of utmost importance considering I'm a pediatrician by training and the word him means avoiding harm so we're the only green screen um certified company in the country we have these trays that a lot of the dakot the Dakota County Schools um are using which is exciting so we've got Britney and Spencer and Megan uh being fast first adopters um not just in Minnesota but in the nation um uh who are carrying some of our products and have had great results um and we have a full assortment of of products so I always say like I'm not really here to products I am here to educate the public and Empower you all with the knowledge and hopefully some good options as far as far as decision-making um in schools um and I'd like to just close with you know the way we feed our kids really matters and the little things that we do every day can make a big difference for them and at the end of the day they don't have a voice they don't they can't vote they don't um have any money to purchase they often you know don't make the rules in their school so we are making the decisions on the behalf of millions of children and uh when you go back and look at that sharp rise of all of these Health outcomes we the adults in the room can reverse that and shift it backwards by the decisions we make so I'm really thankful for the opportunity to chat with you all and um happy to connect offline amazing thank you so much Mana that's so helpful I'm really great F you're be able to be here because I think you know when I I'm going to speak after um Britney and Spencer share their kind of um progress with their schools but I think when I first started out learning about what what reusable products are safe um Megan thankfully stumbled across your website so we didn't have to start looking into purchasing from Alibaba or wherever else that a school probably wouldn't be able to continue purchasing from in the future so um so happy that your company's here in the Midwest in Indiana and um who has a question uh related to this presentation they'd like to ask and feel free to put it in the chat or unmute yourself whatever's easier for you I think Bill had a question process food too was this related to microplastics um or endocrine disruptors um so if I'm answering if I'm seeing the question is it uh these Health Trends are they related just to the plastic or the processed food so the American Academy of Pediatrics in that 2018 formal policy statement and that's a big deal you guys it's not just oh here's a little case study this is saying this is our formal policy statement of 67,000 pediatricians they said food additives and child health that's actually the name of the report we're happy to share that link with you um and so it is collectively but unfortunately our current food system whether it's in schools or outside of schools is a plastic processed food system so we can't like and I think Rachel from my team and and I know Ally hears me say this all the time I would love for every school to have a Hima stainless steel but if we put a bunch of Doritos and sugary cereal on those trays we're not really helping holistically so um that's why we have a program called the conscious cafeteria program to not just change to reusable steel but to also be more conscious in the cafeteria from the food that we serve and we promote scratch cooking um to the education that we do uh we have an educational curriculum with the Smurfs that we Implement um alongside so we're really educating and empowering the adults educating empowering future adults which are our kids on better choices about the food system and what they're putting there in their own bodies in terms of um healthier choices at meal time um and silicone is still less well steadied um it's a neurom material but it has um uh overall it hasn't been studied I actually asked uh Dr trand Who is the author of the American Academy of Pediatrics why did you only recommend glass or steel he said those are the materials that have had the longest duration of study and the safest profile for both environment and human health and so that was the very specific answer about silicone that's helpful and then Paul had a question have you heard anything about Carell um at all I think that we did a little bit of research I know it's a tempered glass we trying to find some a material for green meetings kit internally in our County building and you know certain materials can get heavier than others so we're looking for that as like kind of an interum yeah so to be clear you know while our company is steel the scientists including American Academy of Pediatrics um Physicians uh glass and stainless steel those are the two recommended materials of choice in a school cafeteria and especially with children glasses let you know they like to test gravity um they gravity always wins they they don't remember that it will always win but um so glass is a great option I'm a big fan of Corell just as a side note and my dish brusher is filled with Corell plates and a h of Steel so for what it's worth great well that's helpful to know because I've had crr my whole life and I'm Al now that I'm finding all of this out in the last several years I was wondering about that too so that's helpful and then uh someone asked here ronad Del asked are we able to get a copy of the slide so yes um thanks for mentioning that so all of the presentations that you'll see today will be on our website as well as the recording following the workshop and one thing I did forget to say at the beginning if you're able to turn your camera on that helps us feel more connected um but I understand too if you're not able to but I forgot to say that so if you're willing um feel free but thanks so much I think we're going to jump on but Dr monati will be with us um for the end of the panel so if there's more questions that come up as Britney and Spencer are talking you can save those for the end so next we will have Britney Hera um she's gonna pull up her screen here uh Britney herh began her journey in the industry working for a contracted Food Service Company in 2012 she has been the director of food nutrition services for Hastings public school district for the last 5 years during which she has navigated the the hurdles of covid and has been a leader in waste reduction initiatives with a goal to save resources and money for her District uh in her free time Britney enjoys reading camping and spending time with her family so Britney are you able to share your screen is it letting you do so yes my screen should be ight right now is it showing or no uh not yet do you see that big green button at the there you go yay it's working now now we are good all right all right well thank you guys so much for being here and letting me talk a little bit about what we're doing in Hastings um first thing is is Hastings is three elementary schools a middle school and a high school and we have a 1400 students in our elementary schools middle schools and high schools about 14 and 1200 one of our goals a couple years ago was bulk milk I think all of us remember when we were having issues getting stuff from our suppliers cartons were an issue things like that were issues so we started doing a grant with Ali in Dakota County to purchase bulk milk dispensers for middle school and high school and to replace her disposable cups and I wanted to do utensils in the elementary schools because I figured might be a little bit harder for those little kids to use the reusable cups um unfortunately Hastings crey closed so we weren't able to do that but I'm still hopeful that we'll be able to do it in the future um so that's still a goal that I do have it's just I haven't been able to find a vendor that will do bulk milk for me so one of the things that we ended up doing is as we went from um the compostable or the plastic silverware depending upon what we could get during that time frame and we went to reusable forks and spoons and I did that in all five of my schools so first I started off using forks and then I brought spoons in I made sure to purchase extra because we all know that silverware reusable silverware sometimes can get thrown away or for some reason something just happens where it just disappears or you get I call it Fork art um and then wanted to make sure that I have enough so that I didn't have to constantly worry about replacing silverware and then we got carts to fit two bus tubs um so that way we could make sure that we could put silverware separate we could do do the forks in one tub and then the spoons and other tub and then I brought in the stainless steel trays that you just had a a presentation on I have four different schools that um initially we brought back the plastic reusable trays at the high school but the other schools started green teams and so we went ahead and we got these stainless till trays through the grant that we were just talking about um Dakota County and uh the Clinton initiative and we partnered and we were able to get these wonderful stainless steel trays so some of you are probably wondering how much is it really saving me um you know for forks and spoons are really the ones that I was able to focus on because I haven't really had to buy any of these plastic trays which tells you how old these are because I've been in Hastings for five years and they were here for quite a while before I came on board but element schools um for all three schools I figure I'm saving probably $5,700 a year Middle School in high school for forks and spoons using the reusable instead of the U plastic is probably about $12,000 a year so it's almost $20,000 a year that I'm saving just by switching from plastic silverware to reusable um hopefully that you know that will kind of entice some of you to to think of doing that yourselves so here are some of the challenges that we faced when we decided to to make all these transitions so I needed to get some new equipment um got new racks um needed to look at someplace to dry all these trays because they do dry a little bit different than what the plastic trays do um takes a little bit longer uh we had some issues with some spotting and things like that so we at the middle school I implemented a tray dryer and basically it's just a big machine that sits over the trays as they come out and I partnered with Ally and Dakota County to buy this dryer just to see how it would work so we've got the tray dryer that as the trays come out they get dried and it's just a big huge dryer above them and it blows the air down um we're still working on seeing how that's going to work and then I also had to add more staff now the staff that I added wasn't just because of switching to reusables um participation increased and everything too so I did need to do that and we're also looking at doing some different things in the kitchen too so that's one of the other reasons why we ended up adding more staff but um I added like one to two more staff at each one of my locations uh elementary schools each one and the middle school and high school I added two for each location and I just did three hour shifts they are dishwashers slash assistance just kind of helping out where needed too so it's not that all the hours were because of of adding the reusable stuff but um another big challenge was getting the students to buy in teaching the students the reasons why we're doing it um getting a setups you know it took the students a little bit of time to understand especially elementary students why are we putting the silver Weare this way why are we doing everything step by step a different way now because they're used to their their normal way of doing things and they were a little bit anxious about that but um once we showed them and I think we've got some slides on here that I can show you of how things are set up but um once we got the student Buy in and we talked to the high school mostly about the silverware art I think the students are actually really excited about it again like I said we have grain teams um High School Middle School have people that are very very interested in doing things a little bit differently and they're very concerned about what we're doing to the Earth and how can we be sustainable and all that so elementary schools are starting to come into that so that's another reason why we decided to do this and then um the big thing too is the signage so when things are set up your staff needs to set it up Ally came in she set it up um used best practices that she's seen in other locations or other places that she's seen it she set it up for us and I had staff take pictures of it so that way they knew how to set it up too and that was the big thing is it has to be set up the same way so that way the kids get into that routine um some of the other initiatives that I also was able to do is I replaced some of the Disposable clam shells that I had at my Hastings ALC students with plastic clam shells that's a harder plastic um so that way we less garbage less Recycling and then we also added another share table to Mulla Elementary and it matches the other elementary schools and the middle school because those are the other schools that had them um we were able to get fruit slicers with attachments for all five schools and then I was also to improve I improved my flavor at the middle school and the high schools so that way the kids have some different options there and then um I continue to use bulk condiment dispensers to cut down on waste also uh recycling improvements this is what I was talking about when I was talking about how you need to make sure everything is is set up the same way um as long as things stay the same then kids get pretty much into a routine um the custodians had a lot of cash trans or trash cans scattered throughout the cafeteria and keeping everything set up like this and labeled the kids know exactly where stuff goes it only truly took maybe a week for kids to get into a routine and to understand this is how everything was so at the elementary they were already part of a grant program that got these recycling containers set up um but we did have to add liquids and recycling collection at two schools and I started that for the first time some of the future considerations that I'm looking at is again I want to do the bulk milk if possible um hopefully I can find a vendor that I can work with and then I can get this recyclable stainless steel drink cups also um flat stainless steel trays for the high school then I also have a couple of new products that um Ellie and I were able to come up with and find and one of them is this flat dishwasher rack and the flat wear soak system so they're very similar to like what you see on the bus tub there with forks and spoons um but you can take them and you can just go ahead and pull the silver Bo up without getting your hands wet or anything like that which is kind of nice and then you can sort through stuff too that way and that's pretty much all I have short and sweet um are there any questions or anything like that and should I stop sharing my my slideshow Ally yeah you can stop sharing if maybe give people a little bit of time just to write down your contact info but that was so great thank you so much Britney yep and yeah we're open for a few questions for Britney anyone has any I think I saw few in the chat here um one of the questions I saw was do the cost saving estimates include staff time um washing time or only materials costs the cost savings that I initially did are the costs that it took me for buying the plastic silverware um like I said was staff time I ended up looking at what I was doing for participation numbers and I included um I think I just did like a quarter of the time for the increase in participation but um I added people just because I had to because of all the participation numbers my my participation number skyrocketed so I knew I needed to add hours to what I was already doing and I knew I needed to add staff so it just made sense like I said the the people that I added the one dishwasher at each Elementary School and the two at the middle school the high school um just a small portion of their time is spent doing dishes they're doing other things too so when they come in their first hour hour and a half is helping get things set up or helping restock things doing that kind of stuff and then their second half their shift so probably about an hour to an hour and a half depending upon the school is spent doing dishes yep yep no that's helpful to know and what's also helpful to note I think for your District Britney is um you had the plastic reusable trays in the four schools that you implemented the stainless steel before so you weren't adding any staff time for washing trays just utensils which tends to just happen at the end of lunch pretty quickly utensils aren't usually a big staff time investment correct correct yeah I mean you figure out roughly 400 to 500 students of each Elementary School um not all of them of course eat but we have about 80 85% participation right now so the majority of them do eat and washing the utensils doesn't take a a ton of time so it wasn't like a huge add-on it was more the cost savings and I don't know because we added it towards the end of the school year unfortunately but um I'll know more this at the end of this next school year coming up like dumpster waste and all that kind of stuff too so that's going to be a a cost savings that I'll have so hopefully that'll be a huge number that I'll be able to say oh yeah I saved x amount of thousand you know or whatever so um but that's another part of it and then just the stuff that's not going into landfills anymore or being you know recycled right right the dumpster costs and everything else that goes and I mean even studies that I've looked at with reusables it's like time spent purchasing disposable materials time spent you know getting the delivery unboxing you know all of that is avoided as well and that is Staff time as well so utilizing that staff time differently or paying staff instead of paying for disposables um is kind of the path I think we're on as a county so um thank you so much BR we had one other quick question before we jump to Spencer um just related to breakfast so where do you ser breakfast or where is breakfast eaten as the question in your district and if you experience any damage with the trays so far um so breakfast depend it depends on the school um some of the schools that I have they do more of a grab and go style breakfast um where they take the food and they'll go back to the classroom and then I also have schools that eat in the cafeteria area so it just depends on the school um we don't use these trays at the schools where to grab and go just because for breakfast they take it back to the classroom and then we have recycling stations set up so that is not something that we're doing as of right now um the schools that do eat breakfast in a cafeteria then we do use the trace and we use the re that's me up there that should be you Dian will you you um we use the recyclables when we're in the cafeteria and what was the other question and is there any damage yet to the stainless steel trays at all no not to the trays experienced any okay no we haven't had any damage to the trays the trays are a really nice thick stainless steel they're um I don't know how to describe it I mean they're they're a sturdy stainless steel so we haven't had any damage to them yet um but they're not any I wouldn't say they're any heavier really than what your regular plastic tray would be so it's not like there's a huge weight difference there there may be a smidge heavy but not not any heavier really than what your typical plastic tray is um and we don't have them at the high school we have them middle school and all the elementary schools have them so as of right now we have not had any issues with damage to the trays the biggest issue we have is trying to get the drying figure it out and the water spots figure it out right great well thank you so much Britney thanks for sharing yes thank you and there'll be time if you have more questions at the end of the panel but our last uh presenter as a part of this panel is Spencer fiser uh Spencer Fischer is a Child Nutrition leader who effectively manages resources to provide students with healthy and delicious meals served by caring staff he's worked with in Child Nutrition for over 16 years with the last six years as the Director of nutrition services in district 196 Rosemount Apple Valley Egan uh School District uh through his leadership at schools while serving on the Minnesota school nutrition executive board and as a member of the Minnesota farm to school leadership team Spencer collaborated with Carver County and Dakota County ship University of Minnesota extension services Minnesota Department of Agriculture Minnesota grown and Institute for agriculture and trade policy Spencers maintained these relationships started new relationships and plans to leverage these relationships on a continuous Improvement of the nutrition services department Spencer will share Spencer will share his past initiatives while leading Recycling and waste reduction efforts at district 196 in his presentation so take it away Spencer thanks for being here yeah absolutely thanks Alie for the great introduction so as Ali said uh I work in district 196 um and just a little bit about district 196 some interesting facts we are the third largest school district in the state of Minnesota with 29,000 students 4,000 staff that we take care of the square miles that we cover in district 196 is0 square miles so and within that boundary we have 38 uh different facili buildings last year we served 4.5 million meals uh at 19 elementary schools six middle schools four Comprehensive High Schools two alternate high schools and a school for a school for students with special needs um some of the strategies that um when I came to district 196 that I really wanted to make an impact was that reduction of um products that weren't good for the environment so one of the first things that I noticed in District 1996 is that we were using a lot of Styrofoam at the high schools and all the way through the uh down to the elementary schools um another um goal that I wanted was in working with Ali getting a better understanding of what is greenwash silverware so plastic silverware that says hey we've reduced plastic in the silverware but it's still more plastic than what we would want so um you know manufacturers making claims that they were compostable but really what they did is they just removed enough plastic out of it um to make a claim that they were more eco-friendly um and then uh this year um working with Ali and aimsa we were able to transition um some of our cups and our um serving trays into that stainless steel tray because I truly believe that um you know our children are our future right so they're going to be there taking care of us when um we need it and we need to try and make sure that we're leaving the Earth in a better spot than um when it was given to us so a couple of items that um I've implemented to trying to encourage uh less waste is bulk service at schools so previously um we were portioning everything in plastic cups and I was like well this is a whole lot of time that we're um spending putting fruit into a cup when when students could serve themselves right and you know some people may say well this smaller children they can't serve themselves they always need help like well give them the opportunity need to to learn let them build that dexterity um by like appropriate size scoops and tongs for those littlest Learners so that they can grab the carrots and stuff like that so I've had lots of success with our elementary students using Scoops and using tongs and moving into a bulk service um of our fruits and veggies uh and as the kids grow grow into middle school and high school they become used to it and it also allows students to make their own choice how much do they want so all of those multiple things ends up to be a cost Savings in effect um just like Britney we've um included share tables flavor stations we've also expanded our farm to school program to um buy more local produce that is produced you know within 25 miles of um district 196 so um and you know and all of these things is to reduce that waste I recall um you know growing up Saturday morning cartoons um who would come on during the uh commercial breaks was woodsy the owl right give a hoot don't pollute um so that really was a big thing for me and then when I came to district 196 um I was invited to a middle school and the middle school um students gave me a presentation about the environmental impact of the waste and trash that was going um into our landfills and they asked what is district 196 doing about this and already at that time I had a plan of expanding more reusables um removing that styrofoam and one of the things that um they had mentioned in 2019 and I think that this was starting on that cusp of really understanding how far microplastics have um Incorporated themselves into um human beings or into our environment because they were talking about microplastics in the water microplastics being in animals being in humans so that was really a big eye opener for us and um knowing that I wanted to make an impact to try and reduce some of those Plastics um and get that greenwash uh silverware out of um district 196 in 2020 I started a project called um Quicksilver at our elementary schools so it's the forks spoons um all the wees to um effectively make the change over happen um again the silverware um it does take a little bit of time to sort wash but if you can train your students to separate the spoons and forks into separate buckets just like Britney had on her presentation um it reduces the time and then just washing that silverware um is like one more step but it's truly worth it um so back in 2020 our initial investment with the tubs the carts the cylinders the forks the spoons was about $44,000 investment and we had to put it on hold because of that pandemic um you know the entire country went to disposables we um did not want to touch anything that somebody else had touched because of the co fear and um just the precautions right we were over abundantly a caution against the co virus so we put project Quicksilver on hold for all of our elementary schools till we came out of it back in 2022 we did a rollout of our silverware and if we would have been using sporks um like those greenwash sporks this past year that would have been over $100,000 that we would have spent in uh disposable silverware and where you can see the total investment was about 44,000 now prices have gone up so if you're looking at getting um into investing in stainless steel like my Quicksilver project it'll probably be a little more expensive but if you compare it I think you'll see that you'll be saving money especially in that investment year um we project Quicks over at our elementary schools the and I wanted to make sure that we weren't using that greenwash silverware at our secondary schools so I um did some research found a 100% compostable silverware made by Georgia Pacific it is a little bit more expensive at8 cents um more expensive than that greenwash silverware but that cost is offset by using the reable in the elementary schools and um one thing that partner with manufacturers um they supplied the uh s dispensers that's shown on the screen there um you just call up Georgia Pacific and say hey I'm looking at doing this smart stock silverware what types of dispensors they have for us so very easy company to work with as well and then um another um program that we did was bulk milk because I truly love bulk milk um it's just a whole better milk experience that you have think about going to the county fair or the state fair um and going to the milk Booth or the dairy barn um and getting that ice cold cup of milk that was my motivation behind going to bulk milk um working with Ali in Dakota County and the green team at the school of environmental study we did a waste study about like the little cartons of milk how many cartons of milk did we throw away this year or what have we thrown away and then how much waste water did we save by switching over to bulk milk 40,000 gallons that's you know probably about half of Olympics high school I'm just guessing on that one but um it's a lot and when we reduce those M cartons um it's a benefit and for the work that it takes for the farmers to milk the cows and the whole system to get milk to the location a decrease of milk by 41% is an overall benefit so I really appreciate that when we rolled this out we um just used uh melamine cups um to start with um because we we're sort of fast tracking this to make it um viable for this school that school year year um and then again um pandemic set in and so we suspended that went back to the cartons but now we're back and running at school environmental study with um the bulk milk and this past year we um introduced it at our elementary schools um and as we were preparing for the elementary schools Ally and I had a discussion about oh what's the safest container to put milk in and and we we went back and forth and it's like oh stainless steel because it's non-reactive so that's um where Ally and I were searching like different companies that um produced a stainless steel and ones that um that we could purchase through um you know the bi American act and so AA was that company we I got some samples from them they worked out great and the great thing about stainless steel cups it holds that coldness of that milk so if we're talking about that milk experience it's a ice cold milk that um just goes down great the other thing that I really liked about the um stainless steel cups is they had a smaller grasp for those uh Little Learners so that they could handle their cup a little bit easier um and sort of some exciting things that as we're looking into the future with bulk milk um there is a company called milk on tap which is a glycol system so if you think about um you know pop lines things like that um students will be able to just push a button it'll dispense eight ounces of milk into their cup within seconds and it's ice cold there's no more um lifting the big bags of milk into the steel cow but but these will actually be in the refrigerator um set up and you just sort of you tap into the milk so it's um I'm really excited about that and we're looking at launching that in our uh upcoming Middle School build so we're very excited looking into that um and then our um 2023 Elementary a stainless steel project um so we did a Earth Day roll out on in this past um spring so we did um bring all of our elementary schools with stainless steel trays um we had a very similar situation as Britney that there was a little bit of leg on the um dry time that we didn't experience when we first started our pilot program but then as we rolled it out to all 19 schools we I discovered that yeah there was a uh dry time but we were able to titrate um our uh rinse a to decrease that time and make it very similar to what the melamine tree trays were at so um we actually just got all the titrations done yesterday so I'm very excited for the students to come back and for the staff to come back and not have to deal with trays drying everywhere um you know one of the big things um for me was um leeching of the chemicals um and the um wear and tear on the melamine trays because there were some trays that were really old they were stained um melamine is reactive so if you put ketchup or that red sauce on the tray it sort of stains it or with a stainless steel tray it's nonreactive so these trays they get washed they look great um I was at elementary school kids were looking at themselves because the stainless steel is almost like a mirror so they were checking their hair in their uh lunch tray so it it was really fun to have this launch and um to have so much excitement around it um you know the overall investment that we had for our 19 elementary schools was a little over $557,000 but if we compare that to what it would have been if we would have had compostable trays we would have spent over $140,000 um so overall the investment um is there um now people are going to say well the melamine tray is less expensive well true but you will have to um replace those melamine trays um sooner and um and the melamine will degrade over time right where the stainless steel we're looking at have these for over 10 years so overall I believe it's the right thing to um have the stainless steel trays not only based on the science that uh Aima um shared with us earli in this presentation but um where we're going couple of other things that we have planned for the future here with stainless steel trays is our early childhood we're going to be uh using a stainless steel uh plate bowl and a smaller cup for those those littlest of Little Learners um and then we're looking at also bringing stainless steel trays into our secondary schools um we're looking for a flat tray um so sort similar to like a quarter in sheet pan that students can put their food on it um you know if you ever been to Dicky barbecue they always have those the sheet pans that you could also double as a cookie sheet right so they're like the jelly roll pans or whatever but we're still in the search for that and that will be a future um future Endeavor for us here in district 196 and I know I've went pretty quickly through my presentation here but that sort of concludes it for me so if anybody has any questions here's my contact information and then I'll just leave that up for a while while questions come through amazing thank you so much Spencer for as many times as you know I've talked with you and Britney I still every time I hear from both of you I'm just like re-energized I'm like oh my gosh I still have so many questions so instead of me asking my questions first I guess we'll look at the chat I think someone Jill had asked um for you Spencer I think you mentioned adding rinse aid to your drying process are there any concerns about the chemicals in these products or do we know anything about those TOS yeah I know enough that you know the rin a products it's just like the Jet dry that we use at home and we wouldn't be using a product that would cause harm um in a school setting so the company that we work with um it is just a rent Aid right and then another question for both Britney and Spencer um Stephanie at their school has a stainless steel waste Station and their students tend to bang their current trays when disposing of food in the compost bin or Organics at the end of the line do you notice a lot more noise or denting at all of the stainless steel trays so far so I'll I'll start with this one um I haven't noticed any denting or anything like that and um we did a drop study on the trays so we took a melamine trade dropped it from waste level and and we did the same thing with the stainless steel tray the decibels are pretty much the same it's just a different sound that it makes so um for the noise um you know it's a different sound but it's probably about the same level of sound and yes we do have kids that will use the flatware the stainless steel flatware and make music on the tray so I think it's just one of those coaching opportunities that we have to um allow kids to be kids but also be respectful of the noise level yeah I would agree with what Spencer had said um I haven't noticed any denting or anything like that and I mean truthfully the trays are pretty sturdy um if you get the chance I would recommend reaching out to Ally or reach out to me or Spencer and see if you can you know I'm I'm more than happy to meet somebody or have someone come here and you can see the trads that we're utilizing so that way you kind of get an idea but are they are pretty pretty sturdy I think and we haven't had any problems with denting noise wise it's not any louder than it was before yeah and um yeah I would invite uh people also to my schools as well we do have some um elementary schools that are open for summer feeding that uh families can come into and see the stainless steel trays in action awesome and another question this one's from Jane does the bottom of the tray have you experienced get hot when hot foods are put on it so there is a um there is a learning curve with um hot food so the stainless steel does transfer heat a little more readily than the melamine but the way that um the stainless steel trays are designed um if students hold them on the edge there's no transfer of the heat to the edges perfect and then for both you and Britney are the trays collected at the end of the line stacked or I believe they're returned to Dish windows and they're sometimes stacked there correct correct okay and then another for Spencer when do you expect bulk milk to be implemented or maybe for both you and Britney because you're both talking about bulk bulk milk um when do you expect bulk milk to be implemented in the district I know Spencer already has a few schools already yep so um we're doing a slow roll out of our bulk milk because I want to make sure that um students have the ample amount of time to get used to carrying a cup um throughout the school um as I said we have um multiple schools that I'd love to roll it out in but um I think going a little bit slower on bulk milk will be more beneficial for district 196 then for us and Hastings I have not been able to ever since Hastings Dairy closed I was not able to find anyone that's either doing bulk milk or that I could add on to their workload um there was one or two that said that they do have bulk milk but they weren't able to add me to it because they were already at Mass capacity so I'm hopeful that maybe that'll be some that I can do down the line perfect and then we did have I'm backing up in the chat here um it looks like we did have a question related to um just the issue of throwing away stainless steel utensils um have either of you experienced obviously we're always going to have some loss but a substantial amount of loss and any ways you mitigate that um yes go ahead oh okay um for us basically we haven't had a ton of loss for silverware yet it doesn't mean that it's not coming down the line but I think a lot of it is just consistent training with the students and like I said it's getting them into the habit of this is how we're going to do things and I think once you get to that point and you're you've got them trained on what you want and you've got the staff that's there trained on it both you know whoever's in the cafeteria work working with the kids I don't foresee a whole lot of of loss because the very first thing that we do with have them put their silverware in the containers and it's very important to have that set up so that silverware is first then you're you know dumping your milk and then you're you know step by step kind of like what I had in the pictures and work with Ally on that because Ally helps set it up for us yeah and I'm going to Echo Britney's uh sentiment that that you know the overall loss um it may seem like a lot but for how many meals that we're serving um it it's truly minimal um a couple strategies that um we work through because it's always painful seeing silver war in the dishwasher is putting those uh bus tubs first so when students are um emptying their trays the silver goes first um another strategy that some schools have used is they actually put silverware recycling uh bins like green buckets on the tables so as the students are finishing up their meal they just put their fork or their spoon in the green bucket on the table and then those get returned to um the dish area or the drop window and Britney I think one of your elementaries actually is trying that out that method correct yes yeah we have one Elementary that's trying it just to see how that works so with the buckets on the table and I think um I I think there was another one in the chat on how did you roll it out I just I think that's part of like why um Spencer and Britney's programs have been so successful it's really this initiative it's not just swapping out food wear it's really incorporating kind of this educational opportunity for the whole school including the students and so they understand the why behind what they're doing and as a pediatrician I can tell you kids are way smarter than we all are and so as long as you are educating them and getting you know we've got posters that we send to schools um with the Smurfs on it and stuff and so when you can educate them and Empower them they're like way better humans that we are so and they can learn pretty quickly right right and Jill great Point yes so we do have some schools um as a part of this kind of Grant project um I know Lincoln Center Elementary in South St Paul they did not implement the stainless steel trays yet um but they are in your district and they implemented reusable utensils forks and spoons and they did do that practice kind of trial run of we're going to put plastic utensils in this bus tub for two weeks before we launched the real thing so that is another method um you can use just to get students in the practice of it um and they will look at you weird the first day of like why are we putting these in here are you going to wash these plastic utensils and give them to me tomorrow um but just to remind them hey we're doing an announcement this is our new you know sorting station and this is why we're doing this so that when we get the real thing you know you don't throw away your plast your metal forkin spoon at home if you have that at home so why would you do it at school so that method as well as I've heard things about magnets on containers I've never found or heard of one that actually works super well but that is being tested I did hear Berkeley Unified School District out in California talking about that on a a webinar about they may be piloting those magnetic kind of flat wear retrievers for the top of their waist receptacles um but yeah just all all kinds of different methods and um yeah I think this is just really helpful to hear and one of the other kind of takeaways I remembered when Britney was talking about the fork art um we did get so medium weight utensils is what was purchased as a part of the grant with Hastings and then I think Spencer you also have medium weight utensils correct okay so medium weight you can get heavy weight those would be even more unbendable but don't get lightweight so make sure they're not easy to create but one of the takeaways I think Spencer mentioned to me was if a student at your district is found making Fork Art Is it true they have to go and kind of share that with the food service manager at that school that's that's true they um so if they get so if they're making Fork cart at the table and a you know lunchroom monitor sees them they'll say hey why don't you come with me bring your fork and let's let's talk to the kitchen manager about your design here and so it really starts to eliminate the amount of for cart because they have to go up to an adult which they trust which gives them meals every day and explain why they made some art with a reusable t so it it quickly uh stops the behavior right and so much interest one last question this was individually to me it looks like um did you ever think about or have a need for I know we talked about this Britney because several of your um current or past reusable plastic trays I know you had different varieties had a spot for a utensil has that been an issue with the stainless steel tray not having a specific spot per utensil or is it you know they're just using a compartment for the utensil and it works out just fine you know I I was worried about that also when we first initially started this because especially with the little kids the little kids are always so used to putting you know their silverware has to go here and their food can't touch and you have to have everything in its spot and you know you can't put stuff in the wrong spot because then they move it on you so I was kind of worried about that and truthfully it has not been too much of an issue I mean there's been a couple of kids that have you know had issue with it because well where am I supposed to put it it's like well let's put it right here and once they figure out that it's it's okay to put it someplace else then it doesn't it's not an issue anymore so but yeah no we we haven't had too many problems with it it's like I said mostly elementary students the little little kids like the kindergarteners and first graders that are so used to being you know able to put things in in a specific spot that they wanted in but now that I think now we're okay with it perfect same for you Spencer I'm guessing oh go ahead quick one the reason why we didn't put those just so everybody because we get to ask that all the time is because the drying like the racks that go into the dishwasher we wanted like when I was designing I wanted to be as energy efficient as possible so to fit as many trays as possible so you actually get less trays with the extra spot so just as a um like a a quick answer to that that's one of the reasons we didn't put it in is to yeah decrease the number of wash Cycles you all need to do so efficiency yeah and I think that the uh silverware tray was more alarming to adults than to students because again students have that resiliency to figure it out and I think within a week of the stainless steel trays all the elementary students had figured it out okay I'm going to put my Forker spoon here and I'm good right right and you may have mentioned this Spencer but I am very excited too I mean just on the cusp both of you are just on the cusp of so many new initiatives all the time with the Early Childhood kind of stainless steel plate and cup and square bowl like even expanding our thinking I think sometimes with reusables it's trays utensils okay we're good it's like what other disposables or compostables are we using that maybe we could also replace like bowls or portion cups Etc so just one more exciting Venture for the future to chat about at a future Workshop awesome okay well you have Spencer and Britney's contact and their presentations will be on the website so um yeah for more questions we'll we'll kind of end it there so we can keep moving here um but Kim I when we did do the cafeteria changes the best way to inform students we I brought a microphone at least for the grants not for Spencer schools but for the grantee in Hastings schools um and actually did announcements so I was in the cafeteria the first day kind of helping sort and getting students in the right path and then it's really I mean students yeah it's not rocket science so they kind of figure out their their mode and then go from there so great okay well I'm going to share my screen here thank you so much Spencer and Britney and let's see this should be working here awesome okay so while while Spencer Bry were talking I actually pulled this onto my slide because it just seemed like we needed to read it for a second so everybody just take 10 seconds and read this let that sink in a little bit right so it's like all of that energy goes into making Plastic Products only to you know we're getting it oil from the ground we're shipping it we're making the product we're Trucking it we're packaging it we're unboxing it only to throw it away and use it one time so I think that's kind of what you know Spencer and Britney are getting at when it's like you know what what are the what are the costs the true costs and our waste hierarchy you know I want to give credit where credits due on this project and it's really owed to Britney and Spencer as food service director and leaders for making these incredible changes and investing in reuse um this project also included Jeff wolfer and Megan Bernard at school district 197 as well as Dory pavle at South St Paul Public Schools um for their pioneering efforts as well so a quick reminder that though recycling is required the best options for Waste are reduction reuse that's why they're the first two RS at the top of the W waste hierarchy for a reason so just really trying to consider them that um as much as possible and then for some more context and background Dakota County provides funding and assistance to schools to reduce waste through our school waste prevention and recycling grant program we were awarded a $55,000 Grant from the Minnesota Pollution Control agency or the state to enhance reuse efforts in schools in 2022 so funds from both grants were used to implement reusable forks and spoons at eight new schools um including Britney's Spencer had already had those prior to this project at his elementaries um stainless steel reusable trays at six new schools um piloting two tray dryers um in two different districts and providing a dishwasher stien for uh District 197 so um independent school district 196 Spencer's District um our largest school district in our County um purchased these stainless steel reusable trays for all 19 elementary schools with their own funds so special shout out there and in total we have now three school districts in Dakota County with these stainless steel trays and products uh in 25 total schools with these stainless steel trays in the cafeteria so these are replacing either reusable plastic trays or single use disposable products and keeping those out of the landfill so just wanted to give some context to where this kind of all started um when I was initially doing research for this grant it was like hey our grants to buy bulk milk dispensers reusable trays and utensils that's simple right we'll just buy what I've been buying and then stumbled upon this ditching disposables toolkit from Center for environmental health and um saw oh stainless steel is a safest material and they say to avoid melamine and polycarbonate well that's what all the trays are made from what do we do so that's kind of how this all began so um the links are in here for that if you're curious and maybe put in the chat uh I don't have a specific Poll for it but maybe put in the chat um some things that you learned from this panel because this is really exciting stuff and I think Dakota County this is this is huge that in the last year we've we've gone from zero schools with stainless steel trades to 25 so it's really really awesome thanks so much for presenting all three of you on your efforts so the next topics we're going to discuss um is shredded PE we know there are confidential documents at school that need to be shredded and Dakota County and hallers have provided different guidance on what to do with confidential material and shredded paper over the years so I'm excited to share a bit of updated information with everyone today on this topic so first I just wanted to review a few quick recycling Basics these are the items we need in the recycling stream they're the highest value provide the greatest benefit to conserve our resources and protect our air water and land so you know paper cardboard boxes cartons metal cans glass bottles and jars and then plastic bottles jugs and containers with the numbers one two or five in the triangle on the bottom which when I'm working with students I like to use sign language um you know the I Love You symbol for one finger number one two and five because we love recycling so emptying out the containers as best as we can you know containers need to go in the trash but keeping our lids and caps on these are all Basics I think we all know and we have this designated list of recyclables um that all residents businesses schools government institutions everyone in Dakota County um has to recycle and waste haulers have to collect for recycling so this this list was adopted to standardize these basic items to reduce confusion on what to recycle which helps improve the quality of all our materials that are recycled and um you know these these fall into six main categories which we just reviewed you know all of our paper cardboard cartons metal cans glass bottles and Plastics so recyclables this is a newer thing we've talked about this in workshops in the past but recyclables have to be loose in our recycling dumpster cart now so since 2021 plastic bags can no longer be put in the hauler supplied um recycling bins either car parts or dumpsters which includes plastic bags used to collect recyclables so if plastic bags are used to collect recyclables from inside the school building or on school grounds you'd need to empty out the recycling out of the bag directly into the recycling dumpster cart and then put the bag after it's soiled in the trash so recycling facilities don't want our bagged recyclables because these bags are dangerous for sorters to open and they wrap as you can see in this photo around the equipment and get tangled around machines at the recycling sorting facility um so this picture is showing a machine that has many bars that constantly rotate to separate containers and paper so bottles and cans drop below the bars and then the paper and cardboard surfs on top of the bars but if plastic bags cords other tanglers get wrapped around that's going to prevent the containers from dropping below and mess up the system and not get things where they need to be so so every day every recycling facility in our area and around the country the whole sorting facility has to shut down so workers can physically cut out the bags with their power tools and heavy Cutters so shutting down this equipment is time loss for sorting and it can be really dangerous to workers as well so we know these things so now we want to do our our pull that we might have already seen but we're going to see it again kon's willing to pull it up for us and you should see that on your screen shortly all right everybody just go to the third poll this time yes scroll on down so we're looking at the poll can shredded paper go in the recycling yes no I'm not sure help me let's see what we think for shredded paper and this is paper that's already shredded all right looks like we have 98% have answered awesome all right all right so for our whole results what do we got here looks like 60% say no and around 30% um say yes it can go on the recycling so let's find out shall we okay so shredded paper is actually one of those items on our designated list of contaminants for recycling and is this in our way for anybody else is this blocking the slide I can't see anything okay the video is not in the way of the slide for you nope okay great news um so putting the wrong things in the recycling can uh or container can cause problems at the recycling facility so all of the items on this list we want to keep out of the recycling including shredded paper but let's learn more about why shredded paper can't go in the recycling and why it's on our designated no list so shredded paper is a high quality paper it's a valuable recyclable a recyclable material but it can't go in the recycling container so what the heck what do we do with it if it's recyclable to get it recycled so um I know this might be new information to you as we're we used to be able to place shredded paper in a stapled brown paper bag labeled shredded paper at home maybe like that picture shows or minimal large clear plastic bags in schools um this does not work for recycling sorting facilities as we've discussed when the bags you know get wrapped around the machinery and when bags of shredded paper are opened on the Sorting floor because that's what's going to happen what's in here uh shreds become confetti and it's a party that no one wants to attend so it creates a hazard for the workers it's falling through the cracks in the machinery and it's not getting recycled so those paper shreds also end up in other material streams like glass lowering the quality of those products and we know plastic bags aren't even allowed at the Sorting facilities anymore so how would we get it there so there was also a time we recommended composting shredding paper or shredded paper so I wanted to clarify that as well so as we discussed at length in last year's Workshop we're focused for organ Organics now on collecting food scraps in the Organics containers and the only paper products we accept in Organics need to be BPI certified so the shredded paper is not BPI certified we can't guarantee it doesn't have microplastics or toxic inks within it that would then end up in the finished compost which we definitely don't want in our Landscaping and Gardening projects so that's why they're know for recycling and Organics and we know shredding paper at school costs money so if your school or district is shredding on site in large shredders or deside shredders all that paper is ending up in the trash um as we now know we can't put it in recycling Organics and that has a cost for your school in multiple ways it could be staff time and all of the above staff time bag costs trash hauling fees we know there's a a state Solid Waste Management tax of 17% that's on trash hauling that doesn't apply to recycling and Organics hauling um some school districts have a large school-owned Shredder maybe at one location that shreds for the entire District so that's even maybe more staff time than just collecting the bags throughout the school because now it's requiring School staff to box up confidential materials drive them over to the location for shredding which is Staff time as well as gas so and that all you know is high quality recyclable paper that could be made into new products that's now ending up in the landfill so we know there's lots of options for residents like when we're at home to get rid of our materials because all cities in Dakota County must host a free drop off event for residents to get rid of confidential papers a shred event um there's also businesses you know retail businesses Office Depot Staples um the US Postal Service for shredding services for a small fee but um you know if you're if you're really into shredding at home there's is one place you can bring your shredded paper and a paper bag uh is the recycling Zone in Egan because they're going Direct ly to the paper mill and bypassing the sorting facility but these are all ISS these are all solutions that we mostly talk about for residents at home so what is our solution for schools so the solutions that I have established um just from talking with districts and learning from schools so far um is eliminating these shredders including large shredders that may be used to bring paper from around the district to one location as well as the small deside shredders certain staff may use so remembering if paper is shredded at school it can't go in the recycling Organics which means it's going into the trash um public schools are eligible for State contract pricing from any of the four vendors listed on the state contract which is linked here on this slide um so there is a state contract for confidential paper shredding services um private schools could also use this as a starting point for maybe vendor contacts as well as negotiating services or pricing um but depending on your services on the state contract uh the destruction of documents happen either on site offsite or both so think you can establish that with them what your preference is and there's separate pricing listed here for both on and off-site shredding for each vendor listed so one thing you might be wondering what is the difference between shredding at school and paying someone else to shred your confidential documents uh confidential paper collected from an outside vendor is securely shredded and brought directly to the paper mill for recycling so they skip the recycling sorting facility and the issue is not that the shredded paper you know I've been saying this whole time it's a high quality material the issue isn't that it's not recyclable it's just it's unable to be sorted out at the sorting facility so when you work with a shredding vendor they bypass that step to the sorting facility that the rest of your recyclables take when you put them in your recycling cart or dumpster and they go directly to the paper mill after shredding your materials with that paper to be recycled so all vendors that are listed on our state contract um in Minnesota are required to recycle the confidential paper once it's shredded so that's exciting and then lastly shred right a local shredding company um has offered several fundraising opportunities for years they actually presented at our Workshop back in like 2017 so this is an organization that you know if your school's looking to raise money um might be something to look into while also Ed educating on shredded paper um to your school community so thr through their U mobile shred event program they offer schools um you know selecting a date and time for them to bring their mobile shred truck to your location of choice um you can invite as many people as you like to your shredding event so this would be more for like putting it out to parents or students or you know staff the school Community um to raise money for whatever initiative this is um and they bring all the shredding that day and each person would pay a donation fee at their discretion for securely shredding the documents on site and the group or school gets to keep all the donations collected from the event so they have a whole fundraising toolkit on their website that you can check out um on this link if you're interested following the workshop and Dakota County really supports recycling of confidential paper and getting it to its highest and best use so we would love to work with your school or District to come up with Solutions um this is an example of the confidential paper cart we have in our County Office Buildings so we have this system in place um you're going to hear from Dan in a second um he has that system in place at his district so we really want to reduce the need to cut down more trees and get this paper that's shredded safely and securely to be recycled and not be spending money to throw it away and time for you too so next we're going to hear from Dan on his District's confidential shredding process so I'm going to introduce Dan Miller he currently serves as the Director of operations for um Farmington area public schools in his role he oversees all buildings and ground staff and operations District health and safety construction management and other miscellaneous duties under the direction of the superintendent Dan has been in his current role since July of 2017 and prior to that role he started his career in education as a middle school life science teacher in Lakeville um what was then Kenwood Trail Junior High and then after obtaining his master's degree he transitioned to the role of Technology coordinator at centry Junior High in Lakeville uh and then he left teaching in 2005 where he then transferred to Farmington Area Public Schools as a middle school assistant principal and after working with the administrative team through the construction of the new Farmington High School at subsequent grade level reconfiguration in the district Dan was principal of Bachman Middle School in 2012 and has continued in the role of building principal until accepting his current job in 2017 so he has all kinds of experience in Schools teacher principal and now director of operations so thanks for being here Dan yep hey Al can you hear me yes I can people hear me okay just want to make sure sounds good well uh thanks I know we're probably uh run a little bit short on time here so if you uh if you want to go jump to the next one um so um yeah allly and I have chatted about this uh a bit and just uh kind of struck up a conversation about Recycling and confidential uh shredding materials and uh so as part of that conversation I just uh basically had re uh relayed um that we've used a confidential uh shred outside vendor uh for quite some time uh in the district so we currently use shreddit uh I know that they are not one of the uh State contract vendor um you know once again everybody every District probably a little bit different uh in terms of you know how they secure uh vendors and contracts and so on and so forth and doing some cost comparison to it would be my opinion anyway that currently the uh the agreements uh that we have with shreddit uh uh definitely are competitive if not better uh than most of the state contract pricing and there are lots of different things that go into to that pricing uh as well so U may not always be an Apples to Apples comparison uh this practice for us uh has been in practice since I can remember uh and so I've been in the district for going on 20 years um and to the best of my recollection um I I believe that this is has been in place uh for about at least that period of time uh in terms of structurally uh kind of how we have this set up is each of our buildings uh has at least a minimum of one bin most of those bins are the larger 96 gallons and there's a couple photos there on that slide kind of just giving an indication alley had put one up there as well uh pretty standard uh you know large type of a bin uh on Wheels got Caster wheels on the bottom uh slot on the top and then some sort of a locking mechanism um this isn't on the slide but I would share that um each of our office locations where these bins reside um viously shreddit has keys to access these and we do have a key um that they provide us just in case we get an oops that shouldn't have gone in the bin uh type of a situation uh where uh we have an office staff individual that that could retrieve a document if need needed that was accidentally placed in that bin uh we do have a few 64s as well but they are they are pretty sparse uh and then I would say based upon the configuration of your buildings or the types of programs that buildings serve uh here in our district we do have a number of buildings that have multiple bins uh I just listed a few examples here and that's based probably primarily on that programming or office structure so our high school for example we've got a main office in our high school but our high school also the space itself also warehouses uh the majority of our district office Personnel um as well as historically at least for the last uh probably 8 to 10 years um kind of our special services office so uh basically what I'm saying there is is we had three confidential shred bins U because of the nature of those uh office baces so there's one in the main office at the high school one in the district office space and then our special services location uh office also had their own uh thread bin as well part of that just um proximity uh as well as the amount of confidential material shred material that's that's uh generated uh over time just um making sure that it's reasonable in terms of pickup uh and Shred timelines uh one of our elementary schools our Mew Elementary School sort of the same sit uh situation there uh that that particular building main office has one and then that particular site is also uh where our Community Education uh uh District level folks uh and services reside at that campus so similar sort of a scenario they have a confidential shred uh been in their kind of district office space there and then we have a uh kind of a bit of an atypical site we call it our tiger Legacy and learning center where our district Food Service operates out of and then we have a very large contingent of special services uh in that building as well so same sort of a scenario where we've got multiple bins but in most cases we've got a single bin at most of our traditional uh sites and that seems to be more than adequate uh in terms of costs uh and Ally mentioned this as well um we uh we have our they come and they pick up on site and then they swap out uh the bins in most cases we're not doing a shred on site uh sort of a scenario it's a it's a uh vendor comes in uh they know where the bins are uh they retrieve the bins uh picked them up swap them out uh and then uh you know basically are returning you know empties and uh as they cycle those out um our costs typically um to the best of my ability and and kind of going through financial records usually ranges from about $40 to $55 per bin um each month uh for that um some of those um charges U you know having to do with locations of of sites and so on and so forth but uh seem to be very competitive with State contracts um it's been a system that's been in place to be quite honest we very seldom ever think about it anymore they show up pick the stuff up it's very little hassle for staff uh in terms of you know any staff time required to do much of anything with that um so pretty pretty uh pretty easy uh process that's been in place for us for quite some time um I would also just mention uh in fact we just talked about this uh again yesterday uh here in the district uh is kind of I just termed it as it's kind of special request uh we certainly have worked with shreddit who's our current vendor um to uh assist us with a very large scale uh kind of confidential or file purchese um that tiger Legacy and learning center uh that I referenced earlier is where we store the vast majority of our paper copy records um and so when we do file purchase uh there uh it's most cost effective and just most efficient for us to reach out to shredd it um and ask them to deliver uh extra bins uh you know typically I've had up to uh we did a very very large project there a number of years back and I believe I had an extra 15 or 20 bins um literally lined up uh in a hallway in that building uh for use to to cycle out uh confidential files and and Records uh and at that point in time uh they did come to the site uh and they did shred on site uh for that so um they're more than more than capable of of kind of handling atypical or um you know special requests when large scale needs are required uh something that we're actually looking to do here again this year um at that site so pretty easy process um kind of suffices meets the needs kind of creates a process so that people understand uh you know where confidential stuff needs to go um that it need you know obviously that it needs to be shredded uh and then by default uh ensures that it doesn't end up you know in in the normal recycling uh chain or in the trash as much as possible so that is what I have trying to keep it short and sweet but uh happy to try to answer any questions if folks have it but uh yeah system that works for us has for quite some time uh seems to be relatively clear um and you know works for staff and uh keeps the right stuff in the right locations as it pertains to waste management awesome thank you so much Dan this is this is great I I know Dan's districts of Farmington Area Public Schools as well as Dave Lake uh and Burnsville um Public Schools um both have shredding services set up I am still learning about what other districts do so um if you need support with this please reach out to Dan myself you know we can provide guidance on maybe some things we've heard and of course in Dan's case what he is doing that works well so anybody have questions for myself or Dan on shredded paper kind of looking in the chat don't see anything okay perfect and I did want to just open up um really briefly I'm going to back up here because I did have a question individually about what this looks like which will be a really good lead in um to our next presentation on state contracts but like what is a state contract um so this is what this looks like and Dan you know his Services by all means if you can find services that are cheaper than the state contract go with that but these are available if you um would like to reach out to these services and there's some you know things in place where you wouldn't then have to go out for bid because it's on a state contract um so these are the vendors that are listed there's four vendors it's called this shredding of confidential records contract and um there's four vendors listed here and if you keep scrolling down um you will see on here their pricing so they actually lay it out right here on the contract so you're able to see that um and Allison will be able to tell us more about how this process works but they also offer shredding it looks like of other you know different things as far as electronics and everything else too um smaller electronic stuff but awesome hope that's helpful to uh whoever asked that that and then our next presenter um I will go to now so this will be um Alison Cameron I'm going to stop sharing and while she is pulling up her screen maybe everybody stand up and take a quick stretch break because we've already been here almost two hours so we're doing good an hour left and I hope it's not anything that we want to end because I am having a great time personally but I want to introduce Allison um she's already got her stuff ready to go so uh we'll jump into our next presenter um Alon Cameron uh is a sustainable procurement coordinator and solid waste policy planner at the Minnesota Pollution Control agency she has a a Bachelor's of science from the University of Minnesota in environmental science and experien as a small business Environmental Compliance specialist at the PCA sustainability and solid waste system analyst at surly Brewing Company cool and sourcing specialist at Target corporate as a contributing author of the latest Solid Waste Metro policy plan contributions included Creative Solutions to move materials up the waist hierarchy Allison enjoys walks around South miniapolis picking up Litter with her family and seeing the return of bees and butterflies to her PO new pollinator Garden so thanks Allison for being here great thanks Ally hi everybody um such interesting presentation so far so thanks to the other speakers um I'll just jump right into it um H this screen there we go all right so um what is sustainable purchasing let's just go through a quick history of the program so this started uh at the state in the late 90s uh as a program known as the environmentally preferable purchasing program um and you still hear that term used sometimes um so the initial Focus was on like an informal partnership we had uh between the PCA and the department of admin um the emphasis was on sourcing recycled materials reducing toxicity and increasing Energy Efficiency um that's evolved over time we've shifted to a more holistic approach we're looking at the bigger picture um so our Focus expanded to include protection of both the planet and people um so our current perspective is that social and economic goals are interconnected um this integrated approach has enhanced the program's acceptance um and success throughout the state uh so conventional purchasing goals so um like I mentioned I work with the Department of admin specifically with the office of State procurement their focus is really getting value for the money we're using taxpayer dollars to um buy things so their biggest focus is obtaining the best value for the money that they spend um and they're they're looking to find any goods and services at the most effective cost price um and also to meet any organizational needs um so we need lots of stuff because the state does lots of stuff um and so uh my program brought in a few more goals um to support the local economy um so we prioritize local businesses and suppliers um that strengthens and sustains the local suppliers in the local economy in Minnesota we also promote small and diverse suppliers um so through that we're supporting small businesses and um people who may uh not have as much of a chance to um know how to navigate the system so we have uh a program to Foster that inclusivity and the diversity in our supply chain um another focus is reducing the environmental impact so minimizing environmental harm through the prevention of waste reducing toxicity and looking at the whole product life cycle and its impacts um and as was mentioned in an earlier presentation we're avoiding greenwashing um it can be really hard to fall into um any misleading claims uh so we take a really uh measured approach to um make sure that we're not falling for any um any inaccurate claims of environmental or social goals or um uh uh needs being met um so at times we have to balance the goals of the conventional purchasing and sustainable purchasing um so really integrating those together so that uh all of our purchases benefit both our organization and the community all right so last slide of just giving you the background on this um I think an iceberg is a great um metaphor 4 for talking about embedded emissions um so uh if you think about the impact of our purchases um think about the iceberg the tip of the iceberg represents what we can see and measure easily um so this includes any direct emissions from um transferring the product to the store or um to the site uh of purchaser if it's direct purchase um the energy use that goes into it the packaging that that comes in so these are the most apparent and often the primary focus of sustainability efforts but what we really want to uncover are those hidden impacts all all that's um sitting underneath the surface of the ocean um so this is the waste generated throughout the product life cycle um through manufacturing all the way to disposal um thinking about toxicity exposure not just for um the end product but along the way how are those workers being protected from any toxicity that might be in the production process um and this goes for identified and unidentified pollutants that we not might not be aware yet are affecting the health and the environment um deforestation uh due to raw material extraction and agricultural expansion um are there any resource uh depleting uh activities like natural resources that are being um extracted like water and minerals um are those being extracted in a a thoughtful way um and the social impact what are the labor practices and working conditions uh within that supply chain so the reason it's important to address this whole Iceberg um is that while the visible emissions are more easily measured moving past the lwh hanging fruit to address the hidden impacts is crucial for a truly sustainable approach um so taking a comprehensive view of the iceberg helps us understand the full environment Al and social footprint of our purchases all right so I'm going to get into the different um uh product sectors um so the first thing I'd like to talk about is it products um it products impact energy and resource consumption throughout their entire life cycle they're energy and resource intensive from manufacturing all the way to disposal um uh so something really cool that happened at the state uh is um you'll see on the screen here in the top uh left corner this box and it has computer um parts put in it so this is called a Benson box um it's something I learned about and approached Our IT department about potentially using they already knew about it and they already came up with the money to um start using this so they worked with the manufacturers and they're working internally to figure out um how these boxes can move around um like what the logistics of that is is uh they worked out the cost benefit of it um and so by doing this um we aren't uh initially receiving all of that packaging um associated with the new computer which at the state we're on a two-year cycle for uh replacement so every two years if you've bought a new laptop recently you'll know a lot of waste is associated with that there's little bags and styrofoam often um and so we had looked at ways to make that maybe recyclable but this is an even better um option so uh it's really helps mitigate a lot of the environmental impact so that's kind of a unique uh solution that we don't see in a lot of our sectors um what we really focus on are third-party certifications so on the bottom of the screen in the middle you'll see EP and energy star um I'll talk about EP for this uh this is an electronic stands for electronic product environmental assessment tool um it recognizes electronics that meet environmental and human health standards these are very very strict um there's also ongoing monitoring of any particip participating Brands um to ensure that they're in compliance with the standards they um claim to meet um and I'm sure you're all familiar with energy star it's a certification for Energy Efficiency all right let's move on to facilities so this is a big one oh I didn't point this out on my last slide um right up here in the corner on the right side I put in links for all of the um associated State contracts so if you are cpv member um which I'll go over later if you're not familiar with that term you can click on any of those um to look at a similar um contract release that Ally showed previously all right so facilities again um all the contracts on the right side um there are more and I do have a hand out with all of our state contracts um that you can consider uh so since uh the pandemic we've become a lot more concerned with the air quality in buildings and we came to understand that um the air quality in schools and office uh settings are really critical for human health and environmental well-being but they're not well monitored um so sustainable choices in building materials and Furnishings also contributes to air quality um and reduced environmental impact in that there is a lot of off gassing that happens especially with new Furnishings um and so the way we address that at the state is again through thirdparty Ecco label certifications and standards um and some of my favorites uh for this sector again energy star uh the greeng guard certification this is something uh another really strict um certification to achieve it ensures that products meet these really strict chemical emissions limits um that are measured uh based on healthy indoor air quality um another really great one is the green Health approved this was born of uh out of a medical setting um so they really focused on making sure that the Furnishings within a medical setting aren't adversely impacting the health of patients and I think this is um also a great certification to look for um When selecting School Furniture um those little little lungs and little bodies are really um sensitive to those sorts of off gasing another really great one is the level certification program this is focused specifically on furniture so that would be desks and any sort of office equipment janitorial products all right so um this is something that we uh it took a long time for our program to get a lot of buyin from the state uh because our janitorial products need to meet a very high human and environmental health standards we need to make sure that we're not exposed um say people at a Metro Transit bus stop um to things like Ebola um or other uh transmissible diseases that might be traveling in and out um as it is a point of travel so um we have to make sure that while we're looking for a more sustainable option that these products are also top performers and actually um have high kill rates um so we you we relied a lot on the Minnesota Department of Health um they have this guide this great guide It's cleaners selection of cleaners sanitizers and disinfectant products um it really helped us prove that um bleach is not the only option or is ammonia for um killing some of these viruses of concern um and the excuse me the Ecco labels we really depended on for this our green seal um you may be familiar with this uh again rigorous environmental and performance standards and it also uses a science-based life cycle approach in its analysis of products uh safer choice is a certification that the EPA provides um just make sure these products are safe for people in the environment and the UL logo um is similar to um the what is it excuse me the green guard so those are put on by the same um same third party certifier um so we don't need to sacrifice High St sanitation standards um to reduce the health impacts and increase the sustainability so um again in the right side I'll just point you toward a few of the contracts um one I'm particularly proud of is this polyurethane bags now we don't think of polyurethane trash bags as being um particularly sustainable however I was able to negotiate uh a local um vendor to include recyclable content in the bags for the first time on this contract in the last year um and they have come in as being cheaper than the other bags on contract so a huge win all around oh and I did have a note on here as well um Rinse Aid got brought up uh the contract for dishwashing um chemicals uh is up for bid and I will be uh reviewing all of the rinse AIDS and all of the other chemicals on that contract um for sustainability so uh if you have concerns about that that will be dealt with this year and then the new contract should be in place before the school year starts um office supplies so this is this is a difficult sector to get handle on and one of the reasons is that each vendor that provides these products has so many different types of products that are constantly being switched out or introduced or taken away um and on top of that there aren't necessarily great third-party certifications um in this field so we focused on a few um a few uh significant opportunities um for us that was paper and toner cartridges so paper we have it written into State uh statutes that uh depending on the use and the type of paper being used certain minimum uh recycling content standards need to be to be met um and our toner cartridges uh must at least be offered as manufactured or remanufactured um so what that means is they take the cartridges and um kind of rework them redo the parts um they're not just refillable unfortunately but um it's kind of the standard for reducing impact in the um the printer cartridge area um so another way we've addressed this is by setting policies and standards we've established policies or standards that ensure uh purchases meet a minimum sustainability criteria um so for example our agency at the PCA requires that our office paper must be at least um I don't remember what the number is but it needs to be a minimum um paper recycling requirement um it goes above and beyond the state mandate um and a great reason to um continue buying recycled paper is it creates a consistent demand for recycled content um to be purchased on the recycling Market that assures that that that cycle continues um and that recycled paper is available for other purchasers um and then the ecool labels and certifications like I mentioned it's very limited um so uh just a a an area that's ripe for um greenwashing so be very wary when products have um any sort of environmental claim in the office supply sector um it's good to make sure that they are actually being honest about what they're saying um the last sector I will go over is Food Service so this is a big one we talked about it all morning um there's just so many uh areas and places and um avenues for just bad stuff to work its way in so um something I relied on heavily is the center for environmental Health's report um I have that Linked In This slide um IT addresses food wear toxicity and also harmful materials um I do have to say after watching Dr manada rraa uh uh presented a webinar maybe a year ago I went directly to my cabinet and pulled my son's melamine dishes out of the cabinet and threw them right away now he eats on all stainless um but our schools don't always have that option to just switch out so easily as we talked about um and sometimes you have to choose other food wear options we don't always have the ability to have reusable so there's some a few things to consider um if you are needing to choose compostable or you know any sort of disposable the great thing about choosing compostable is that if it is routed properly to a a compost site it's turned into soil amendment and it reduces our Reliance on landfills and waste to energy facilities um recyclable products it's kind of a double-edged sword uh if they are clean and end up in the recycling it can be processed into a new item and it reduces overall waste however if they're not routed properly more resources often go into recyclable and compostable products if they're ending up in the trash it's having an overall larger environmental impact so those are two sectors I I urge um buyers to be very careful about and make sure they are being um properly disposed of um reusable products are a little darling they can be used multiple times multiple multiple multip times and it really cuts down on single use waste um as well as the cost um and everything else associated with that um but we're aware budget considerations so that's why if you're not finding things on a state contract that fulfill your needs um it's great if you can go out on the open market but I want to hear uh that information especially directly from you um and I can route you to the right channels for reporting that we we as a state want to have all of the goods and services not just the State needs but if we can set up a cpv contract we want that to be available so please let us know um another consideration is your waste hauler um can they provide reliable organic um service and pickup um and then cafeteria staff and administrative support but people who know much more about that already went over that so you are all aware so a few things to be um aware of as you're looking through these um a BPI comp compostable so that's the biggest one if you are getting compostable uh Goods they should they must have the BPI compostable logo to assure that they can actually be processed that this is another place where a lot of companies have come out with um greenwashing and so they'll make products look or seem compostable but then they just end up contaminating um the loads at the compost site which has a big impact um a few other things to be aware of are the third party certifications energy star again is um uh around especially with uh um equipment um and then fair trade so this was more for perhaps coffee and other food sources so again another area to be very aware of greenwashing avoid it um try to find thirdparty certifications or any sort of verification of the claims they're making um and that can be done through either compliance tracking or lab testing all right lastly I've been using this term a lot cpv if you're not familiar um this is community partner Venture so we open up our state contracts to um eligible buyers school districts being one of them um to purchase off of the uh over 800 State contracts um to take advantage of the lower pricing um negotiated terms and also uh the the contract conditions that we um f think through and make sure everyone's in compliance with the state um state regulations Federal Regulations there may be local regulations to be um uh considerate of so do be aware that we wouldn't be um probably looking at that however um just the leveraging the economy of scale um two billion dollars gets routed through our state purchasing uh office each year so um through our our goods and services contracts so we can really negotiate for some great prices if you are struggling with um a high priced cost item um we can also through these State contracts ensure that there's adherence to strict ethical and accountable public procurement standards um and also we're vetting each contract coming through for rolic itation to make sure that it it um it's meeting any sustainability standards or um taking advantage of opportunities where that's applicable um another benefit of using these contracts is we can reduce your administrative effort and weit times you might have um we've already done the work to get a contract in place all you need to do is just plug and play um we eliminate the need for uh duplicative uh work that we've already done negotiating fair prices with these vetted suppliers um and it will free up your administrators uh time to focus on all the other challenges that are faced by your schools so on this slide uh Ellie will be sharing this out these are all active links so you can um explore the PCA resources about cpv you can uh determine if you're eligible fill out an application form and then look through our cpv contracts so that's all I have for today um my email is there feel free to um give me uh send send an email at any time I'm available um and I can take any questions at this time amazing thank you Allison let's see if there's any questions here I think the only question that came up from so far in the chat uh what's the best material for cutting boards home in school um that's a tough one there's a lot of things to consider with that um personally at home I use wood um plastic there's just um you know the microplastic situation which the agency has not taken an official stance on yet um so this isn't I'm not representing the agency in these viewpoints um but the little cuts that you can also get in plastic can really trap bacteria for growth so I prefer wood at home um and I think it's pretty easy to sanitize as well right Alie I have a question that I'll just say yeah so thanks Allison you know you mentioned you ended on the um information about office supplies and I'm curious if there has been any conversation or I'll uh put a little bug in your ear about how can School schools um make purchases for school supplies so student school supplies not just office supplies because in an elementary school our student supplies you know greatly outweigh what our office needs and I'm wondering if there's any um anything in the work to help schools purchase more responsibly and have access um to more responsible I think I think you understand what I'm asking yeah yeah I will take a look through uh our office um Supply contract it's Innovative and I know they have a lot of different things um and so they they may have the off the school supplies um that you seek if that is not the case let me take that to um the team and we'll see what we can come up with and then just to you know just an add-on be when when students are per you know when we have students purchase there is an enormous amount of single use plastic and packaging and so if there is a way to reduce that and make it cost effective um I know I know there are many people who are interested in in that yeah yeah I have a a unique take on this because I have an incoming kindergartener for the first time um and I got to look at a sample school supply list and when I went to go start kind of shopping around I thought thought why can't I buy the big bulk crayons and another parent buy the 24 pack of scissors so I think there is an opportunity in that um that could reduce waste save parents money um but also I I don't like the burden it puts on necessarily families that don't have the opportunity to um search for the best prices and um I'd love to share with you what garlo Environmental Magnet School in West St Paul is doing it Taps right into what you're what you're saying so maybe we can have a side conversation about that I would love that yes please email me thanks awesome thanks for sharing Kim yeah so State contracts you know they're available for all kinds of things compostable bags composable products like we talked about and then the Recycled content plastic bags and Food Service supplies I mean just a lot of stuff to check out there so um we'll have both Allison's presentation and the hand out with all the contracts on our website for the workshop following um today so thanks Alison um so we're next going to jump into our liquids presentation so I'm going to share my screen here let's see [Music] share all righty oh we probably want to put something up there there we go okay so I'm just going to kick us off here really quick with a few slides and then we have a few presenters on this topic for liquids collection improvements so um this is something almost every school needs to deal with liquids collection um I'm going to show what most schools are using currently and then we're going to be discussing a new style of container we piloted this spring so why is capturing liquids important we know liquids contaminate recyclables at facilities um making paper unusable um things filled with liquids like plastic bottles might be unable to get to their destination um you know they're using puffs of air sometimes to sort different materials at the recycling sorting facility especially aluminum cans so if that's full of liquids it's not going to make it to where it needs to go um they also create very heavy bags which can result in mess and torn bags and wasted resources as well as the lifting safety issue for staff so um we really need recyclables to be empty of liquids due to all of these issues it's not required for uh recyclables to be completely dry we know that's not possible especially for milk cartons in the cafeteria that's okay we just need them to be empty so you can see examples of the labels we use for our liquids containers and schools you know we have the 3X3 size that's the drop and then the 8 and a half by 11 and 5 by4 size with the hand and even our school recycling labels say empty liquids no food on the bottom so as we dive into a few the common container examples you you want to kind of consider some of these things where where is liquids generated um you can do a study to kind of assess assess that you know if needed uh where will they be emptied you know is it that will help determine what style container you're going to want to use does it need to be on Wheels do you need to be able to lift it over a counter and then is it easy to clean um you know several schools prefer to run containers through the dishwasher so considering how they will still stay clean is also important to determine your size and preference and if your green team's involved in doing you know uh you know a milk study or some sort of measurement related to liquid's waste um no more or one more sip campaigns uh they'll want it to be easy to measure as well maybe with a hand scale so commonly in our cafeterias this is what we're seeing these are our school liquids container examples you've likely all seen so majority of liquids in schools are coming from milk cartons it's a best practice to capture liquids in the cafeteria in that order first so liquids first then recycling then trash then organic in that specific order because they already have their milk cart in their hand when they're dumping out the liquids and then it's recyclable so in the cafeteria most schools are using a five gillon bucket with a strainer um propped up in various ways as you can see uh or you know some schools also prefer that 20 gallon brute for liquids collection um you know depending on how it's being used so you know the 5 gallon bucket they can typically stay in the cafeteria they don't have to wheel it to a floor drain because it can be dumped down that sink and then sent through the dishwasher um but you know maybe that's you know not an issue with your floor drain maybe the water is run frequently so you're not really worried about dumping down the floor drains like some schools with maybe old Plumbing or you know if they're not used frequently enough they can get smelly so just thinking about that's that's our two models we've had forever and ever and ever it's 20 gallon brute and this 5 gallon bucket um and you know they they hold on to Smells the bucket a little bit less than The Brute but you know that harder plastic maybe retains less that's not a scientific basis that's just what I've heard from schools and experienc myself um that softer plastic is tend to retain more smell over time but um you know these are these are kind of our major best practices the ones outlined on this slide so what we're doing now for liquids collection always having that strainer and colorcoded containers and then lastly the other major area in schools where we have a large quantity of liquids are breakfast in the classroom program so we have a large use of milk cartons there so we really want to avoid using classroom containers for sorting breakfast waste and instead having hallway stations shared between classrooms and for both models unless students have a classroom sink to dump liquids into and are encouraged and allowed to do so um milk cartons aren't able to be emptied and they're contaminating the recycling with liquids or they're ending up in the trash so um you know teachers also appreciate getting that breakfast waste out of the classroom that sits there all day um so the Sorting stations pictured here are ones most commonly used for breakfast hallway stations in central hallway locations either that liquids bucket on a cart with recycling brute and however many trash containers you need or that waste Station that's pictured below with that 23 gallon slim JY container and the 1.75 gallon small liquids container that Nestles inside the trash if the liquids spill then they at least they end up in the trash and don't contaminate the recycling so typically they're all on dollies and they're wheeled out of the hallway after breakfast is over so now we're going to jump into some liquids container Innovation I know we've probably seen it at airports businesses or other organizations that are kind of coming up with new ideas because we need a place to dump out liquids in order to recycle right so Mark Pierre is a part of these Innovations he's here to share a little bit more with us about a liquids collection container we use at Minneapolis St Paul Airport you may have seen it there as well as a Dakota County high school so I'm going to introduce Mark Mark is Pier established Poway 9ine years ago as a family-owned business based in Auburn California and all products are proudly made in the USA with five patented products designed for various liquid waste levels including proprietary microbio microbio enzyme cleaning products Poway enhances environmental sustainability by reducing waste disposal costs improving worker safety and efficiency and ensuring compliance with EPA and state regulations so welcome over to mark all the way from California can you hear me all right yes okay great uh Ellie thank you um and uh the Dakota County for inviting me to kind of share my story and so forth um I love coming behind the first slides because boy it it's it's the history of where we come from and what we were first uh introduced to uh and it's uh it's a pleasure to talk about my product after all of that um uh to kind of start off with uh Poway uh been in business for nine years and we are the leading manufacturer of liquid diversion um in the United States and the Poway Cadet itself is the most uh sold product within our line uh We've sold so far in the last uh 24 months 3,000 units uh most of those went to schools um over uh 400 schools throughout the United States have our product and just as Ali said in uh lineups whether they're um in the fir uh in uh the first position obviously but whether it's just one stream two streams three streams or four streams depending on where you live in the United States um these products have been placed uh in the schools uh in the airports as Ally mentioned uh in convention centers in zoos in museums in theaters um uh any place that needed a product to be able to uh get the Liquid out of the was stream um kind of to talk about the versatility of the product uh we didn't take uh a product off the shelf and kind of tried to modify it to make do uh for four months I worked with the custodians at Alisal Unified School District in Northern California and the custodians at Oakland Airport um and what we did is we made six iterations of this product to be able to come up with a solution that was not only effective first and foremost for a custodian but also could Eclipse different um uh or lapse over different environments such as a school or such as a crazy uh busy environment collecting liquid like an airport um and uh I I won't go into all the uh uh subtleties there about why it is the way it is we can talk about that offline but the some of the key elements that um you need to take are really that uh the Poway Cadet really provides you a mobile sync for uh your uh campus and that comfort of it being something that um children and adults are very uh uh comfortable with um are something that uh uh helps to perpetuate the adoption um and by uh the unit having a a j trap on the inside like your sink in your uh bathroom uh prevents smells and things from coming out and when we worked with the custodians what we wanted to do was to be able to um make sure that the children uh uh poured their drinks or uh uh into the cadet and then moved along we didn't want it to be a bottleneck so uh features like smells and things uh might have stopped children to go oh what's that smell or uh oh what's this um why does it look like that it it allowed the design allowed them to maybe at first kind of um uh take stock of what it looked like but there was no real reason for them to linger over it whether it was splashing uh or uh again the smells so um uh that was a key component to um having it in this line um the uh um some of the features that they have are um uh uh and I'm I'm watching the slides go by uh some of the the features uh that are valuable to the custodians are the mere fact that it has capacity uh to be able to collect um up to 25 gallons most schools will probably do four or five gallons but it's better to Overkill um in this Environ in this situation so that the uh custodians or whomever is working the food uh Services doesn't have to babysit any of this they want to be able to set it up before the children come through and then uh uh leave it alone until the end of the uh the food service for breakfast or lunch or whatever programs you have um and the cadet not only does that has a strainer so it's not going to clog um but it's easy to move around uh it was built on a uh on a commercial deck each wheel uh is uh can hold about 125 pounds so the unit itself is not something that um uh needs uh is fragile or uh is not designed for a commercial situation uh we in all we're in 45 airports so uh if we had seen issues with any type of the design it would have popped up but the ability to be able to um uh collect that liquid uh move it ergonomically for the custodians to wherever you're going to drain it whether it's a floor drain there or it's in the custodial closet um was really critical when we did the initial design um uh what happened at a certain point was we realized that uh uh uh Organics were building up inside of the tank uh we first noticed this in the airports because they collected a lot of liquid uh there uh union members were also judged on the cleanliness of everything windows and the poor away Cadet so when we saw this buildup uh we partnered with a company that is a supplier for um uh ecabs and they designed an organic microbial enzyme Puck that sits inside of the unit uh it slowly dissolves over 30 days and then um that microbial enzyme solution not only eats the organic buildup that may uh happen inside of the uh the Poway Cadet but every time you drain it it not only um eats what's in the drain but goes down your drain and also eats any of the organic buildup all the way out to the street so we found that not only a win for our product but a win for the schools who are pouring this liquid down the drains and not understanding that as long as it's dark and as long as it has food organic is going to build uh build up like uh and it's going to grow like uh Coral um under the ocean uh if it has the uh the proper elements to grow and slowly you're just going to close up your drains um trying to think if I can I I I I I think I think um um more valuable to you folks would will be question and answer at the end um I think that uh uh we I wanted to really uh capture the fact that um for nine years we've been doing one specific thing which is uh collecting liquid diversion uh or collecting liquid Organics uh we've been recognized mentioned earlier on uh a lot of the recyclables are really critical to be clean uh uh or to be dry H not necessarily clean and this is really a helpful way of being able to do that um it's sort of like a a a it's a it's a real valuable tool to the custodians and that's where we wanted to get our first Buy in um you don't want to set them up for injury it's really hard to um uh cost-wise and Manpower wise it's really hard to find replacement for a custodian that's uh may have slipped because the bucket of liquid that they had um leaked or poured over and somebody stepped in it you really want a container that encloses everything in allows your custodian to um push it into their process and then uh uh have a safe and easy way of emptying it out as they take it um can I play the video do you want me to play the video now is that a is this a good time for it sure okay awesome let me know if you can hear sound maybe just give me a heads up or a thumbs up I mean I heard there's this really handsome guy that does this video too so yes this guy's gonna look familiar I'm very ex can you hear it moove all that liquid the Poway Cadet was built on an industrial deck Wheels steel Hub casters all rated at 125 lb each this unit can hold up to 500 lb of liquid without having any problem at all now we've got all that liquid how do we empty it the Poway Cadet comes with a drain hose that's attached to an oil pan bottom the lowest point in the whole unit this tube is nested in a channel so it's not going to fall out when you're rolling it around simply take the tube out take the cap off open up the ball valve and drop that right into the custodial sink a vacuum will start the whole unit will drain we Enlisted the help of some chemical engineers and those chemical Engineers designed a microbial enzyme Puck that puck sits in our holder the holder sits back in the [Music] tank and it'll assist the custodians and keeping this unit clean for 6 to 8 weeks until they'll Puck dissolve so I hope all this information gives you a little bit of insight into this product feel free to reach out to our awesome I gotta hire that guy he does much better job than I do I thought it was a fun video I love that and you it's nice because the unit has a QR code right on the back that'll bring you to multiple videos on all that on the maintenance and everything else that you need to know which is so helpful so uh the last part of this is uh we're continuing to innovate and we're continuing to watch the the market as it develops um we've been uh we've been um uh tasked or uh reached out to by um actually a few of the companies that you saw their liquid diversion uh cabinets uh in the uh intro to my slides um from alley uh to uh bring in our liquid diversion components within their cabinets so as an example uh this is a cabinet that uh we were uh designed for uh Quick Serve restaurants and um it's simply on the same premise of what we're doing has a little roller tank that goes inside there's a sink there's a j trap uh there's a strainer which you can't see in there and then you can have your cabinet designed with one two or three streams uh or just one stream uh in addition to that and then add cabinets on as your program develops um this has been uh uh uh Villanova University just bought 10 of these cabinets um uh LMU was looking at the cabinets on top of all your Quick Serve restaurants so um uh Harvard and Princeton uh are looking at it they have our C Cadets right now so it's a real nice way of knowing that we're not just resting our Laurels on a Cadet um we actually believe in certain instances that the cadet is kind of a Gateway product because of its mobility and because of its capacity it allows you to be able to test and go to different places um and uh get an idea of where the best locations are to capture liquid once that is adopted then maybe a permanent fixture of a cabinet might be the right solution if your Cafe um in your school is something that isn't uh multiple uh use rooms and things like that so um just to kind of uh reiterate we're just moving along in that liquid diversion um uh uh Lane uh and we've also seen uh a lot of interest in the past six months for U uh uh reusable cups and we've seen this in uh different stadiums climate pledge Arena um in Petaluma the city itself has placed these um uh uh reusable cup collection uh uh uh units all over the city so if you go to Burger King and you walk out and you have a cup it's a a a reusable cup if you go into Starbucks you have a reusable cup if you go into the theater you have a reusable cup and you can walk out with them and they've placed these all over the city as a pilot project to see how people would respond to taking those cups putting them in a place and then reusing them so uh we have a product that's uh in conjunction with uh that task as well so um I want to open it up to to questions if you uh if you have any now or this is the information if you have any questions that you know you'd like to ask offline uh I'm happy to address it as you kind of digest how this might work in your environment great thank you so much Mark uh has anybody seen this Poway Cadet container at the airport or anywhere else before maybe raise your hand if you've that just um use the raise hand function and I think some of the questions I did see a question on how it it's cleaned um I think that so we have um one more presenter left to go um so maybe if we hear from the school in Dakota County that is piloting the kid container then we can maybe get all of our questions compiled for both Mark and Megan and Tim so um I will just jump over to uh their presentation because next week we're going to be hearing from Two Rivers High School and West St Paul Mota Heights Egan Area School District 197 this is the first school of Dakota County we purchased the Poway Cadet liquids container for through their Grant uh last spring as a pilot and we have both Tim and Megan joining us so Tim kth is the building engineer at T Rivers High School and it is his fourth year in the district as a building engineer he has worked in school District since 2007 and has 11 years of military service Megan Bernard is a sustainability manager for the school district and it's her fifth year in this position she previously worked as an amazing waste consultant for Dakota County working with schools and businesses so thanks so much for being here and take it away Tim and Megan thanks Ally thank you so our problem was how do we get the milk out of the way stream at our high school um we we're using these 32 gallon brutes um and I'm going to turn over to Tim because he has a lot more in-depth knowledge of how this worked but you know the the issues that we were having was they're difficult to keep clean they are difficult to empty so that led to them not being emptied on a regular basis um we would line them with trash bags to keep the liquid contained um and then really no way to get the milk cartons emptied enough to keep them from really stinking up the dumpsters um we are dumping loose which was a little bit of a change for us in the past few years we used plastic bags for our milk cartons and that was really the last stronghold was dumping the milk cartons loose so last year all of our schools started that of no more plastic bags whatsoever for mil cartons and it does end up with there is more liquid in the recycling dumpster ERS when you are not using bags whatsoever yeah anything else you want to add yeah I mean we used to have three of the 32 gallon uh liquid uh containers and uh just with our cafeteria layout it didn't make sense to have three and wheel them around the school to try to empty these out which is kind of why we went to the trash bags then we cut them open and it was just a huge mess so that's kind of why we uh got moved on from those out say and we also found that with three was stations it was really hard for us to oversee them that have staff Staffing those areas because there was just so many and you know three lunches um and since those had been in place for a while it kind of was up to the student whether they were going to dump out their liquids or not and typically what we saw was less dumping more just either recycling it with a full mil Cardon or putting it in the TRU track yes so we purchased this with the grant um I'm just going to go over the kind of the positives that we've noticed here obviously the color for us the yellow uh it's huge I kind of feel like our old you know our old system it just wasn't uh wasn't bright enough it didn't really get you know a lot of use I'd say um there wasn't there's a lot of times where there was hardly anything in there at all and uh that could have been because of our our layout a little bit but since we've got the cor away we have kind of built around it and um that's definitely helped um I have noticed you know that it's taller than the can so it's a little bit uh a little bit easier I think for people to really see it and it's um yeah then um can I can I say something uh the reason uh and I apologize for interrupting you but you pointed out something that was really important and it was requested by the custodians uh when they have buckets the children would do uh waterfalls and they would take their cups and they would hold them really high to make the liquid Splash and what the custodians wanted was they wanted a tall unit so that the children couldn't raise their arm up high to make it Splash even though we have a strainer that prevents from the splash to have it at a higher height allowed them to pour it directly in like in a think so it it it was one of the big things that they wanted because originally it was short and they said no they go the buckets were a real problem because of that specific issue I I apologize for that but that was something was really important to know no yeah it's a good thing to touch on um yeah we have not experienced the splashback as you say and then it's still even though it is a little higher um I haven't had any issues here with our our Ada accessibility B seem to be good with it yeah it was ADA Compliant but go on thank you yeah it and it and it works well here I've I've seen it be used and they don't have an issue uh obviously the strainer keeps the uh bigger particles out but I did want to touch on the actual finish of the strainer I do wish that it was more of a stainless because it's the brush material I have notice that it is a little bit prone to some staining um even with the spray um you know it's not really building up but it is kind of staining so chocolate milk chocolate milk yeah and in talking with corway one thing I did note I wanted to tell um you Tim they have redesigned so I think we purchased the model prior maybe Mark correct me if I'm wrong prior to we or purchased it early in 2024 I think it was like or late 2023 so since talking to the sales team it sounds like they have updated it per your feedback so that's really that's really good yes we now have a a strainer that's totally stainless steel so there is no staining we noticed it uh a big issue was at the airports because of the volume of liquid and different liquids coming in but that that has eliminated and um uh we have uh when you're ready to uh uh replace your strainers we have um uh uh ones that you'll be able to get and because you already had that one we offer a discount for it so that you have something that'll uh solve that issue but uh three years and that's really the only issue that we found which was the pH in the liquids Rises and what happens is because of that rise in PH it stained the aluminum uh we've gone to all stainless steel now and that doesn't happen Perfect all right and yeah like I mentioned ear earlier we did revamp our sorting area with new signage and kind of built around uh our liquids as that's kind of like the beginning of our line and then it funnels out so um you can skip our video because Mark's video was super good um we can move on to the next yep oh I'm talking say it's linked here for people to watch later because I think it's cool to see your system okay so yeah maintenance process obviously you know Mark touched on the the QR scan um that's pretty simple if you really have any questions at all you you can always scan it and it'll bring you to there but uh you know we empty it and rinse it every day I'm sure it says that in there um we did test it out where we didn't do that and um you can't you can't do that with milk I'm not going to say we did that on purpose I think that was more of a whoops but you cannot do that with milk um small and portable the lock and casters make it easy so that you know when you are emptying it it's not going to roll away on you if you're on a little slope or you know whatever you're you're dump it into um the yeah the drain tube works really well again as long as you do the daily maintenance it's super simple um and then the cleaning spray effective uh for eliminating any buildup or possibility of um just the overall cleaning process of this is is I think a lot easier than our 32 gallon it's just it's it's really effortless it doesn't take much to do it and that puck really does help out quite a bit uh with keeping keeping things not you know adding up in there well Tim I think it's important to let him know too that we put it into a floor drain when you drain that tubing because like the tubing is lower than a slap syn the slap syn is higher so we found a location that had a floor drain that was near a water source so when Tim goes to empty it um or another custodian does um you know putting that drain into the floor dra putting that tube into the floor drain and then draining the water is that right yeah I mean I just Rin it out rining out with water yeah yep and and and Tim if uh one of the things that's on the video the QR code if you look at the fill tube and the fill tube is one inch above your custodial wall around your custodial sink just one inch and if you have to add a little water in it it doesn't hurt because it dilutes the puck more and it works to clean your drain but if you're one inch higher than that when you open that ball valve and you drop that hose in there a suction or a siphon will start and you won't have to go to that floor drain and drain it you can drain it right there and again the key is a siphon start and a siphon start is if the liquid in your Cadet is one inch higher than that wall and you won't have any problem oh okay good to know we'll try that yeah then just uh some takeaways with with uh our process here you know we've improved our collection process and uh reduced contamination um let's see what does that one mean well for us we just we really felt that since we were introducing we also introduced metal utensils at with this project so we consolidate Consolidated our three sord areas to one and we staffed it so between Tim myself and other custodians someone is at this way station a staff member is at the way station to help direct students um and that with the video that we showed before they went to lunch was helpful um but just putting it out there on its own I don't think I mean you can try it but I think having a staff person there to help ensure that the kids learn the process is pretty important at least it was for us I mean I feel like I feel like we we were struggling before with our our stations our multiple stations and now cleaning it up and just having one with the pour away in the center uh it works out pretty well and um and this was also part of improving our Organics collection because what we were having was everybody was just tossing their compostable trays in the trash and we were getting very little recyclables and so this push I mean we are definitely collecting way more Organics with way less contamination um but it was a challenge for us to take that ownership of being there for that lunch period and it's you know a lot of communication from us but we do feel like it's improving the collection system and the quality of our recyclables and Organics well and with that you know I I'm going to guess that we've probably were collecting probably five times the amount of liquid that we were before we were I mean we were still getting some but really not a whole lot and so you know having that thing there has been uh it's it's a lot easier and I mean by doing this we went from basically backup house Organics like three yards once a week to eight yards a week of Organics and we reduced our trash from 16 yards to eight yards so I mean it we it was pretty significant yeah and we have what 1,600 kids go through lunch year so yep there you go and that's just a picture of our carts so we are our washer is actually on the complete other side of the cafeteria so we just have black bins that we collect the utensils in we tried putting water in them but they just were splashing a lot so and they're kind of heavy so we just have empty bins that we put the dirty utensils in um with a picture of spoons and one of UT of forks PE people like to sort especially kidss so like it's surprising everybody pretty much tries to put them in the right place and you know that's been fun to see that that actually works so then we just bring that back to get washed after the Lunch Period yep yeah right amazing I'm gonna stop sharing my screen so I can see the chat thank you so much Tim Megan Mark I think we're open for questions now um jeie are you just raising your hand from when I asked um let me know if you've seen this at the airport or do you have a question I'm gonna assume maybe it's just up there so feel free to unmute yourself if you have one um I saw one question in the chat of how is the container cleaned so I don't know who if someone wants to take that I know there is a maintenance video uh Sean so I could definitely send that your way yeah the uh the microbial enzyme Puck that sits the microbial enzyme Puck that sits in the tank itself uh really cleans the view tube in front and any buildup that goes on inside and the microbial enzyme spray which is a liquid version of the solid microbial enzyme Puck um uh can be sprayed on the pan or if you have a dishwasher um uh on site the pans are all dishwasher safe you just take that strainer and you put it in there run it through as you were run other utensils at the end of the night and it's clean and good to go um I go into uh airports here LAX or when I go to Oakland Airport and the things look like they just uh came out of the box because microbial enzyme pucks are in them um and uh the pucks are like $7 in last uh four to six weeks depending on the usage um uh and for a whole school year it's like $98 and that thing is really taken care of as far as cleaning so just just uh Dan Miller from Farmington so just to confirm so you guys don't so you don't rinse you don't rinse them out you just drain them or you know I I I I put the microbial enzyme puck in there I do rinse them and Tim may say the same thing I think it's more habit of the custodian to do it than it's required but they just rinse out everything they'll wipe out the outside and they'll rinse the inside again more by their existing process than something that you have to do but the liquid uh Ean flow inside of it really dilutes the um Puck and as the liquid Rises and then goes down It Coats the sides and eats the uh organic there and if you see that um for maybe a summer program that you're really not going as high as you were before and you might see some organic buildup in the tube just once orce of just filling in a little extra water in there to making sure that that organic is coated by the dilution will eliminate anything that you would see in there yeah Tim I think you're muted do you have go ahead yeah and that's exactly what I've had to do with the summer program is we just put a little bit of water extra water in there so that that does get the coating um but even then you know I think it's just you know like Mark was saying it really is kind of more of a habit to rinse it out um you know we haven't tried it where we don't rinse it out but I just do right yeah and most custodians will do the same thing right and Tim would you say the change was difficult to make would you say you'd go back to what you had before do you like what you're using now better like how do you feel about the overall change over although you I mean it's just it's so easy to use I wouldn't go back to 32 gallon buckets and then you know the other like when I was at the elementary schools years ago now uh we did have like the little five gallon ones you know I think uh I think Mark had a picture of or or you did or somebody had a picture of that kind of setup and you know like those can fall over and I've seen that happen before um no I don't I don't think i' I'd go back it's just it's on Wheels it's easy to clean that's what I was thinking wheels are nice you know when I sit and I talk to boards um I I've stressed the simple fact of risk reduction for the custodians how much it cost to replace somebody how much does it cost when somebody has to take a leave of absence um and uh it it it really Rings true to them uh that there there is a value to that and the simple fact that you can now instead of babysitting those buckets you can take a custodian and he can go to a higher value task that's within his day of work rather than um having to visit once or twice or God forbid clean up a spill or something like that that's ours you know and a little line of liquid out it's just I I could go on and on and on but uh Tim it it's as I'm sure you see it just just a change of process but it does loosen up your folks for other tasks yeah and I get pulled out of my cafeteria all the time so it's definitely something it's nice just I don't have to worry about it right well this is awesome so here about I'm I'm excited we did purchase one for another Elementary School in Lakeville that's opening up for the first time this fall so then we'll have two Cadets that we're going to be piloting in Dakota County now so um yeah feel free reach out to Mark reach out to Tim and Megan with more questions on this container and I'm sure more liquids improvements to come and I did put a link of the cabinet container Mark was talking about in the presentation so people can go see that too Ally is it is it appropriate to mention the price because everybody kind of want to know price or do you want to take off did Megan and Tim you had that on your slide right it was around is it $600 they listed it at seven I I was gonna ask that question so on the website you can request a quote but I was just curious I'll they they had it so the units and I don't know how many uh were purchased that may have been two um and shipping um but uh the units are four uh retail price on the units and you can see them on the Internet is $4.99 we have a really close relationship with anything associated with education whether it's the schools museums aquariums zoos and there's a educational discount and the units are 469 and that educational discount also applies to the microbial enzyme pucks and the sprays so um you you folks are our bread and butter and I can't tell you how many schools I've uh I visited and Revisited just to make sure everything is right but it is such a change in what goes on in Food Services when you do it you just have no idea just the psychological win of uh a child pouring the liquid in and having that oh I know where that goes not a blue can a green can a red can pouring it in and going oh oh psychological win now what do I do with this milk carton now what do I do with this and then it goes on so it's almost like a gateway to recycling and that's why most people put it in the first position because it's that and then you get a win you go on so sorry I would just talk about price but kind of passionate about I had I had it so for Two Rivers they actually paid $400 I have the quote because I paid for it $400 for the cadet um 89 for a box of 12 enzyme biop box for the cleaning and then $8 for the hard surface spray cleaner at the time so it's a total of 650 $56 including the shipping in that cost so that was back you know over six months ago so that included the cleaners as well yeah so yeah yeah it is there was a small increase it's 469 but yes yep yep still cheaper than a a retail price right all right well thank you all for that and enough time for me to go through a few resources per usual um so I'm sharing my screen here if it'll let me okay there we go awesome and I did see Allison made a comment maybe it'd be good opportunity for a state contract for liquids containers that'd be kind of cool um so maybe more to come on this uh so for resources oh yeah for resources um I'm just gonna Breeze through quickly I know we have a little over five minutes um that's why I always put myself at the end uh because I know we know a lot of this stuff so shout out to Lincoln Center Elementary that's who's pictured on this slide so we have free labels posters activity guides available to schools I think we're all aware of our online order form but that is linked here um the materials are sent and mailed directly to your school so you can just fill that out and you can get free posters labels activity guides at any time in various sizes uh we have school training resources so all schools in Dakota County are now required to provide standardized recycling education at least at least once a year to every school person so staff student Etc and so we have rate training resources newsletter templates um presentations with talking points available um to help meet those requirements so that's kind of a link to that web page and folder with all that information and of course we're creating new things all the time so uh cafeteria banners um we have these available we've used these in cafeterias for you know hanging behind um waste stations um we've made them in the past with vinyl with grommet holes um in that size but if that sizing doesn't work for you um we can definitely work on a different size or type of signage and then all School stadiums we've worked with in our grant program um since we revamped it in 2020 to include outdoor spaces because all trash containers are required to be paired with recycling including those outdoors in Dakota County paired and labeled so um these Banners are offered as a free educational resource outside of Grant funds for school stadiums we've worked with so this one is for Farmington High School we've also worked with St Thomas Academy and Rosemount High School um that all got banners printed and we're working with Egan High School um this fall so that's another resource uh we have a contactless online checkout system available for portable containers and education kits you can see the portable Recycling and trash containers pictured here as well as our recycling education kit we have many more um materials available so if your school is hosting a community event on site without enough containers or you need tabling resources or both you can check these out for free on our web page um and just scroll through all the things that we have there and that link is in this slide that will be on our web page you can explore so these containers are available for outdoor events mostly they're typically used there but um if it's a school Fair or barbecue or maybe it's your own personal grad party um these resources are available and then we have performances and field trip busing available to schools um so Dakota County provides waste education to enhance student and staff recycling knowledge so we have free performances for K through three students where Trisha and the tunies come and do interactive experiences with public characters on um reducing our waste and recycling more and then field trip allows students and staff to visit recycling facilities landfills and compost sites to see the equipment and stuff technology in action and where our materials end up so that is available as a resource we also have grants we know that nearly 80% of school waste is recycler compostable so we want to provide assistance to schools um to reduce wasted food um reduce waste um for divert Recycling and food scraps from the trash so all of those things are kind of covered in our grant program and please reach out to me if you're interested in kind of learning more about that or you have an idea um we have $110,000 large project grants as well as many grants for $1,000 available year round and I think we've worked with it looks like 55% of all schools K through 12 in Dakota County since our program began in 2009 that number is not reflective of the schools and Partnerships that have come in multiple multiple times because you can come in for different Grant initiatives so uh we also have a school enw if you're not already receiving it I recommend uh signing up it's just four times a year with different information maybe about this Workshop as well as other um projects and spotlights on schools we provide free compost delivery to school recycling program participants with an Organics collection program we did that for the fourth consecutive year this year and uh we had 20 or 17 schools participate we offer one to five cubic yards of compost soils um um and then this helps them be able to use that in vegetable and flower gardens on-site plantings potted plants lawn repair and Prairie restoration areas so we continue that program we also talked about a spotlight on this program last year but we have free U vapeo Vape disposal resources available so we provided kits um to our schools in Dakota County we had a 2022 survey that went out learning from schools what do you currently do with Vapes um realized we need some support in that area and so Vape devices are a regulated hazardous waste they can't go in the trash or recycling so all public school district secondary schools middle and high schools um have received a free vape disposal kit and then for public charter schools and private schools and elementaries they're provided to those interested so uh 47 kits have been distributed and um we've so far collected 664 devices so that's a resource and then a new resource for this year we have a free graduation yard sign collection happening at our Western service center in Apple Valley so we did put a call out to all High School principles this spring to share with students and parents with a social media blurb an email they could send but if you know of anyone that um has grad signs that they need for recycling they can't go in your regular recycling but we are hosting a special recycling event for these that they'll be taken up Choice Plastics in Mound Minnesota it's a specialty recycler in Minnesota and um we are hosting the bin until August 15th so spread the word and then we also have our recycling guide tool so this is available on our website linked here it's an online searchable directory so if you have a question on an item type it in and um it will help you know where to go with that item otherwise you can suggest we add it if it's not there already and then this is just our web page is a great resource to start um order free labels and everything else I've talked about today so please reach out to me if you have questions let me know what new resources maybe you'd like to see and we made it awesome so remember recycling is not sorted out of the trash um there's this misconception floating around um that recycling can be put in the same container and it will later be sorted that is false so if things are going into recycling they are going to recycling sorting facility per Minnesota state law if they're going in the trash they're likely heading to a landfill um we don't have many waste of energy opportunities here in our County so thank you so much for joining our 10th Annual School recycling Workshop um don't make the sloth work so hard let's keep our containers paired right like I know we're all doing a great job at our school so there's going to be a a few minute survey sent to you this week um uh to get your feedback on the workshop and improve future workshops and then like I said here's my email if you'd like ceu credits continuing education credits please reach out to me I'm going to try to look through the chat I think a few people had messaged me but if if you want to for sure know I got it send me an email um because there's three clock hours available and I'll send those to you gladly and all Workshop presentations in the recording again will be posted on our web page um following this Workshop so thank you so much I'll be sticking around if anyone has questions but um reach out to our presenters reach out to me and thanks so much for your time today I'll stop sharing my screen here so I can see your faces have a good day