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Clean up day reportThe City of Otsego Clean Up Day By Matthew Blesi Biology 120: Current Environmental Issues Prof. Robert Swanson Although many environmental issues face the planet today, some seem distant and vague or just "someone else's problem." Others seem complex and too serious or out of an for an individual effort's to make a difference. Looking at a local environmental issue reveals the fact that a real issue exists close to home, is in fact "our problem", and an individual can make a difference. I focussed my research on one of these local environmental issues by analyzing many aspects of "The City of Otsego Clean Up Day." The purpose of my research was to attempt to find out several things. First, I wanted to know how and why the clean up day started. Second, I wanted to see what direction participation was moving. Third, I wanted to take the trash and it's destination a step further by finding out what exactly happens to the trash after the recycler receives it. Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to discover people's attitudes about the clean up day because the ultimate fate of the clean up day, recycling in general, and the environment rests in the hands of the people. Three methods were used for information gathering. Judy Hudson, city secretary, was a vital source for information. She provided me with statistics, prices, and names of recyclers. I telephoned each recycler to obtain information on their respective recycling process. I also conducted a survey of residents as they brought their items to the clean up day. Finally, as a good citizen of the city of Otsego, I volunteered my labor for the clean up day to repay the city for what they provided me with and to gain first hand knowledge about the whole operation. The Otsego clean up day is a day set aside once per in the Spring by the city for residents to bring unwanted items such as tires, appliances, mattresses, furniture, used oil, batteries, scrap metal, and landfill material to a central location (city hall parking lot) where the items are unloaded, separated, and hauled to recycling companies and landfills. One pick -up -sized load of materials per household are accepted by the city for no charge . However, if the load is larger than pick -up -size or if the load contains certain items, the city charges a small fee. Tax dollars are used to make up the difference between what the city charges residents and what the various recycling/landfill companies charge the city. City employees run the operation with a lot of help coming from volunteers. The clean up day was conceived primarily for the purpose of maintaining a clean and neat looking city. The goal of the clean up day was not only to help residents maintain cleaner, junk -free yards, but also to provide residents with an alternative to disposing of their junk in less acceptable ways such as burning, dumping, and throwing in ditches. The city felt tax dollars would be wisely offset by sponsoring a clean up day rather than hiring road clean up crews to clean city ditches where some of the junk would have ended up. The clean up day also provides residents with a chance to dispose of waste that the regular garbage hauler does not normally take. Needless to say, our natural environment has benefitted from the clean up day. Many new natural resources have not needed to be tapped due to the recycling of materials while toxic substances such as used oil and lead from batteries has been recycled and not released into the environment. The clean up day is only one small community program yet it seems to be a cosmetically, financially, and environmentally beneficial and successful program. The clean up day usually runs for a period of 5 to 6 hours for collection. Stragglers are not turned away if they do not arrive too late after the cutoff time. Before residents enter the unloading area, they are checked for proof of residency in Otsego. It is rare for a non-resident of Otsego to show up with junk because Otsego coordinates it's clean up day with the clean up day of the neighboring communities of Monticello and Buffalo. This year 6 phone calls were received from non-residents of Otsego askI ng if their junk would be taken in. One non-resident showed up and was turned away., After residents are identified they are charged based on the types of items they brought to the clean up Costs are as follows: Residents are allowed one pick -up -sized load of trash free of charge. Larger trucks or trailers were charged extra based on volume. If the resident's load of trash contained items such as appliances or tires then a fee was charged. The first appliance had an $8.00 fee while additional appliances were accepted free of charge. Tire fees varied depending on the size of the tire. Small car tires were $1.00 while fees varied from $2 to $5 for truck and tractor tires. The remaining items are taken in at the clean up day for no charge. Free items include used oil, batteries, scrap metal, and landfill materials. Used oil is taken by the recycler for no charge while batteries and scrap metal are paid for by the recycle.. The scrap metal and the batteries are hauled to a metal dealer/recycle. by a private party. The dealer pays $25 per ton for the tin and $.02 per pound for batteries. The biggest expense for the city is getting rid of the landfill material. Landfill material is taken in by the city for no charge, therefore, the entire cost of getting rid of landfill material is absorbed by the city. Landfill material is usually hauled to the landfill in 40 cubic yard containers called rolloffs. $300 is charged by the landfiller for a 40 yd. rolloff . In addition, the landfill charges $10 to $15 dollars for mattresses which the city also absorbs. Once the items are collected and separated, they go to various destinatI ons to be recycled or landfilled. Appliances are taken by Appliance Recycling Centers of America (ARCA) 2601 Ne Broadway Rd. Mpls. Mn. There the appliances are disassembled and each part is processed and recycled. The appliance's metal frame is shredded and some is shipped to a metal recycler and the rest is used by various other companies for cement and road construction material. Fiberglass is also removed, shredded, and used for the same purpose. Toxic and environmentally hazardous materials present in appliances include refrigerants or CFC's which are evacuated, distilled, and resold as refrigerants by ARCA. Other toxic materials found in appliances include capacitors which contain PCB's and switches which contain mercury. All three materials are handled by ARCA in an environmentally safe way. ARCA is a full scale appliance recycler which means they deal with and try to recycle every part of the appliance. Rolloff (landfill) materials are taken by Demcon Disposal Inc. 648 Cty. Rd. 12, Buffalo, Mn. Landfill materials include wood, furnitureI mattresses, and just about anything imaginable which is not normally recycled. Demcon practices standard landfill procedures which include covering each days trash with a layer of soil. Tires are taken by National Tire located in Mpls. Mn. National Tire charges anywhere from $1 to $5 per fire depending on the size of the tire. Tires are unloaded onto a conveyor belt and transported to a shredder where they are shredded into 1 to 2 inch pIeces. The rubber pieces are shipped to coal burning power plants where they are mixed with coal to produce a higher BTU output of energy per volume of fuel. The coal -rubber mixture is also belI eved to produce less pollution. The wires present in the tires are pulled out, baled up, and sent to local metal recyclers. Batteries are hauled to Max Schwartzman and Sons Inc . in Anoka Mn. by a private party. Max Schwartzman Inc. is a scrap metal dealer who pays around $.02 per pound for car batteries. Price varies depending on amount brought in. From Max Schwartzman Inc. I n Anoka, the batteries are brought by the semi load to Gopher Smelting and Refining Co. in Eagan Mn. Gopher Smelting crushes the batteries and breaks them into pieces. The acid is removed and neutralized and the plastic is recycled. The lead from the batteries is smelted down, refined, and sold to various companies as lead for new batteries or items such as fishing sinkers. Scrap metal is also taken by Max Schwartzman and Sons Inc, in Anoka Mn. Scrap metals are processed into somewhat uniform sizes and usually shipped by rail to various smelting operations where the metals are refined into purer and more useable forms. Used oil is taken free of charge by any number of oil recyclers where the oil is pured and resold as fresh useable oil. Now that prices and destinations are known of the various clean up day materials, here is a graph of the amounts of items taken in per year since the clean up day began in 1990: Graph A: Amounts of items taken in per year. 1990 1991 1992 1993 Participants 398 82 400+ 400+ Appliances 277 70 293 309 Rolloffs 140yd. 40yd. 400yd. 400yd.+* Tires 1,309 - 2,033 2,000 Mattresses 92 2 45 78 Used oil - - 530ga1. 700ga1. Batteries - - - not available * estimate Since the program is only four years old, it is hard to make any concrete generalizations or notice any trends. 1991 had a low turn out because of nasty weather. Participation and appliance volumes seem to be steady while tire, oil, and rolloff amounts have increased. Overall, the first year (1990) had moderate volumes while 1991 dropped of considerably due to bad weather. 1992 rebounded significantly and 1993 slightly exceeded 1992's numbers. The following letter explains my survey intentions: Dear City Council, I am a student at North Hennepin Community College and enrolled in a biology course which concentrates on the study of current environmental issues. The course requires me to do an outside research project on a topic of my choice. The Otsego clean up day on May 1 would provide me with a local, current, and convenient topic to analyze. I am working with Judy Hudson on gathering statistics from previous years as well as other general information. Also, with the city council's permission, I would like to conduct a survey of citizens participating in the clean up day. My procedure would consist of forming five simple and easy to answer questions on paper, distributing the survey to citizens who are waiting in line to unload while making damn sure I do not disrupt or slow progress, compiling the data, and making the data available to the city and the general public, (via the city newsletter). I formed three questions and will use two questions Judy came up with. These five questions are not carved in stone and I am very willing to alter or change some or all of them based on specific information the city would like to know. Here are the questions: 1. Is the clean up day valuable and should it continue? 2. Does the clean up day inspire other clean up projects around your home or yard? 3. Should city tax dollars be spent to sponsor a clean up day? 4. Are your items coming from inside, (house, garage, shed), or from outside, (yard, pasture, ditch, field), or both? 5. Where would your items go or what would you do with them if the city did not have the clean up day? If there are any objections, questions, or comments please let me know. I am open for suggestions and other ideas in regard to my whole procedure. If I do not hear from anyone I will assume I have the O.K. Needless to say, I volunteered my body for the May 1 clean up day. Thank you for your cooperation. Sincerely, Matthew Blesi I sought general public attitudes and information about the clean up day with my survey. But, before I conducted the survey I wanted to make the city council and employees aware of my intentions to get permission to carry it out and to eliminate any possible surprises. I carried out my plans as described in the letter. Everyone I asked to fill out a survey obliged. Analysis of the survey is as follows: (Refer to survey chart A) The overwhelming majority said yes to questions 1 through 3. Not only do the people surveyed feel the clean up day should continue, they also approve of using city tax dollars to sponsor it. The survey also says the clean up day gets people in the cleaning mode and spinoff clean up projects result. Additional comments from question 1 include "I wish our neighbors would use this opportunity" and "Should have it twice a year then more people would take advantage of it." Many comments expressed people's desire for clean yards in their neighborhood. One resident even went so far as to suggest, "have a penalty for unclean yards." 54 out of 55 people answered yes to question 1. However, the response to question 1 may be deceiving because the 54 people who said yes, they think the clean up day is valuable and should continue, were in fact waiting in line with their junk and ready to benefit from the clean up day. Question 3 had several of these type of comments pertaining to taxes: "If that's what it takes [taxes] to make the neighborhoods look better", "If it keeps houses around mine clean !" One resident simply commented, "Pay as you go." Another resident realized if we're not taxed now we eventually pay later when they said, "If necessary, yes, otherwise people dump it and the city and we pay for it anyway." Another resident did not object to using taxes for the clean up day simply because it is "Good for the environment." (Refer to survey chart B) The city may be somewhat disappointed with the results of question 4. More junk seems to be coming inside rather than outside. One of the clean up day objectives is to make the city look more attractive by cleaning up junk laying outside in yards. (Refer to survey chart C) The results of question 5 seem good as long as the clean up day continues. If the clean up day was not offered, many residents would end up storing their junk either inside or outside. Many would take their junk to the landfill, although having enough money to do so was cited as a problem. Some would bring junk to the proper recycler while a few would burn theirs. A few people did not know what they would do with their junk. Most people cited the Landfill as the place they would bring their junk if the clean up day was not offered probably because the majority of the junk was landfill material rather than recyclables. In general, the clean up day is valued and should continue even if tax money is needed. More junk is coming from inside rather than outside and most people would keep their items if the clean up day did not exist. Participation and volumes of items taken in seem to be rising slightly each year (not counting 1991). The program is growing and the city should be pleased with it's success. Based on my research, survey, and hands-on involvement with the clean up day, I came to several promising conclusions. First, properly disposing of waste materials costs only a fraction of what it costs to buy them in the first place. Disposing costs should be figured in to the cost of owning the item and accepted before purchasing the item. Most waste materials can be processed by recycling companies if the effort is made by the individual to bring the material to the proper place. A myriad of uses and array of new products can come from wastes. While many items have low disposing costs, many are worth money. It is almost impossible for someone as an individual to solve our environmental problems some of which are global in proportion. However, each individual can do their small part to preserve the environment. Many individuals who are all living in an environmentally sound manner and working together can eventually take on and hopefully solve larger if not global environmental problems. Small community efforts to coordinate recycling/cleaning programs can work as Otsego has demonstrated. Grass -roots I nvolvement and volunteer effort can achieve success. Federally financed, organized, and implemented programs are not needed if small communities work together to get the job done. Otsego has a successful clean up day and is an example of the type of effort that needs to be made if humankind wants to preserve the planet. 55 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 5 0 Survey chart A: Questions 1-3, 55 people surveyed. YES NO YES NO YES NO 54 1 53 2 47 Q Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 1. Is the clean up day valuable and should it continue? 2. Does the clean up day inspire other clean up projects around your home or yard? 3. Should city tax dollars be spent to sponsor a clean up day8 45 40 35 30 2 2 1 1 5 0 Survey chart no Question 4, 55 people surveyed. HOUSE GARAGE SHED YARD PASTURE DITCH FIELD BOTH Question 4 4. Are your items coming from inside, (house, garage, shed), or from outside, (yard, pasture, ditch, field), or both0 30 2 2 1 1 5 0 Survey chart C: Question 5, 55 people surveyed. Items to Garbage Proper Burn Store in Store in Other* Landfill hauler recycler bldg. yard 29 6 8 4 16 16 4 Question 5 *Don't know 5. Where would your items go or what would you do with them if the city did not have the clean up day? 1993. Works Cited Furdie, Tim. Personal interview. Hudson, Judy. Personal interview. Sherrier, Phil. Personal interview. 21 May, 1993 12 April, 1993 and 28 May, 21 May, 1993. 0 Nom nnA" Vf x t Tl .a w.