Emily:At this time, I would like to formally begin today’s webinar and introduce Katie Newcomb.
Katie:Thanks so much, Emily, and thank you all for joining us. We have a great lineup of speakers today. The topic of today’s presentation is waste prevention and recycling, but before we dive into that topic we have something great to share with you all. We’re going to start by showing you the new Sustainable Operations demonstration website, and then we’ll talk about retaining recycling proceeds, how to conduct a waste stream analysis, recycling awareness activities, eliminating waste from construction projects and composting. Then, what to do with waste prevention and recycling beyond the scorecard.
First, I’d like to introduce Meghan Oswalt. She’s the program analyst of Sustainable Operations in Montana, and she will be walking you through the new Sustainable Operations website, which I’m very excited about. Meghan, I’m going to share my desktop and then we can walk everyone through the website.
Meghan: Great. Thank you, Katie. Today, I’m going to share with all of you the Sus Ops demonstration site, and we’re calling it a demonstration site because we’re in the process of seeking approval to have the website be a Forest Service-wide Sustainable Operations website. The site is available [inaudible 0:01:32] and ready for people to use, but at this point in time I guess our URL is probably going to change once we do have approval as an official Forest Service website.
I’m glad that all of you could join us. What I’d like to do is not take you through the entire site, but rather highlight your key components of what I view as strengths of our website. These strengths include the availability of tools and resources, the encouragement to employees through our shared accomplishments, and access to contact information specific to a location.
What you’re seeing now is the homepage for our website. I’m not sure if it’s getting cut off on the right hand side, Katie. I don't know if that’s happening for everyone.
Katie: Let me know, Meghan, if that changed at all. It might be because I have a giant monitor.
Meghan:Yes, it changed a little bit. Now I can see the scroll on the right hand side. Thank you.
Our homepage is really an excellent demonstration of all of these strengths. You’re probably noticing the rotating images on this page, and each of these images is connected to a success story that we wanted to highlight from this field. The next item that you’re probably noticing is a list of tools down the right hand side of the page, and here we wanted to provide you this with an easy way to access several sustainability tools that we’re hoping will assist them in their work towards sustainability success.
Where I’d like to go now is to the stories page, Katie. Each of the rotating images on the homepage connects us to a story, but you can also click on the Stories tab at the top and get to the same location. We’ll give it just a minute to load. Katie, can you go back to the website and click on Stories next to About?
Katie:Yes, I think I got there. Is this right, Meghan?
Meghan: Okay. Yes. Thank you. If we scroll down on this page, we’ll actually see all of the stories rotating on the homepage listed here. You can either visit here to view all of them at once, or you can click on an individual rotating image on the homepage to get to the story. What I’d like to do is encourage each of you to explore these stories and then submit your own using the Sustainability Stories link on the right hand side.
This is just a great example of everyone sharing their success and sustainability with each other. We also have a link where you can search more of our [inaudible 0:04:38] sustainability stories from this page.
Now I’d like to go to our Resources and Tools page, Katie. Our Resources and Tools page, we tried to organize these various tools in several different ways with the understanding that everybody may search differently for tools and training. The first way that we tried to organize our Resources and Tools was by footprint area. You’ll notice there our footprints areas that are listed down the left hand side of the screen. If we select energy, for example, the middle section of the screen is actually going to populate with a list of resources and tools. We also have a definition to what we mean by energy, and this should give you an idea of the kinds of documents that are probably going to be listed in this area.
We’ve also categorized our resources and tools by areas of interest. It’s a very similar layout. The areas of interests are mostly down on the left hand side, and if we select climate change, for example, those resources and tools are populated in the middle along with the definition for what we mean by climate change.
We’ve also organized the tools by title, so alphabetically, A to Z by title. This is just to give everybody another way to search through our tools. If you selected any of the letters, all the items that start with that letter would be listed below. Of course then you can search our resources and tools, just to use this search on the right hand tool bar, and this will actually search the entire website. That’s just the fourth way for us to search.
We also listed here a Training tab, and under the Training tab we’ve tried to come up with a few categories to divide our trainings into. Again, if you selected any of those categories, the trainings associated with that particular category will populate in the middle. You can select them and either get the PowerPoint from that training, or a document, or get connected to a recording of that training.
The last tab that we have in our Resources and Tools is the Communications tab, and we’re still populating this section of the website. Here we’re trying to put all of our [inaudible 00:07:14], files and things such as Earth Day. Any of those kinds of communications in this section so that everybody has a place to go for that kind of information that you can take and use on your district or unit or research station. This is the section of the website that we worked probably the hardest on and really wanted to make sure that it was a one stop shop. With some letters along the right hand side of that feedback survey, if you’d go to the website and you notice that something’s missing or you’d really like to see something added, we’d greatly appreciate your feedback. We’ll try to get those tools and resources added to our page.
Now we’re going to visit the Green Team next. Katie, it’s under Green Teams. Yes, great. This is another section of the website that we’ve spent a lot of time on. We wanted Green Teams to be able to find each other and connect, especially on projects that you’re working on or maybe you know a Green Team that works on a project that you really want to get an idea of how to do it so you want to know who to contact on that Green Team. We created a map where you can add your Green Team, and you can also modify the information associated with your Green Team.
[Inaudible 0:08:32] from this presentation. Katie, can you scroll down just a tad?
Katie:I think that’s the closest I can get. Do you want me to try to ... oh, wait. Here we go.
Meghan: Perfect. Thanks. The way the Green Teams show up on the map is there’s a slide associated with each Green Team, and we’ve sort of teed up towards the left hand side of the screen. Right now we have our Green Teams divided into five different categories, so various colored slides means various categories such as red is our regional Green Teams, yellow are our stations or area Green Teams. If you actually click on one of the slides, the noted Green Team will pop up along with the contract information if you select the down arrow.
We’re hoping that this really helps our Green Teams connect with each other, especially if you’re working on projects where you just want to get to know your neighboring Green Team. Another great thing about this I guess scenario is that as your Green Team evolves and change, you can go in and actually modify the information associated with your Green Team. You can change your contact information, maybe your combined Green Teams. You can change the name of your Green Team. I like it because I’m a visual learner and a very visual person, so I find it very helpful to me visually, and I hope the rest of you find it helpful as well.
Then also I’d like you to go to our Key Contacts section. Just click on the About tab at the top. [Inaudible 00:10:12] trying to list out key contacts not only for Sustainable Operation but also an individual for each region and station or research area. At the top, we’ve got listed out are Sustainable Operations contacts, and if we scroll down the regional contacts are listed in order. Region 1 is [inaudible 0:10:31], and Region 10 is listed towards the bottom along with our research areas. [Inaudible 0:10:40] we hope is here. If you have a question and you’re not sure who to contact, this is who you reach out to and that can put you in touch with an appropriate person or they may have an answer themselves.
That’s all I’d like to share with everyone today. I really hope that I’ve encouraged you to come to our site and explore more on your own. There’s definitely a lot more to see and a lot more to share, and I hope you’ll take the time to go to the site and also take the time to leave us your feedback. We really want to make sure that our site is useful to everyone within our agency.
Thanks, Katie.
Katie:Thanks so much, Meghan. That was a great overview. The website is really exciting. I do think if people have questions about this topic we can take them at this time, just before we move on to waste prevention and recycling. If you have a question, I believe you press star one.
Female:Yes, that’s correct. If you press star one on your phone, then you will be notified when your phone is unmuted. You can just state your name and then your question. If your question has been answered before we get to you, just hit star one, one more time and that will take you out of the questions queue. If anybody has any questions at this time, go ahead.
It doesn’t look like we have any questions yet.
Katie:Okay, I have one question over the notes on the webinar, and it’s just about what is the URL for the website. I’ll add it in the notes to everyone. Like Meghan mentioned, it’s not the permanent URL. It’s for the demonstration site. You could use it for now but we’ll let everyone know when we have the permanent URL. Is that right, Meghan?
Meghan: Yes. Thanks, Katie.
Female:Okay. I still don’t see any questions yet.
Katie:Okay. That’s all right. I think we can move on. We can have this really quick.
Female:It looks like we have one.
Male:… about how she sees the Green Team map helping facilitate the discussion. I think it’s great having the contact names for all the different Green Teams, but I’m just wondering if you have specific ideas as to how having that contact would really facilitate that.
Meghan: Yes. I think that’s a great question, actually. The map provides you with a visual and also provides you a contact information, but one way to link your team to another team would be maybe you’re searching through the success stories and you see that a certain person has concluded maybe a recycling effort that you want to mimic. Hopefully, you can go to that map and find that contact information. It’s also listed under the success story, I believe.
Another idea that we had and discussed in length was this idea that I think a lot of Green Teams aren’t sure where another Green Team is. They don’t know if one exists within their forest or in a neighboring town. I’m hoping that by [inaudible 0:14:36], you can actually zoom into the map almost to street level and then be able to see there’s somebody 10 miles or 20 miles away from me and maybe we could connect and figure out how they’re getting all their recycling done. Maybe we can also do something similar.
Hopefully that helps answer your question. We were just trying to put the information out there and let people take it and use it as they wish, where they see most fitting.
Katie:Thanks, Meghan. Sounds like his line might have gotten muted again. Is that the last question, I think?
Female: I believe that is it. I do not see any other questions.
Katie:Okay, thanks. Thanks so much, Meghan. That was a great presentation, and I appreciate your patience with me clicking the buttons on the website.
This is Katie Newcomb, and now I’ll be talking to you guys about retaining recycling proceeds, which is something that’s fairly new to the Forest Service and a great opportunity to get some money for Sustainable Operations programs. What can the Forest Service do? We can retain or receive revenue resulting from waste prevention and recycling programs, and energy and water rebates. I’m going to be focusing today on the recycling program, but if you want more information about the energy and water rebate, please just send me an e-mail.
You can use the revenue from waste prevention and recycling programs for a number of things such as repurchasing recycling bins, [inaudible 00:16:25] keeping, proper disposal of hazardous materials, things like this. Units have used the funds in many creative ways, including as a source for amassing funds for grants to further their Sustainable Operations work.
What is involved is using two job codes. One is for the waste management and one is for the green purchasing, which is the energy and water rebates. The job codes are on your screen. You still have to request spending authorities from your budget, with your budget staff and create a Sustainable Operations program. One hundred percent of the waste management proceeds are available to your unit, and they roll over so you don’t have to spend them the year that you collect them. They will stay in that fund.
I’m not going to go over this slide very closely, but I just wanted to make sure that we captured it so if you guys reference these slides later you have the authority and the policy. It’s just in the Forest Service Handbook, section 6509.19, and then in the Forest Service Manual 6460 is where you can find the authority to retain recycling proceeds on your unit.
How do you get started? The first step is to establish a Sustainable Operations waste management program. If you don’t do this, all of the money is supposed to go back to Treasury, but if you establish a program you can keep all of the recycling proceeds on your unit. A Sustainable Operations waste management program can look different from unit to unit. It can be at the regional level or the forest level or at the district level. The regional forester directors or forest supervisors direct the formation of the Sustainable Operations waste management program. It could be a Green Team, one individual unit recycling coordinator, or a recycling team. - whatever works best for your unit. It can be as formal, as informal as you like, as long you have a line officer signature on a letter or a charter that includes a plan of work and some way to track and document what you’re doing. There are plenty of other elements that can be part of your sustainable operations activities, and there’s more guidance available in the manuals and handbooks and online, specifically on the website that Meghan just shared.
Recycling of any materials possible is allowed and encouraged. Waste management is managing change in the purchase and use of products to reduce the amount of solid waste entering the disposal facilities. Scrap metal seems to be the most common recycling item that the Forest Service raise funds from. For example, if metal is dumped in the forest and your unit recovers it, if you are able to sell that metal to a recycling center you can retain that funding. Aluminum cans are another common source of funding.
The disposal and excess rules for property still apply. If you check with your acquisition staff for GSA rules and processes, then you’ll make sure that you’re following all the regulations. This does not include Forest Service or GSA vehicles or computers. There are separate programs for both of those. Otherwise, as long as you can recycle it and sell it, then you can retain the proceeds.
Specific opportunities for this will depend on the community and vary greatly. Your current waste management services provider is a good place to start. Often I’ve heard stories of people that just call their waste management provider and asked if they have certain recycling, and it’s something that is available to them but they just didn’t know and it’s not advertised, so that’s always the first place to start. Otherwise, there are websites such as Earth911.com or your local country or state website where you can find recyclers.