Minutes

Township of Bloomfield Recycling Committee

October 13, 2010

Submitted by Jane Califf, Secretary

Attendance: Claire Anderson, Nicholas Joanow, Trish Comstock, Gerald (Jerry) MacIntyre, Jane Califf

A. Minutes of Sept. 8th accepted.

B. Municipal Recycling Containers: We will send a press release for the next issue of the Bloomfield Buzz and to local papers about the availability of municipal recycling containers for ads by local businesses. The greater the number of ads, the greater the profits that Creative Outdoor Advertising makes. Then our Committee will begin to get a small percentage of these profits, which we can use for our outreach efforts.

C. Electronic Recycling: On Sept. 25th, a DPW truck collected 2 cubic yards of electronics from Bloomfield residents at Brookdale Shoprite as part of our seasonal collection of electronics in the north end of town.

From 2007, when our electronic recycling began, until October 2010, we have recycled 1,462 computers. This is an important achievement in helping to keep toxic heavy metals from ending up in the Newark Covanta Incinerator and polluting our air. In addition, this saves the Bloomfield taxpayer money since it now costs $85 for each ton of trash that is burned at the incinerator.

D. Harvest Fest: Our table at the Sept. 25th Harvest Fest was a success. We had good cooperation with the Bloomfield Recreation Dept. which supplied us with tables and chairs; Jerry had an excellent sign made that was put on the sidewalk to point passers-by in our direction; the location was good – in front of the library close to the street; people appreciated the important information we distributed and the cloth bags from Green Sky Industries.

Here is an important sign that Jane made based on statistics supplied by Jerry:

Did you Know?

- Bloomfield PAYS$82.11/ ton to incinerate trash in Newark.
- Bloomfield EARNSup to $40/ton from recycling. ++
THEREFORE:
- Recycle more! Don't "burn" our tax dollars!
++ In 2008, Bloomfield SAVED over $811,000 tax
dollars by recycling and helped SAVE the
environment at the same time.

We noticed that people know a lot more about recycling than in the past, which is a credit to our efforts to educate residents on the importance of recycling. People who asked questions that we could not answer wrote them down. Jerry will see that they get called with an answer.

We were lucky to have master gardener Florence Rollino of Bloomfield create and staff a table explainingbackyard composting which combines leaves, grass and food scraps that over time create a natural fertilizer for lawns and gardens. Composting also keeps food waste from going to Covanta Incinerator in Newark, another way to save our tax dollars.

E. Recycling Brochure: We discussed a few more changes to be made. Claire will put in these revisions, so we will now have an updated version.

The next meeting of the Bloomfield Recycling Committee will be on Wed., Nov. 10th, 7 p.m., in the Mayor’s Conference Room on the second floor of the LawEnforcementBuilding on Montgomery St.