Thanks to Green Lifestyle Consulting for the tip!

I even tried to model this year’s Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival on it, which was only somewhat successful. We recycled for the first time—so much that we overflowed our capacity for it. But the composting didn’t go over so well, and the whole thing was unnecessarily hectic.

The Boston Local Food Festival's waste stations.

So what did I learn from the comparison?

• Require compostable dishes. The Boston Local Food Festival’s composting worked because people didn’t have to dispose of their food and dishes separately or worry that food contaminated their recyclable dishes. Everything could just be thrown in together. Compostable dishes were a requirement that was included in the food vendors’ contracts.
• Use a single waste disposal company. Save That Stuff handled the collection and disposal of the recycling, composting, and trash. Berklee used Jet-A-Way for trash, Capital Paper Recycling for recycling, Planet Police for compost, and Acme Building Services to collect it all. This made sense in our last-minute scramble to pull this all together, since they’re all companies that Berklee already contracts with, but it made for a disjointed and inefficient system. With one company, the collectors are knowledgable about the process—I saw one Save That Stuff woman reaching into the trash (with gloves) to pull out plates that people had mistakenly thrown away, decreasing the trash by at least half. This is actually in Save That Stuff’s best interest, since it costs more to throw stuff away than to recycle or compost it.
• Enlist passionate volunteers. The Boston Local Food Festival had two friendly volunteers at each station to educate people about what goes where. BeanTown had one student at each, who had been randomly assigned the job. Some of them were great at engaging festivalgoers; others, not so much. Enlisting volunteers who are actually enthusiastic and knowledgable about reducing waste would help.

The Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival's waste stations.

What’s the Cool Dedham campaign?

The Cool Dedham campaign is modeled after the Cool Mass campaign, which is through the Massachusetts Climate Action Network. The town of Dedham was one of nine communities to be chosen to participate in this groundbreaking initiative that targets residential carbon emissions. We do that by working through a workbook called The Low-Carbon Diet. We have a Carbon Café, held at a café in Dedham. Our first Café we had 70 people come out, and we formed eco-teams—usually 7 or 8 individuals—who work to lower their carbon footprint. This workbook has 24 steps with easy low-hanging fruit to change their lifestyle to make a difference. We have a goal of getting 25% of Dedham’s 24,000 residents to lower their carbon emissions by 25% within a three-year-period.

We started off with this eco-team that was sort of the top of the eco teams; they nicknamed themselves the clothesline gang, because they hang all their clothes out on clotheslines. Their homes were already solar, they already drive hybrid vehicles, they’re vegetarians, they’re doing everything already that could lower their emissions, so we have used them as our standup model of what an eco-team could be, and they’ve really been great in getting the community involved.

It’s honestly been a challenge to try to get that many residents to continue to be engaged and to continue to spread the word about it. So we’re extending that three-year period, and it’s going to be much longer than that. I think that was a very ambitious goal. That’s what a lot of other communities are finding, too. It’s a big challenge, but it’s something that we’re working at.

How are you measuring results?

We’re measuring results by asking the participants to report back to us. And MCAN has a list of questions that they send to us at the end of each year asking us about the total emissions that we believe our eco-teams have reduced. The book is not really scientific, quantitative, but there is a workbook in the back where you can plug in how much you believe that you will reduce if you participate in these measures. So through that we can get a rough estimate of what we believe that we’re reducing as a result.

Is the focus of this entirely on residents or is it also on businesses?

That’s just residents. For businesses we have another program that we just started: commercial recycling. We received a Sustainable Material Recovery Grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Waste Prevention. We received technical assistance from a municipal assistance coordinator, and she helped us create a survey that we sent out to Dedham businesses. We’re focusing on Dedham Square, and we’re finding out what they recycle. The reason we started this is that a lot of Dedham businesses don’t recycle, or they recycle but they take it home with them, and that’s because their landlord has not provided recycling services for them. They provide trash services. So we’re trying to find out what their needs are through a survey, and now we are going to put out a request for proposal to hauling companies and see if we can lump these businesses that share an alley in together to save them money on recycling. Also to save space; there’s such limited space in these alleys.

But recycling is usually cheaper than trash pickup, isn’t it?

It is. Exactly. So that’s part of our education campaign of trying to educate these owners and landlords that they’ll actually end up saving money, because it’s actually more expensive to dispose of trash than it is to dispose of recycling.

There’s so much more that I need to learn about urban planning! Thanks to Virginia for putting up with my curiosity.

What exactly does your job involve?

I cover a wide variety of environmental issues for the town of Dedham: climate change, energy efficiency, recycling, stormwater management, wildlife management…. We also have a conservation agent and a conservation commission, and they cover wetlands-related issues. I work with the DPW on recycling, and the town administration, as well. I’m really the education and outreach component, and I also do a lot of grantwriting.

Virginia LeClair

Did this position exist before you came there?

No, this is a new position that was created by the town administration, the town administrator, and the conservation commission. This position has sort of evolved over time as a result of my interest in climate change, my interest in recycling, and it just continues to evolve as we decide that we want to go for other sustainable initiatives and we receive more grants. So it’s very exciting. You never know what you’re going to be doing each day.

Is it difficult for you to get all these different agencies working together?

We have a good system set up. We have weekly operations meetings with the town administrator, and in those meetings are the public works director, the engineering director, the building director, the economic development director, the director of finance, and the assistant town administrator. And then on a monthly basis we have department head meetings where we can inform all the other department heads what projects we’re working on. So we have a really good communication system set up, and everyone here very much has a mindset of we’re all in this together, we’re team players trying to make Dedham better.

What sort of background do you have? It sounds like you are doing a lot of things that don’t really fall under one category.

I’ve worked for nonprofits; I’ve worked for other municipalities; I’ve worked in the private sector, in a consulting company; and I went to school for environmental studies public policy. So just over the years working in all these different sectors in Boston and D.C., I’ve just continued to expand my knowledge of the environmental field.

What sorts of outreach do you do?

On the front of recycling, we did a yearlong outreach campaign, because we switched from dual-stream recycling to single-stream recycling. We did public education discussing the change from five barrels of trash to only one 64 gallon trash barrel and one 96 gallon recycling barrel. Seventy percent of your household garbage is actually recyclable.

Then I’ve done some work with the schools. The All-American Recycling Competition is a competition each year where we go into the elementary schools to teach them about recycling. The third place prize is a compost bin for the school and recycled denim pencils; the second place prize is a recycling magic show; and the first place prize is an interview with Dedham Public TV. So it’s the youth educating adults about what is recyclable, and hopefully that resonates well with adults.

We received a $500,000 grant from Congressman Lynch’s office—this was funding through the Energy and Water Appropriations Act of fiscal year 2010—and we’re using that money to install photovoltaic panels on the town hall and the high school. We’re calling this the Dedham Municipal Solar Project.

The other exciting award that we received was the Leading by Example Award from the state in 2009. It’s given out to commonwealth agencies, public colleges, universities, and municipalities, and we were one of three in Massachusetts to be given this award for implementing comprehensive policy, programs, and strategies resulting in significant and measurable environmental benefits. We received the award in part for our single-stream recycling program and the Green Middle School. It has cisterns that gather rainwater to flush the toilets. In 2010, Dedham received the MassRecycle Small Municipality Award for our single-stream recycling program and recycling initiatives.

What sort of response did you get to the single-stream recycling?

Single-stream recycling has been a great success. As a result of this program, our trash tonnage has dropped by 4,000 tons and our recycling rate has doubled from 12 tons to 25 tons in the first 7 months of implementing it. Our hauler is Russell Disposal, and they were saying that our recycling rates should double, which it did. And we saved $400,000 since switching to Russell Disposal. It’s been a great program.

In 2010, Dedham was designated a Green Community. We’re one of 53 communities in the commonwealth to receive this designation. There are five steps that a community must go through in order to be designated a green community. It involves:

• adopting local zoning bylaw or ordinance that allows “as-of-right-siting” of renewable energy projects
• adopting an expedited permitting process related to the as-of-right facilities
• establishing a municipal energy use baseline and establishing a program designed to reduce baseline use by 20 percent within five years
• purchasing only fuel-efficient vehicles for municipal use, whenever such vehicles are commercially available and practicable
• adopting the stretch code, an optional appendix to the Massachusetts building energy code that allows communities to choose a more energy-efficient option.

It’s the biggest carrot that the state is dangling in front of all the communities right now. As part of this award, we receive $180,000, and we’re using that to buy down the cost of our PV system at the town hall and the high school. And we were also awarded three big belly solar trash compactors.

Look for the second half of my interview with Virginia LeClair on Thursday, when we’ll talk about the Cool Dedham campaign and her initiatives to encourage business recycling.

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They’re intended to take the place of disposable dishes, but I definitely wouldn’t throw them away after just one use. They’re heavier duty than regular disposables and are even dishwasher safe (on low heat). The tableware’s typical plastic, and the plates are sturdier than I’d expect. The cups are good, but they bend a little more than I’d like.

The best part is that when the dishes do finally break, they can be recycled again—they’re made completely out of #5 plastic. If your town doesn’t recycle that kind, Preserve will recycle it for you. Not only that, they’ll take any #5 plastic that you want to send in.

How did you start this company?

It branched off of a major recycling company, Environmental Operation Management Services (EOMS), about three years ago. We decided to put a separate arm of the company together to handle food waste. It was almost experimental at the beginning. The containers are pretty much the same as you would use for gathering bottles and cans on the campus. Where all of that investment was already made, it was now a matter of seeing if it would work. And it has. There’s a long long way to go, don’t get me wrong, but as of right now, it’s working. And as the desire comes up, everybody will be in position to do more of it.

Leon Tarentino of Planet Police

How many customers do you have?

70-75.

What sorts of places?

We’re doing some hospitals. Public schools, we’re just branching into. We do a lot of hotels, restaurants, other colleges. And food manufacturers, bakeries.

What’s your service area?

We cover from the Lynn area north of Boston to Framingham, Natick, and Westborough, and then the Rhode Island line and up the Cape Cod canal and up the south shore, all of Boston.

That’s a huge service area for just four employees!

That’s part of the issue; that’s why we continue to try to grow within it. It’s a route density issue. There’s a lot of driving.

Is it cost effective if gas prices rise?

If the fuel prices keep increasing, it is going to become more of an issue. That’s why we need to get that route density, so they’re stopping more times but less distance. Right now we are doing okay with it.

What is your background?

My background was 32 years in the food service industry, where I worked for a distributor that brought the food to the location rather than away from it. I’ve spent a lot of time in kitchens.

How many other services like this exist right now?

The only other company that does this is Save that Stuff in Charlestown. They have a lot tighter footprint; they don’t branch out to the suburbs much at all. I think Casella has a like service in Vermont, but they don’t do food waste in Massachusetts.

Many times I’ll go in to see a prospect who will say, “I really thought of doing this, I just didn’t know how to go about it,” because there aren’t that many players in the game. At some point in time, when the demand comes up, like everything else, there will be other companies involved, as well.

Are there a lot of different sites that you’re able to take the compost?

There are probably 12 state-approved facilities. But the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) is trying their best to develop, say, 5 more sites with anaerobic digesters in the state. Right now they’re mostly open-air facilities, either farms or just dedicated compost yards, but it’s an outside process, not internal.

Are these facilities able to compost biodegradable plastic?

Usually in a case where there’s plastic it goes to the digester, because they don’t have an issue with it. But any of the open-air facilities prefer not to have the plastics in there, because it doesn’t decompose at the same rate, and then the finished product doesn’t have the pH levels that, say, all food would have or all yard waste. If we have customers that use the biodegradable or compostable products, then we’ll bring that to a digester facility.

There’s a certain percentage that the farmers don’t have a problem with. They separate it out, anyway. There’s a certain fudge factor, certain things that do get in there that they don’t have a problem handling. At this point, no one has called and said with Berklee we have to treat it differently, so right now it’s going to more outside facilities than the digester.

I heard there weren’t very many anaerobic digesters in the state.

There aren’t. There’s actually one right now, and there’s going to be one in Rockland, and then they’re looking in the southeast area, they want to get down near the border, near the Cape, but they have a tough time. It’s expensive—multimillion-dollar investments. That’s why it’s kind of a dog chasing its tail. Do we have enough material, and do we have the place to bring it? If the DEP had their way they would have mandated last May that you’d have to separate food waste out of solid waste, but they quickly realized if they did that, there wouldn’t be enough haulers or facilities to handle it. So what’s going to happen? It’s going to end up right back in the landfill again. Over time I’m sure they’ll rectify those issues. A lot of out-of-state investors have come forward and they want to spend the money on digesters. It’s honestly a matter of the town or the city not having a problem. The old NIMBY [not in my backyard] thing. I’m on the DEP organic task force to help them to try to establish these facilities.

You wouldn’t think that would be that much of an issue,  because it’s indoors.

It’s an education issue. A lot of people think they’re going to get the downwind effect; they don’t want the smell. These are all internal facilities with scrubbers and the air is cleaned. The one we have in Southborough right now, they have not had a complaint on any odors, because it is well kept internally.

The farmers, unfortunately, they’re closing down year after year. They’re taking the big development money and selling their farms, and of course that’s less facilities. That’s why we need those digesters; we desperately need them.

I do consider myself an environmentalist, but I eat too much meat, drive too big a car, and am far too lazy to call myself a good one. I want to be a good steward of the earth, but more in the way I want to go to the gym than the way that I want an ice cream cone—an individually wrapped in non-recyclable packaging, preservative- and chemical-laden Nutty Buddy. Oh yeah.

Adam helps with the recycling.

So in the little moments I snatch in my busy schedule of working, raising a kid, and not going to the gym, what’s the minimum I can do to be part of the solution? What are my tricks for making things a tiny bit easier—just enough to tip them over into “doable”?

1. Enlist an expert. Seriously, there’s a ton of information out there, and how in the world is a person supposed to decide whether it’s more Earth-friendly to drive five extra miles to buy organic from Whole Foods or go the nearby Johnnie’s Foodmaster, save the gas, and just wash off the pesticides? Luckily, I have a good friend whose blog you are coincidentally reading right now. I am a mediocre researcher, and Brenda often knows the answers to my questions off the top of her head, or knows where to look for the best info. If you don’t have a friend like this, you can borrow mine. I’ve been trying to talk her into adding an “Ask the Pragmatic Environmentalist” feature for a little while now. If you think this is a good idea, send her questions.
2. Raid your neighbor’s garden. If you have friends and neighbors who garden, chances are they’re offering you tomatoes and zucchini in the summertime. And you know what? They mean it. They’re not just being polite—or rather, they are just being polite, inasmuch as they are not begging and pleading with you to get all this zucchini out of their house, for the love of God.
3. Get a cherry tomato plant. I say this as an incredibly lazy person who rarely remembered to water hers—that one plant must have given me almost half a bushel of tomatoes last summer, at a rate of 5-15 per day. As someone who hates getting dirty and considers gardening to be significantly less fun than getting blood drawn, I can truly say I love my cherry tomatoes.
4. Keep a recycling bin in the bathroom. I’m enough of a slacker that by “bin” I mean “paper bag,” but if you care about aesthetics, you could get a more attractive vessel. Do you know how many toilet paper rolls were getting thrown away because I couldn’t bother to bring them downstairs in the middle of the night? How many pill bottles and the boxes they come in, slips of paper that I emptied out of my pockets at the end of the day, cardboard that the new sheets came wrapped in? Most of our recycling lives in the kitchen, but since our only bathroom is upstairs, it never made it in. Now at least 1/3 of our paper recycling comes from upstairs.
5. Eat the foods you love (that are vegetarian). When I think, “Oh, I should eat more vegetarian meals,” and then try to decide what to make, it goes poorly. I’m too old fashioned—I was raised on meat and potatoes. Veggies were a side dish. But when I find a vegetarian dish that I love, I add it to the rotation, and that can add up. Mushroom and leek gougère, falafel and hummus, cheese lasagna… Non-meat meals are generally cheaper, healthier (even with my, shall we say, liberal use of cheese), and much better for the world.

I have other laziness-related tips, like how you use less harsh chemicals when you just don’t clean your house at all and save water by not showering for a few days in a row. Don’t get me wrong—there are things I do that involve going out of my way—but mostly I’m looking for the path of least resistance in bringing my concerns about the environment into practice in my life, and you’d be surprised how possible that is.

Can’t make the tour? Find out more information on the City of Cambridge’s recycling program on their website. They have lots of resources there.

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I’ve tried to stump the search with hard-to-recycle things, and it’s performed admirably. I have no idea how they keep it so well informed, but kudos to them.