Sustainability Advisory Board Agenda and Packet 2012 05 16

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To: Louisville City Staff & City Council From: Louisville Sustainability Advisory Board(LSAB) Subject: LSAB’s Proposed Resolution to AdoptBoulder County’s Zero-Waste Plan Date: 20April2012 The past few months, members of LSAB have continued a review of Boulder County’s Zero-Waste Plan thatbegan following apresentation of that plan to our board last springby County Staff member Ms Lisa Friend. The Plan can be reviewed at www.bouldercounty.org/find/library/gogreen/zerowasteactionplan2010.pdf. At our July 2011 meeting, the members of LSAB endorsed this Plan, and passed along a memo that encouragedCity Council to adopt it as a guiding document for our city, as part of the packet of materials for Ms Friend’s presentation of thePlan to City Council at an August 2011 study session. To facilitate our city’s adoption of that Plan, at our April 2012 LSAB meeting our members voted unanimously to formally endorse thePlan and submit the attached proposed Resolution Series 2012 for review by city staff, and for review and adoption by City Council.If you have any questions about our endorsement or proposed Resolution, we’d be glad to provide responses. If yourecommend any changes, we’d certainly appreciate being notifiedof proposedchanges. As noted in the Plan’s introduction, residents and businesses in Boulder County send approximately a quarter-million tonsof ‘trash’ to landfill each year! Of that tonnage, more than 5,000 tons comprise paper and cardboard waste that could be recycled to make new paper products; more than 5,000 tons are building materials (wood, shingles, metals) that could have secondary uses; and approximately 25,000 tons are food and yard waste that create methane gas through their anaerobic decomposition within landfills, a much more lethal gas than the carbon dioxide those tons would generate as reusable compost material. We believe Boulder County’s Zero-Waste Plan is a well-detailed guide that describes 17 short-term and 11 mid-term actions or procedures (pp 12-40 in the Plan) that can be demonstrated to reduce tonnages that might go to landfills, reduce hazards to our local environment, and potentially offer new local economic opportunities. The Plan’s development tookquite some time. It started with detailed analyses of options initially provided by Ms Lisa Skumatz (SERA, Superior), and continued with detailed discussions about the many options at various public meetings and themonthly meetings of Boulder County’s Resource Conservation Advisory Board. The Plan was refined over that time, with input from dozens of county residents, business owners, and local-government representatives. All its recommendations have had detailed reviews and consideration of their likely effectiveness for short-(1-2 years) or mid-term (3-5 years) success. Page 1of 3