Sustainability Advisory Board Agenda and Packet 2010 09 15

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Louisville SustainabilityAdvisory Board Minutes –July 21, 2010 Page 2of 3 Ann whether they are considering doing commercial. Commercial is such a different animal. In Louisville, we have almost equal square footage for residential and commercial. Peter says a lot of the commercial office space around here is pretty new and wouldn’t be a candidate. Colorado Tech Center may not need the help, but small businesses, for example in the Old Town area, may. Plastic Bags Program–Mark checked with Doug Short, staff liaison for the City of Lafayette’s board. Their city council said to pursue the topic further. Later on this year, Doug will try to start drafting something up. They would lookat 2011 as the earliest they would be doing a formal proposal. Mark said that he will follow up on talking with retailers. San Francisco’s program has beenin effect for a couple of years. The SF program onlyapplied to large stores and single-useplasticbags. There was no effect on smaller merchants. The SF program allowed paper bags and “compostable” bags, which simply broke down into smaller pieces of plastic. What they discovered was that everybody did just set out paper bags. They are trying to modifythe program to make it all single-use bags, including paper bags. Other close communities are being threatened withlawsuits by plastics industry, for any ban on plastic bags without an environmental studying provingthat thebags are harmful. The State of Californiais looking at a ban. Smaller areaswithin Californiaare looking to the state. If Californiadoes not passlegislation, smaller communities will implement a fee. Telluride isconsidering a ban on all types of plastic bags by all merchants. The Telluride program has gone through several work study sessions with city council and will be considered again at anAugust 3 session.Los Angelesis supposed to have started a ban effective July 1. Mark could not find any information on the impact since it went into effect. He was surprised that the industry reps seem to be ready to push back hard. Doug Short at Lafayette said he got a call from a nationwide plastic bag organization and said that if there was a ban they would have to bring a lawsuit. InCalifornia, when it went from just areas to state, the California Agricultural Council said they would prefer a statewide standard. Marksaid that heintends to (1) goto the Louisville Chamberandthe Downtown Business Associationand find out what merchants think and make a presentation that for those who do retail sales we want to propose that you offer alternative type bags and that you go in as a group to buy these bags. (2) goto some of the merchants and asking if they have noticed any change in whattheyhave to provide to customers and what is theiropinion of charging a fee for abag? Marksaid that hesuspects that it will all be corporate buying. We may be dependant on national corporate policy before we see change here. If they are not willing to offer something, maybe come up with a city program to charge a fee or institute ban. Give merchants a chance to do the right thing first. Dave Szabados and Mary Ann saidthat the merchants who are ahead of the game, Vitamin Cottage and Whole Foods are doing the right thing. An incentive might be better than a fee. Mary Ann said that if you got a lot of buy-in from the local small merchants, maybe you could go to do the larger national merchants. Peter Sharp said thatKings Soopers might be a good place to start. Maybe Albertson’s and others would follow suit. Hardware and big box stores will be more problematic.Clerks just seem to automatically use plastic. Mark’s intent is to devote more time. Later August or September he plans to meet with the different business associations.A member from the Lafayette waste reduction advisory board asked Mark whether we would like to have an informal joint meeting to discuss plastic bags. Mark said that he thinks we should have a joint meeting. Mary Ann said that she thinks we have our plates full. Annie agreed. Mark said he thinksthatany time we are contacted by another city proposing a meeting, we should take advantage of it. Mark will ask Doug Short what they are interested in discussing. It was noted by several members that LSAB has a pretty full agenda for the next few months. Consensus from Whole Board Needed Before Members Take Actions on Behalf of Board-Mary Ann saidthat any actions should come from consensus of the board and be documented. Mark should bring the board a checklist of things that he wants to discuss with merchants and get feedback and approval from the board before proceeding. Mary Ann made a motion that each member present their goals andthatconsensusbereached before proceeding with any actions. Annie seconded it.A discussion took place. If we come with formal plans it makes us think through what we’re trying to achieve and how we get there. Putting plans on paper will make process smoother. All voted in favor. We need to let Robin and Arno know. LSAB Information for City Website–Annie and Arno, deferred to next month. Members should submit links and information to Arno and Annievia Kerry. Maybe action plan could be geared around guidelines for how we collect information. For example, what’s appropriate and what’s not. RSS feeds from government sites? Tips of the week, tips of the day. It would be great to have a green calendar.