Our Lady of Good Counsel
Green Church Committee
May 24, 2022
Minutes

Present – Salvatore Marchese, Katie Charette, John Plecash, Mary Trevisan, Rose-Marie Valade, Karen
Gionette, Wanda Taillefer, Betty Boissineau, Suzanne Shoust, with guest John Martella
Regrets – Fr. Paul, Chris Shoust
Opening Prayer – Led by Salvator Marchese
Approval of the Agenda – Approved
Approval of the Minutes of the April 21, 2022 Meeting – Approved by Wanda, seconded by Katie
Meeting began with a discussion with special guest John Martella from GFL Environmental, he was
only available for a short time (see attached for what was presented and discussed).
Business Arising:
1. Resignation – Randy Johnson has resigned from the committee due to too many commitments
and too much going on in his life presently, he needed to step away.
2. Highway Cleanup – John picked up the materials, i.e. bags, vests and signs. No one had
contacted the office in regards to volunteering. Date for the cleanup set for Saturday, May 28 th .
We don’t foresee a lot of pickup. Focus on one side of the highway and set aside the second
side for another date. Meet at the church for 9:30 a.m., no need for video review as all those
volunteering have seen it previously. Parking same locations available as previous cleanup.
Waiver to sign on Saturday morning. John will drop items at depot at the end of the cleanup.
Grabbers needed, Rose-Marie to check with Fr. Paul if he still has them.
3. Website Review – Defer to another meeting when Chris is present.
4. Updates
i. Metal Lids – tips for July, photos of what is acceptable.
ii. Styrofoam Project – defer for another meeting when Chris is present.
iii. Outreach from Neighbouring Churches – Not heard from anyone else.
iv. Clean North Communications – Possible collaboration on projects. Need to speak with
Peter McLarty. Salvatore has spoken with them with regards to other projects. Salvatore
would be our Liaison with Clean North.
v. Municipal Methane Wells – Rose-Marie is working on editing the pamphlet Chris created.
vi. GFL Recycling (discussion with John Martella).
vii. Starfish Project – Margo Dale with regards to a report request, Salvatore to possibly follow
up and see if there are other ways to connect her with individuals who may be of
assistance.

New Business:
a) New round of meeting Chairs – Rose-Marie, Salvatore, possibly Chris for the next few
meetings. Katie, maybe.
a) Collection box for metal lids – Rose-Marie will provide and leave this box for collection.

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Additional Notes re: Guest Speaker John Martella graciously provided by Mary Trevisan

Guest Speaker: John Martella

Of G.F.L.

(Local garbage pick up and recycling facility)

May 26, 2022

SSM = first in Ontario to do an all- in- one split system recycling bin – eg. papers one side - metals, some plastics, glass the other. Used to have one yellow and one blue box.
Workers used to have to hand sort – now more onus put on individual residents. “Gotta teach at the home” . GFL will let you know if/why an item is rejected. (in the form of a “slip of rejection”).
Plastic Bags are contaminants – have no value. They plug up streams and get stuck in air filters. Single use bags will be gone in the next 3 – 5 years – will go back to paper bags.
Cart system:
Separates fibre and #1,#2 bottles = bottle form with a neck.
#1 = pop, water bottles
#2 = chemicals – eg. Tide, Javex
Each plastic has different properties – not all #1s are the same.
The base of a water bottle = a #1, but not the lid.
Caps and lids are explosive when compressed. So take off lids – put in garbage
Mandate is to recycle all that is deemed collectable. Eg #1,#2 plastic bottles only + glass bottles, jars, clean metal cans and tins, clean tinfoil, clean aluminum cans. Re: fibres: newspapers, magazines, cardboard/boxboard, hard/soft cover books, clean used paper (printed paper, etc.), toilet/paper towel rolls, egg paper cartons
Although other regions may accept more items – eg. Peel – 15% of this likely still goes to landfill.
“At least I collect what I can sell”. “We recycle what we can re-use and sell.”
The right product operates at 6 tons/hour.
China and India take the good and burn the rest – thereby polluting the environment.
A lot comes back in some form to Walmart, Home Depot, etc.
Ship thousands a month to China. Need the volume/masses to ship right away so it doesn’t spoil.
Water bottles, pepsi bottles and laundry bottles = big sellers?

Juice boxes – smell because people don’t rinse. Similarly in July swarms of dopey hornets at the plant because of unrinsed aluminum drink cans.
Rodents also a problem.
Aluminum is shipped out once every 1 ½ months.
6 loads a week of fibre - increased cardboard because of Amazon purchases.
Toronto wins the race because of demographics (large population) plus close to waterway for shipping.
Specific Dos and Don’ts:
Glossy magazines ok.
Watch for tinny wrapping paper. Will accept reluctantly, as well as some greeting cards.
Allowed 2% contamination
Tip: use a good rubber spatula to clean out peanut butter jars. Mayo jars even more challenging!
The more you wash items at home, the less they have to use thousands of gallons of water to do so at an industrial plant.
Mantra: “Cap off – rinse well – crush”.
Take plastic rim off Kleenex boxes.
#1, #2 bottles only – no plastic trays.
Coffee cans (metal or plastic) but no lid.
Take-out cups but no lids – part of 2% contamination allowance.
Can keep labels on metal cans. Can put sharp lid inside.
Pizza boxes – clean out as best you can – becomes a “meat factory” if everyone’s has leftover sausage, etc. inside!
If receive #s 3 – 7 they pile off to side for either buyer; shipping, or land-fill.
GFL trucks service 25,000 residences every day in SSM. Dispatch at 5:00 am; 6:30 am; and 7:00 am. Is like air traffic control only with trucks!
Saves our landfill from @ 800 tons of garbage a month. Maybe send 5 tons/month to the landfill?

Our GFL system has been recognized for quality control. A great residence system. Getting calls of inquiry from across America.
Wait for manufacturers to be stable for 5 years before selling product to them.
Tubs and trays often go to BTU plants – make tires, etc. Not emission controlled.
We can control landfills – can’t replace air
Landfills are very valuable – feedstock that’s been buried for years – holding pens for the future. Once mined, worth billions of dollars for the land.
Ship across the river – own 2 landfills in the States.
Costs $50 million to re-do a landfill.
Big problem = manual labourers – good workers but abused by some citizens. Eg. throw carts at them.
Dangers – eg. needles in bottles – Hep B. ; chased by dogs.
Physicality of the job – pick up 10 tons of garbage a day – wreck their bodies – so John fought for automation.
So when you see a driver, thank him/her
John could offer us a tour of our local plant if we wish.


_________________________________________


Guest Speaker: John Martella from GFL Environmental
Clarification provided in regards to GFL recycling, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
Inception of the Blue Box and Yellow Box program was an exhausting program for workers as items were originally manually hand sorted. A lot of labour involved. Residents just threw in anything and everything for the recycling center to have to dig through. “The Sault has been babysat for years” according to Martella.
Sault Ste. Marie was the first to do a compartment system, separating paper materials and
metal/plastic/glass items. This allows for less work for the drivers. GFL will inform residents of rejected boxes, if they see too many unrecyclable items. Notice of rejection provided to resident.
Plastic bags are a contaminant and have no value. Too hard to sort. Bags plug up the streams, get stuck in separators and filters. Martella projects that in 3-5 years bags will be gone.
Cart system allows for separation of fibre and plastics. #1 and #2 plastics have value.
#1 plastics – pop and water bottles. #2 plastics – chemical, i.e. Tide and Javex.
Caps and lids need to be removed before recycling as those with lids become like an explosive when compacted, the lids pop off like an explosive and can be dangerous and harmful to workers.
All plastics have different properties, even if marked #1 and #2.
#1 – 7 in in Toronto are being processed but most goes to a landfill.
Peel region ships 1M tonnes a day, 15% of that is contaminated and ends up in a landfill.
Can’t promise all items go to recycling.
GFL collects what they know they can recycle and sell. With the 2-stream collection system in place it is easier for labourers and sorting.
Containers are documented, they look for contaminants. For example, if a worker sees a shoe inside the container is rejected and not picked up.
There is a call to educate the residents.
GFL operates at 6 tonnes an hour if it’s separated correctly. If it’s separated incorrectly they process at only 2 tonnes an hour.
Overseas countries take the good and burn the rest, resulting in a large amount of pollution.
Water bottles, Pepsi bottles and detergent bottles are what they go after for items to sell.
An items such as a ketchup bottle is something they don’t go after.

They go after the mass that sells.
Juice boxes, milk containers, are items that if kept sitting will rot and smell and have to be kept offsite.
These are things that need to be cleaned before recycling otherwise there will bug and pest problems at the plant.
Aluminum is shipped out once every 1.5 months. If it’s uncleaned it’s a sitting stock pile for rodents.
6 loads a week of fibre, i.e. newspaper. An increase mass of cardboard and shipping boxes due to companies such as Amazon.
Toronto demographics makes it work to win the race, with a larger population and better location
making it easily available for transport, closer to waterways for shipping.
Paper: phonebooks, newspaper, glossy magazines are okay. Wrapping paper they try not to reject.
GFL allows for a 2% contamination in piles.
Greeting cards, with fancier elements are accepted as they are in small amounts and fall into the 2% contamination.
Recommendation to wash bottles and jars
Peanut Butter Jars need to be cleaned out as much as possible, and yes, this is time consuming. People don’t want to take the time to do this.
Anything that is square needs to be flattened.
Tissue boxes, remove the plastic film as that is a contaminant.
Save time for workers, don’t put out a recycle container/box unless it’s full.
GFL accepts what they can accept, accepts what they can sell.
For items they cannot accept, they are better off to bury it (landfill), then to burn and put it in the air.
Landfills are valuable to us, they are full of feed stock that have been buried.
Landfill mining is very valuable. Landfills have 100s of years of precious metals – holding pens for the future, once mined they’d be worth billions of dollars for land value.
GFL ships across the River, they own 2 landfills in the U.S. Across saved their landfill, we killed ours.
Costs $50 Million to redo a landfill. If we didn’t ship across we wouldn’t have a landfill.
Many dangers for GFL workers, dogs, needles found in bottles, abusive residents, etc.

10 hours a day of labour and one of the hardest jobs. Physically exhausting and hard on the knees and body before the new truck system. John fought for automation.
When you see a driver, thank them.
John has offered a tour of the plant if we’d like to take one as a group.