About 15 community leaders and residents attended the fourth Zero Waste Community Meeting at the Eastside Recreation Center Tuesday night to discuss the county’s plan to be waste-free by 2040.
“We all want to see this to happen, but there’s so many levels — education is the key,” City Commissioner Gigi Simmons said.
Jeffrey Klugh and Philip R. Mann, representatives from the county and the city’s public works departments, presented ideas to promote zero waste. Notes from the meeting will be submitted to the City Commission General Policy Committee by spring 2019.
City Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos said he plans to suggest a plastic bag ban at a commission meeting Thursday. Residents also suggested increasing access to composting and charging businesses that use plastic bags.
Eighty percent of Gainesville’s waste comes from commercial businesses, Klugh said. The development of the Alachua County Resource Recovery Park, an area for waste-based businesses to repurpose waste, can help reduce trash.
“If you want to see a real loss, go to Midtown on a weekend night and see the glass bottles that don’t go into the recycling,” Mann said.
However, Simmons said enacting new policy can only go so far — the next step is mobilizing the community.
“You really need boots on the ground really advocating for this,” Simmons said. “This is heavy lift and you need people in the community.”
@LysKRamos
Contact Alyssa Ramos at aramos@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @LysKRamos
Photo caption: Waste gets pushed into trailers at Leveda Brown Environmental Park and will be transferred to New River landfill in Raiford.
