so i would say, i'm absolutely happy to ask them, but i think that recology would then probably defer back to the department of environment. that's their kind of main function in terms of putting data and information together. but i understand your line of questioning, so i think it's important to get to the bottom of it. i do say -- i would say that the question on the time frame from the snapshot, i think that's definitely a good one. i know that the 80-plus properties using the zero waste facilitators, again, they're constantly getting this information and working hand-in-hand with recology. >> president cohen: ok. so my next question is, how do you work step-by-step on the matter when it comes to audit? when people disagree with their audits, where are the complaints? >> so recology does an audit and they find there is too much contamination. they go through and they look at the material, and they photograph it, they record what is in there, and that information is -- they then contact or call up the account holder and talk to them and say, would you like to see the pictures of al

>> part of the refuse bill they pay recology. >> recology gets it. so this legislation would hurt recology bottom line. >> yeah. well, i guess -- >> if you think about it. generating a fee, i mean, businesses are not in compliance, paying a fee for it, that has an impact on recology bottom line. yes or no. >> yes, small percent of the bottom line, but yes. >> and i'm not saying that, we'll call it the recology representative and get her on the record without a doubt. i want to make sure i'm following this correctly. so, in your conversations with your point person over recology, working with 13, 14 companies, how do the conversations go? are you in conversation or recology? >> both. my team is very engaged. there is phone conversations, there's multiple written notices. >> just sounds so -- it does not sound aggressive. >> well, i mean -- what are the different ways of communicating? you know, you send people letters, you call them up, meet with them. doing that as much as we can to offer, offering the assistance that they need. >> ok. so, how do we inc

so recology has been failing somebody on a trash audit and proceeding with extra charges when it's over 50%, but we envision that number definitely needs to come down. as we move forward in the future. and i just want to add that the priority of our program over the last couple of decades is on separation. we spend a huge amount of effort on education. we do more educating than any jurisdiction in this area. a lot of different campaigns. we continue do a lot of education. that is the priority to provide education. we've trained virtually all of the generators and a lot of their tenants. we provide all these resources. so our primary focus is to help on assistance and education, but there are cases with large generators where they still don't do an adequate job and this ordinance is about providing us with another tool. >> president cohen: did the department of environment work on this version of legislation ten years ago? were you part of that? >> actually, i was. >> president cohen: you mentioned something in your remarks previously about marketability. what is the marketability standa

we work with recology so often in the restaurant community. we have had a great relationship with recology prior to this legislation even coming forward to work on the audit process, and contamination as a whole other issue that we work regularly with as it comes with a lot of fines and at the end of the day, we don't want to pay those fines. we are very diligent on separation and things like that. regardless of what happens overnight to their bins. if this legislation comes forward to, we have a few amendments we are requesting. one of them being that the warning. to be established is a 60 day to comply and to do the additional fines or the serial waste facilitator but we feel there is an additional need to have a warning so that the restaurant or small business could figure out a way to comply or fall out of the allergy category. we also have issues with the zero waste facilitator. you are required to hire someone who can will of the business -- they are facing such a labor crisis that we cannot work let alone add someone to work with us for

. >> it is on the refuse bill so they get every month from recology. the diversion right is listed as a% and stand that corresponds with a discount with a calculation. a 70 5% diversion rate, minus 25 equals a 50% discount. that discount is then shown on the bill and they can see dollarwise how that discount, for example, giving 50% across all three streams, they can see that dollar amount. they know their diversion rate. they know their discount and the amount. and when they, if and when they get audited, they are given a report from recology. they are contacted by phone, by letter, and shown the results of that. if a driver, if they are not in a compactor service and the driver notices that there is contamination, the driver may leave a tag and recology will follow-up with that tag by phone call and letters. so so there is quite a process of notification and communication that recology conducts with their customers when they see that a customer has contamination and the customer is out of compliance with properly assorting those three streams. >> you

so, when i talk to the operator there, jeannie boaz, she said waiting and working with recology, need new equipment. it might require department of the environment to retrain the individual or is the person knowledgeable of how things are. sometimes and i know you all have been doing this very aggressively, where things are sorted changes, right? one, you know, wet paper versus soiled paper versus lining, and part of the legislation, what levels of contamination are, where things are. they allow for that to be updated on an annual basis. that may be part of the reeducation. a place like the flower mart, if they were to fail, they would not be required to hire an additional staff person, but retool, identifying, additional equipment. >> originally written if you fail, i think the word is audit, then you have to -- then the legislation requires you to hire someone, is that -- has that chan changed? an a that has nodding chaed. we talked a lot about drafting the legislation. first the universe was larger than 424, universe was up to 6, 700, right? we originally had it at 30 cubic yards o

these are large generators, so when they're not doing a good job, they have a big impact. there is a lot of contaminated material that recology has to deal with. so that's why we're doing a lot of work on c and d and we might do a separate ordinance on that, but this is just dealing with one area to give us a tool. and, yes, we're working with all generators. so being on the list simply means you're a large generator. you might be doing a great job which is great. we're going to contact everybody and offer any help they need to be doing a great job before they get audited. and only if they can't do a good job, if they fail the audit, does this ordinance impact them. >> supervisor fewer: i guess this sweeping list that you have, i think is really broad. and i think that there are ones that are for profit and there are ones that are nonprofit. and, if they're violators, i can see they didn't pass the audit, i get it. but when you have a sweeping list like this that pertains to all of them, i just think it doesn't get to the issue. for example, how many times are audits done? how often? can you give me that answer? and how many

so to that fact, we work very closely with recology as it is so we can get the highest discount rates and we can avoid fines. i know that the restaurant association works with recology as well. we have them come out at least twice a year on site for our restaurants to help us and help our staff and best practices. i do have four people, two managers and two hourly staff in both restaurants that are trash monitors. it is part of the job responsibility. it is not there sole responsibility. in a restaurant, there are many things happening all day long. you're constantly going up against different stimuli and different situations. so to just be the sole responsibility to sort trash is virtually impossible. i would like to be able to see in this legislation less onerous penalties, possibly a warning period that could be reevaluated where the restaurants could get advice or get direction on what they need to do. and have someone as 80 waste facilitator solely as their responsibility works against the framework of teamwork. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i am with the

so i will share recology is not in the business to collect charges from our customers, to put that on the record. our goal is for our customers to be successful and work with the department of the environment to put together a program for each and every customer so they know really clearly where the problems lie. and the type of contamination that we have seen. most of the contamination that we see in which customers are in fact charged are clear contamination and evidence of nonsorting. it's not necessarily one item, a plastic clam shell container, it's many clam shell containers filled with food or bagged waste or a variety of different things in which we see, but they are clear and are specific to that particular customer. there is a process in place. we give the customers a lot of time in order to gain their compliance so they can be successful. the first thing is whether an audit shows that a customer has been contaminated, or tags, which is where drivers tag our customers. we let the customer know this is what we have seen and send a letter to them and follow up with a phone cal

and recology, and more precise information, and so this is the final step in a process that has been going on, you know, 16 years, ten years, to your point. this is -- this has been a long time in the making, and we feel like it's the appropriate step. so, if i could -- if we could at least, someone on the board could potentially accept the amendments that we have made for the affordable housing and the food pantry, i would -- i would like that to happen. >> sure. happy to, a motion to accept the amendments before us. seem to be adequate and take that without objection, without objection, we accept these amendments, thank you. supervisor mandelman. i think i saw your name -- no, ok. all right, so, a couple things here. as i started the conversation earlier, i said there are some amendments that i would like to see that we reached out to the deputy city, to the city attorney's office and have not had enough time to finish drafting them. i would like to see those, i would like to get those amendments, bring them back into committee, and further our discussion which would require this i

so it's very exciting, it's been a long time coming, and i think, knock on wood, we're approaching the finish line on it. recology launched their better at the bin campaign. we had a wonderful -- they have a new truck that's really fun, so i think in the straw ordinance -- well, the plastic litter and reduction ordinance that you weighed in on had to be amended for the disability community because of the need for plastic straws as a tool, not a convenience, to use their words, so there's been a lot of activity in the last couple months around zero waste from the legislative side, the infrastructure side, the ordinance side. i feel like we're getting our arms around the push and it's going to help the mayor talk about what we're doing to meet our commitments from the global climate action summit where we have new zero waste commitments from the city. for the future, i would just say that christmas is coming, the holidays are coming. if you aren't already aware, and we have some holiday traditions in the department of the environment. one is our green christmas tree program, which is literally buying a live tree --

graph i showed wasn't talking about the construction and demolition waste, that's what recology is handling and so it's very important to be, to have that distinction and understand that we are not done with this, we are not done. >> before jack comes up, thank you. that's really important distinction that i did want to get on the record, and i wanted to hear. we'll get to the tonnage in a second. in your presentation, talked about having tools in order to do a better job of bringing the generators, large generators into compliance with our policies. for what reason have we not considered increasing the fees, or increasing the penalties so that these large generators are no longer at the point where they can factor the fee in to where it's just a cost of doing business, but actually becomes punitive and adverse effect on the bottom line. >> beautiful thought, and exa exactly where we went in the last rate process. >> we, it's not the city, recology had the authority by the rate board to penalize generators, if their black bin, and i use black as a -- if the black bin was contaminated, then they wo

amy met with our three specialties, radiation recology and genetics-t are so many different options. it is a personalized approach we have so many tools available at cancer treatment centers of america. this is what attracted amy to our ceer all the way from new york. cancer is what they deal with everday. these were people who were experts in their field. and for us that was the best choice. learn more about our breast center at cancercenter.com/philadelphia tments available now. >>> welcome back. ifntt any p you logged online or took advantage of cyber monday sales, you weren't alone. as of late last night, shoppers were on track to spend nearly $8 billion online shoppin yesterday. that would make it the biggest online shopping day in the u.s. ever. many retailers were stretching online sales through the week. that's the thing about cyber monday, these retailers are like if i keep these discounts through friday, we'll make more money. >> people will keep buying f sure. >> as big as cyber monday and black friday sales were, some people decid go shopping, but not spend any money. >>

it is kind of like a reprieve, so they can really focus on their body of work. >> when you are talking about recology, do you have the only sculpture garden at the top? >> it is based on work that was done many years ago in new york. it is the only kind of structured, artist program. weit is beautiful. a lot of the plants you see were pulled out of the garbage, and we use our compost to transplant them. the pathway is lined with rubble from the earthquake from the freeways we tour about 5000 people a year to our facility, adults and children. we talk about recycling and conservation. they can meet the artists. >> fantastic. let's go meet some of your current artists. here we are with lauren. can you tell us how long have been here so far and what you're working on? >> we started our residency on june 1, so we came into the studio then and spent most of the first couple weeks just digging around in the trash. i am continuing my body of work, kind of making these hand- embroidered objects from our day-to-day life. >> can you describe some of the things you have been making here? this is amazing. >> i t

recology said it was pretty much over. >> and it's really a smoke event and now the smoke turned white a good while ago, so it's really steam. >> but i don't know from the way it looks. it's still going pretty good. >> reporter: that smoldering mess would not quit and what smelled like a house fire just sat on top of these neighborhoods. by lunchtime the department of emergency management issued an as air quality drifted into the moderately unhealthy range. children were sent home from a small preschool and the city even dropped by for a welfare check on the local polling station. >> yeah. because if there's no air, there's no breeze right now. so it's all around the neighborhood. >> reporter: what neighborhood are we in here? >> little hollywood, i believe. >> reporter: it's coming right this way. >> i know. can barely breathe. >> reporter: around 2:00 the smoke went out towards the bay, firefighters trying to get everything out of the building to close in on whatever is smoldering and we do not know yet what caused that construction debris to start burning. in brisbane, wilson walker, kpix5. >>> more bay area news, a plea

recology to go to 100% on those. there are significant incentives in place that has helped driven and industry of what we call a zero waste facilitators. so there is an existing group of companies and entities out there that are doing this kind of work and what are they doing and what is envisioned in this ordinance as they can help a property with better material separation and sorting. through working with the property and looking at what is going into the containers collected by recology, they can see where the contamination is and help provide feedback and education to tenants and overall , the benefit of what they're doing is to help reduce the contamination so property can comply better and that allows property to get off contamination charges or get the discounts back. as i said, there is existing zero facilitators that are out there and we have been able to identify over 80 properties. mostly large office buildings that are currently using the zero waste facilitators. and why are they doing that? because they can economically incentivize by increasing the discount on the rate his -- other rate. some of these properties take pride