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6 SSO participation The yard waste sites in Mounds View and White Bear Township are likely the most comparable to the Arden Hills site in terms of the residential population in the surrounding area. In 2016, the Mounds View site had 3,520 visits attributed to organics collection and White Bear Township had 3,872 visits. During winter months (December – March), the yard waste sites are only open on weekends. However, the data in Attachment A shows that the number of site visits in the winter remain similar to the regular season and that annual site visits are distributed somewhat regularly over the calendar year. Visual observations and data from current SSO collection at other yard waste sites indicates that, on average, it takes 33 site visits to generate one cubic yard of SSO collected. In the case of the Mounds View yard waste site, this would equal approximately 107 cubic yards of organics collected in 2016, or roughly 27, four cubic yard containers. This coincides with direct observations; at time of weekly pick up, the four cubic yard container at the Mounds View site is filled to one-half to two-thirds of its capacity. Potential Impacts from Adding SSO Drop-off to the County’s Arden Hills Yard Waste Site Recycling Acceptance of SSO at the yard waste sites will make it easier for interested residents to reduce the amount of trash they generate by instead ensuring productive use of their organic wastes as a compost product. Having an SSO drop-off area will also help raise awareness for yard waste site users that a broader range of organic wastes can be recycled in addition to leaves, grass clippings, and tree waste. SSO collection at the yard waste site will help educate residents toward use of possible future SSO collection opportunities such as curbside collection. Land use and traffic While the SSO drop-off area will provide a valuable service, SSO drop-off is estimated to account for a small fraction of the site visits at the Arden Hills site. Currently, the Arden Hills site receives 50,000 site visits per year. It is estimated that SSO collection will account for only 3,000 – 4,000 additional site visits annually. Also, many of the SSO drop-off participants are likely to be residents who have already been using the site and may be bringing both SSO and yard waste on some occasions.