2022-08-23_PWETC_Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Chair Ficek stated that at the top of the list, affected businesses, he noticed a couple of differences from St. Louis Park that they included food trucks and gas stations. He wondered if there was any reason to include or not include them. Ms. Bakken thought gas stations could probably fall under, if the City wanted to include, some of the exemptions like foods prepackaged by the manufacturer. There will probably not be a lot of freshly prepared take away foods from gas stations besides hot dogs. The city does have a handful of food trucks that station in various parts around the city and would be something that would come up occasionally. A lot of food trucks, because they are mobile and working among some of the different cities, have probably encountered this in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and St. Louis Park already so a lot of the food trucks are probably already using materials that are pretty compliant. She would not see any issues with that personally. Member Hodder thought some of the food trucks may need to have some education because a few he has encountered still use the Styrofoam containers. Mr. Culver thought it was important to keep in mind that staff all agree and the Commission understands, just based on Member Hodder's last comment, whatever is recommended for an ordinance is going to be a really slow roll on the actual enforcement of it. It might be a year or more and he was not sure what the Council would want to do. Chair Ficek asked when they talk about phased, does that mean it is a long time until full implementation with a lot of education with a set date where everything goes into effect or do they start with one thing being in effect and other things are added along the way until there is a full implementation. Ms. Bakken explained her thought on that is because the City is not sure about the timing of Ramsey County's curbside pickup, roll out is going to be and could be as late as mid -year to late next year for Roseville. She indicated if she was going to implement this she would startwith 2023 as being an educational period and, at the very earliest, start 2024 as starting to ban materials and starting to try to enforce it. She would start with banning plastic number six, banning Styrofoam, requiring maybe recyclable and compostable options. A very baby step approach. She talked to a restaurant that said compostable materials are twice as expensive as Styrofoam containers so the business does not intend to continue to use them once his grant recycling money goes away so making sure the restaurant owners know what the recyclable options are because those are probably going to be less of a cost burden, which is important. Member Hodder thought as far as the restaurants are concerned, they are still struggling with the effects of the Pandemic and staffing and he thought a phased approach would be prudent. Page 5 of 9