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262 Ms. Howey wondered why a nursing home would be exempt. She indicated she <br />263 works in a nursing home and there are piles of polystyrene and she did not know <br />264 what the rationale is for that and if it was a finance thing. <br />265 <br />266 Ms. Bakken assumed that it is because those nursing homes and hospitals contract <br />267 with certain food service companies so there might be a mix of pre -packaged foods <br />268 they are using and also whatever they are contractually obligated to use for certain <br />269 dietary restrictions, that would make it a little more burdensome for those locations <br />270 to try to comply. <br />271 <br />272 Mr. Culver indicated they needed to figure out what is considered take-out. The <br />273 food is prepared in a kitchen and taken out to the rooms at the nursing homes or <br />274 hospital rooms so it is still kind of internal. He noted it is still not great to use <br />275 polystyrene but he thought the intent was to try to keep this from going to people's <br />276 homes and then being disposed of there. <br />277 <br />278 Motion <br />279 Member Collins moved, Member Hodder seconded, to recommend the City <br />280 Council follow the St. Louis Park Ordinance as a base with 2023 as an <br />281 education year and 2024 to start enforcement of the Ordinance as well as some <br />282 type of sliding scale for penalties and banning black plastic as well as tying this <br />283 to Ramsey County roll out of curbside recycling. <br />284 <br />285 Ayes:4 <br />286 Nays:0 <br />287 Motion carried. <br />288 <br />289 Ms. Bakken made a presentation on Plastic Bag Ordinance. <br />290 — <br />291 Mr. Culver indicated this particular item was not driven by the Council. This was <br />292 not something that the Council suggested talking about. This was something the <br />293 previous chair of the PWETC, Joe Wozniak, brought up to research. He explained <br />294 he was not sure if this would be ready to make a recommendation on to the City <br />295 Council until more research is done. The question he thought was interesting was <br />296 why Minneapolis exempted food take-out for the plastic bags in particular because <br />297 that is kind of an interesting exemption. He thought it makes sense that if a City is <br />298 trying to promote not using plastic bags at all why would the City not go all the <br />299 way but there may be some reason why. He thought staff should research that a <br />300 little more and come back with some more information on that. <br />301 <br />302 Chair Ficek was curious about this too because these Cities had a lot more <br />303 restrictions with the take-out containers than with the plastic bags which he <br />304 wondered about as well. <br />305 <br />306 Mr. Howey explained he uses his compost bags for a lot of things because these are <br />307 plant -based resin bags and are strong. He wondered why more people are not using <br />Page 7 of 9 <br />