Washtenaw Food Policy Council
Policy Action Team Meeting Minutes
Use this form to take minutes at each Policy Action Team meeting. Proposed minutes must be available within eight business
days after a meeting. Approved minutes must be available within five days after the meeting at which they are approved. Send
proposed and approved minutes to Lily Guzman at guzmanL@ewashtenaw.org
Policy Action Team:
Food and Food Packaging Waste
Date of Meeting:
March 19, 2013
Time of Meeting:
3:30 – 5:00 PM
Address of Meeting:
City of Ann Arbor, City Hall, 301 E Huron Street
Basement conference room
Washtenaw Food Policy Council attendees:
Nicole Chardoul
Additional attendees (first and last names):
Jeff Krcmarik
Noelle Bowman
Barbara Lucas
Nancy Stone
Phel Meyer, Erb Institute (U-M)
Public comment (first and last names):
Joseph Tesar, Quantalux, LLC
Note taker:
Nancy Stone
Agenda:
Date minutes approved:
1)
2)
3)
Approve February Minutes
Update on WFPC direction
Initiatives- review new case studies and policy examples/goals
4) Next Steps
April 16, 2013
Meeting Minutes:
1)
2)
3)
4)
Started at 3:30 pm
February minutes approved by Barb, seconded by Jeff. Approved by all.
Shared photos from February tour of the WCC Earth Tub installation.
Shared postcard advertising “A Place at the Table” movie documentary opening 3/1 and showing at the
Michigan starting 3/8. www.takepart.com/table
5) Update from Nicole on Washtenaw Food Policy Council. Will continue to meet bi-monthly. Washtenaw
Food Policy Council is hoping to present Council recommendations to County Commissioners and in the
fall. Nicole presented this PAT’s evolving slide show. Will be the template for future presentations to
Commissioners.
6) Review/share info on initiatives
a) General info/current news sharing:
i) U-M reusable food carryout containers in the Union. Pilot has been adopted by Union as part of
its ongoing options. First 2 months diverted 2000 containers. Has been adopted by half of the
Union’s carryout customers.
ii) Joe Tesar, Quantalux, http://www.quantalux.com, introduced his work in developing creating
biofuels. His business is primarily centered with agricultural wastes but also exploring consumer
food wastes as part of the feedstock. PAT may look at this type and other biodigesters as part
of Initiative 4.
iii) Barb raised the question of how much data is needed for food waste quantities available before
implementing programs.
Washtenaw Food Policy Council
Policy Action Team Meeting Minutes
Use this form to take minutes at each Policy Action Team meeting. Proposed minutes must be available within eight business
days after a meeting. Approved minutes must be available within five days after the meeting at which they are approved. Send
proposed and approved minutes to Lily Guzman at guzmanL@ewashtenaw.org
iv) Nancy shared webinar fun facts from the U.S. Composting Council quoting the National
Restaurant Assn is calling compost the next big issue for them. “Composting is the next big wave
for environmentalism,” from the Keep America Beautiful chairman.
b) Initiative 1: School recycling updates to add to Robin’s research. Recent Biocycle article on school
composting and short column on Canada’s Waste Free Lunch Challenge. www.wastefreelunch.com
Joe shared the Delhi Township (outside Lansing) food waste collection for a biodigester named
Scrappy.
c) Initiative 2: food waste prevention Barb would like to audit a home before/after education on how
to reduce food waste. Need to develop some guidelines to reduce food waste. Use the information
for a radio show, tv show, blog. Nancy offered the city’s support in providing kitchen catchers and
test area recruitment of households. Both agreed that something this spring/summer would be ideal.
Barb to connect with Catherine Dyson to work further on this initiative.
d) Initiative 3: Noelle reported on her research on Food Recovery/Donation
i) For animal feed stock and for human food. Since 2011, a Western Michigan University dorm is
collecting food scraps for a local farmer for livestock feed at Barefoot Farms. No meats. Fruit,
vegetables are fine. Farmers pick up bins, and wash bins before returning them to the cafeteria.
The cafeteria steam cleans the bins before putting them back into use. WMU buys some meats
from this farm. Jeff’s work with the Clean Sweep program on disposing of agricultural chemicals
might lead to local contacts with interested farmers. Food hub is another good source of local
farmers. EMU’s Beaver Island biological station had pigs to handle food wastes (not currently the
case). Short term action: gather a list of farmers for composting, animal feed—make into a map.
ii) For human food recovery/donations. Good Samaritan protection for donations
iii) Barb reported on the Food Summit earlier this month at WCC. Food donations problems include:
restaurants do not have space to store materials until can be picked up. Food drives tend to
collect low-desirable items. Gleaners not helpful for farmers if not supervised. Food Gatherers,
etc., say best way to help is to provide money—for infrastructure (more refrigerators) pickups of
good materials, money to buy essential bulk items for good nutrition.
iv) We need to connect with Nicole Miller at Food Gatherers to make sure we are not duplicating
efforts and also to collaborate with her Food Access PAT.
e) Initiative 4: food waste composting. Think of this as a 5-year process with Ann Arbor indicating that
it wants to provide full plate scraping collection within the next year, at least seasonally. Can include
a home composting component. Some states have a tiered approach—have to divert if generating
more than 1 ton/week. May look into alternatives/complements to composting such as biodigesters
f) Initiative 5: reusable, recyclable, compostable takeout containers. Master list of restaurants is
collected on GIS for the county for sanitarian inspections c/o Jeff. Could be a very good county-wide
initiative to set parameters for. U-M reusable food carryout containers in the Union. Pilot has been
adopted by Union as part of its ongoing options. First 2 months diverted 2000 containers. Has been
adopted by half of the Union’s carryout customers.
7) Next Steps
a) At next month’s meeting, looking further at Initiative 5. Invite Nancy Rucker/Zingermans (Nicole to
invite) and Dan/Bgreen (Nancy to invite)
b) Next meeting: Tuesday, April 16, 2013. 3:30-5:00 pm.
8) Adjourned at 5:15 pm