South Sound • November 2009

Waste Management of WashingtonKatie Salinas, Communications Manager(206) 264-3060ksalinas@wm.com

Greetings,

It has was been a busy and beautiful fall here at Waste Management of South Sound, and as the fall season winds down, we’re looking ahead toward the transition to win-ter. As always, I hope you enjoy this edition of Sustainable Solutions; there are many exciting stories from right here in Puget Sound. Please feel free to contact Laura Moser (lmoser@wm.com) or me with any questions you may have.

Best, Susan RobinsonDirector of Public Sector Servicessrobinson@wm.com www.wmnorthwest.com

As residents and businesses in the Green River Valley prepare to minimize the damage of possible flooding associated with the Howard Hanson Dam, Waste Management is preparing for potential flood cleanup efforts.

Our planning efforts include identifying additional resources needed for cleanup, including: staffing, collection vehicles and containers. Waste Management is also developing alternate collection/disposal routes, identifying debris drop-off sites and external communication protocols. Should flooding occur, affected community members will be able to receive up-to-the-minute information and instructions for debris disposal on our website www.wmnorthwest.com. We are also in the process of creating a 24-hour 1-800 number that customers can call for information should their web access be limited. If you would like to learn more about our response planning efforts, please contact Susan Robinson at srobinson@wm.com or by calling 206-264-3073.

Howard Hanson Dam Response Planning in Full Swing

Waste Management’s Top 5 Holiday Season Waste Reduction Tips

1. Depositing food scraps into your yard waste cart can reduce the amount of organic waste tossed in the garbage. Holiday meal preparation can generate all sorts of things that make great compost: potato peels, fruit rinds, coffee grinds, turkey carcasses and eggshells.

2. Recycling opportunities are also plentiful this holiday season. Remember most packaging is recyclable—cardboard boxes, non-foil gift-wrap and tissue paper can all go into your recycling cart.

3. Consider giving zero-waste gifts, such as music or sports lessons, memberships to a gym, the philharmonic, a sporting event or concert.

4. Use e-cards for your holiday greetings and party invitations—it’s a great way to share photos and keep in touch more frequently and saves paper and postage.

5. Now you can decorate your house with LED lights that use 90 percent less energy than conventional holiday lights, and can save your family up to $50 on your energy bills during the holiday season!

A team of researchers from the MIT SENSEable City Lab recently embarked on a major project called Trash Track, which aims to encourage people to think about what they throw away and how it affects the environment. The project uses custom-designed electronic tags to track different types of waste on their final journey through the disposal systems of New York, London and Seattle. Waste Management funded the study.

In August, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) SENSEable City Lab tagged hundreds of pieces of trash in the Seattle area. Volunteers were encouraged to bring items down to the library, while others allowed researchers in to their homes to attach small, electronic tracking devices to randomly selected items. Residents were encouraged to be creative in the items tracked during this program. Items up for disposal ranged from common every day items, such as cans, bottles and light bulbs to larger, more difficult to dispose items such televisions and old dryers.

These items were then marked with small “smart” tags about the size of a cell phone and sent on their journey. Each tag is assigned a tracking number, and then monitored via cell phone technology in real time. All data is then transmitted back to MIT researchers for analysis. Trash volunteers have the ability to see where each item began its journey, from the initial drop in the garbage or

recycling container, to the final end stage location. In some cases, this was only a matter of days.

Seattle was chosen as one of two locations because of its strong reputation as a solid, engaged recycling community and its advanced waste disposal systems. In fact, last year, residents in the City of Seattle alone recycled over 50 percent of their residential and commercial waste. Waste Management is looking forward to the end results and analysis of the program as a way to better streamline our processes here in the Pacific Northwest.

The exhibit highlights the sophisticated and complex trips our garbage and recyclables take after being set out at the curb for collection. Further, this program aims to highlight the environmental impacts of disposal decisions.

“We funded this study to see if there is a technology to help our entire industry become more efficient,” said Carl Rush, vice president of organic growth for Waste Management. “We hope when the results are analyzed, we will see ways to improve the logistics of waste—from our trucks, to our recycling, to our disposal systems.”

To learn more about this project please visit http://senseable.mit.edu/trashtrack/.

MIT Researchers Unveil First Trash Track Results

We are pleased to inform our customers that Waste Management and BigBelly Solar have entered an agreement under which Waste Management will provide WM Solar Powered Trash Compactors to its customers, including municipalities and high-traffic facilities.

WM Solar Powered Trash Compactors are completely self-powered, us-ing built-in solar panels to compact trash. About the same size as a standard 35-gallon trash barrel, each compactor provides five times the capacity of a traditional trash receptacle. When the unit reaches capac-ity, sensors trigger an internal compactor that flattens the contents, converting 180 gallons of waste into easy-to-collect bags. A wireless system then signals the unit is ready to be picked up. This cuts the need for trash pickup by up to 80 percent, which reduces collection costs, fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. The compactors also include receptacles for collecting plastic bottles, newspapers, glass and other recyclables.

“We know busy intersections, public parks, city streets, sporting events and other public spaces can be magnets for trash,” said Susan Robin-son, Director of Public Sector Services for Waste Management in the Pacific Northwest. “Ordinary trash barrels can easily overflow, attract birds and rodents, and become eyesores. The Waste Management solar powered trash compactors are a great solution in these cases, by elimi-nating overflow, reducing the number of collections needed per week, and reducing emissions associated with collection frequency.”

To learn more about WM Solar Powered Trash Compactors, please call or email your local Waste Management contact or visit our website at: http://www.thinkgreen.com/under-the-sun.

Introducing One of the Best Ideas Under the Sun

At Waste Management, safety is our top priority and at times of severe weather, we remain committed to ensuring the safety of our employees and communities. The decision to delay garbage collection services is never an easy one, but customers can rest assured these types of decisions are carefully consid-ered and implemented with a scrupulous recovery plan. Here is a glimpse at what goes on behind the scenes during a typical severe weather day:

3 a.m.: Route managers begin to survey road conditions in each of the communities we serve. Our management team then determines which roads are safe for our 30-ton collec-tion vehicles to access. Conditions such as compact ice, large amounts of accumulated snow or severe flooding on residential and arterial streets compromise our ability to safely perform collection and may result in a delay of services.

5 a.m.: Communications, customer service and operations teams begin customer and media notification.

8 a.m.: Customers are notified of service delays and instruc-tions via press releases distributed to local radio, television and print media outlets, our website, www.wmnorthwest.com, and customers who have opted to be part of our out-dial program receive telephone notification of service delays.

During the remainder of a typical snow day, route managers continue to monitor road conditions. When main roads are safe we resume collection to essential service customers such as hospitals, nursing facilities and schools.

If you have any questions about inclement weather policies or procedures specific to services in your municipality, please do not hesitate to contact Susan Robinson at srobinson@wm.com.

Inclement Weather Procedures 101

Volunteers display household waste items monitored through Trash Track.