Zero Waste bimonthly meeting

Wednesday, February 5, 5-6:30

Join us in person at the Marge Williams Center, 221 Winslow Way West, or Zoom in.

Zoom guests: 3 employees of rWorld, a reusable dishware company. They will be speaking about the pilot cup return program currently in place on the BI-Seattle ferry run and possible island implementation.

The agenda is as follows:

5-5:30 Zero Waste business

5:30-6 Guest speakers

6-6:30 Member show&tell/questions

Metal Sorting

Saturday, February 8, 11am-noon



The biweekly meeting of the metal sorters (Metalheads?) continues this Saturday from 11am-12pm at the BI Senior/Community Center. You get a quick tutorial in testing for ferrous vs aluminum vs oddballs and then begin. Once you attend your third sortation, you get a free magnet (pictured left)!

Barbara Ochota heads up this program, through which she has collected over a half ton of scrap metal in the past 18 months. She takes it to a scrapyard where sorted metal garners higher payments, which Barbara then donates back to the center.

You can bring in your scrap metal during BISCC open hours. There are now two bins, one for ferrous, one not. If you have the time, there's even a magnet for you to use to put the metal in the correct bin (or pre-sort at home).

Chilly Hilly Discard Station Help



Sunday, February 23



Chilly Hilly bikers appreciate the efforts of the BI Senior/Community Center and Zero Waste volunteers for serving, respectively, tasty chili and muffins and a low-waste meal at the end of their ride.

This year the Center is incorporating metal spoons to go with the compostable bowls and napkins, so we'll need extra watchful eyes to make sure the utensils end up in wash buckets instead of the trash.

Can you help for an hour or two between 10am-3pm? The first hour is pretty light discard-wise and involves putting the final touches on set-up. 11am-2pm is high-discard time. 2-3 is take-down. Please email Barbara Ochota if you can assist. Thanks!

Fix-it Fair @ BARN

Saturday, March 1, 11am-2pm

You may bring up to 2 items. Last check-in is at 1:30pm.

What to bring?

• Textiles and clothes
• Small household appliances such as lamps and vacuums; no microwaves
• Small electronics
• Jewelry
• Bikes (minor repairs)
• Small welding jobs

To indicate an interest in being a fixer or in volunteering, fill out this form.

Undergarments

For this one-time Flashdrive collection, gather women's, men's, children's, any brand of old, holey, or unwanted BUT laundered items shown in the list below. Email biflashdrive@gmail.com now if you will have anything to donate. Then they will let you know the designated time and day in February when they will stop by to pick up. See the ZW October issue for background on "Flashdrive."

• underwear
• bras (including sports bras)
• tights (no pantyhose)
• socks (single/pair)
• undergarments like Spanx or Skims

For their February collection, Flashdrive is participating in a takeback program promoted by the lingerie company Hanky Panky, which has a strong sustainability ethos. The garments they collect are shredded to create fibers for industrial insulation.

If you're on Facebook, the Zero Waste Bainbridge group is a good way to connect with people who might take your small plastic collections for reuse or Ridwell or offer you suggestions on where to recycle. Recent posts have covered such items as

• soup tubs
• plant pots
• prescription bottles
• computer discs

And their ideas sometimes wind up in the ZW Reuse/Recycle Guide!

We're making it easy for you to find information on what goes in the Zero Waste bin at the Marge Williams Center, 221 Winslow Way West. Just click on the red sentence underneath our Reuse/Recycle search bar.

Remember: Leave ONLY what is on the acceptables list and follow any instructions (e.g., empty, clean, paper removed). If you are not sure if something is allowed, email Susan Knell before dropping off. Also, do NOT leave bags of stuff outside the Sustainable Bainbridge office door. Thank you!

Beauty and wellness packaging can be taken to the Ulta Beauty store in Silverdale, which sends it to Pact for recycling. Scroll down here to see this new entry in the ZW Reuse/Recycle Guide.

Former EPA regional administrator Judith Enck is in her sixth year of offering a seven-week semi-annual online class, Beyond Plastic Pollution. The course is offered through Bennington College's Center for the Advancement of Public Action and is an in-depth master class on all things plastic pollution-related. Her graduates have gone on to form over 120 Beyond Plastics local groups! View the course description here.

The meetings will be held via Zoom on Wednesday evenings from 4-6pm starting February 19 and ending April 2. The class can be audited for $100 and is open to anyone from high school students to college students to community members to retirees and more. BI Zero Waste offers a $100 scholarship for high school students who attend at least six of the sessions and give us a brief wrap-up report. Email Diane if interested.

Multi-layer plastic packaging is ubiquitous in the grocery store, but is not accepted in the stores' plastic film collection bins there. Take Ridwell's short quiz to see if you can tell the difference between the two types.

Ridwell is a specialty doorstep recycling service that accepts multi-layer plastic, then sends it to companies that turn it into building products.

Whenever you are looking for a destination for something not accepted in your curbside bin, be sure to visit the

 "Guide to Reusing and/or Recycing Locally" on our website. If you have an addition for it or see a correction needed, please contact me.