Topics in This Issue:

Plastic Program
Gun Safety Class
Crisis Lines
Planning and Development Services Process Update
One Water 2100
Tucson Jazz Festival
Title 42
Ready, Set, Rec
COVID

Plastic Program

The ‘pilot’ phase of the program is done. With over 36 tons of plastic collected since August 1st the community has made the point; the program needs to continue. It is overwhelmingly popular, and it is clearly necessary. Throughout the Christmas season I’ve been bad-mouthing Santa and the elves for all the bubble wrap and plastic packaging the gifts have been arriving with. It was therefore great to see Santa show up at the holiday tree, maybe feeling a bit guilty at using all that plastic, but in this case, he brought some of his own to support the program. We caught him on the security camera -

Picture of older man with a white beard wearing a Santa hat holding a bag of plastic for recycling
Next year we may be in a better position to have early communications with the North Pole and see if we can get the toys and things packaged differently. Until then though we’ll work on the logistics of the plastics program. It is not going away now that January 1st has arrived.  

I realize that not everybody gets the Star. Here’s a guest piece I ran last week talking about the success of the program and the need to figure out next steps. I’m grateful to Star Editorial Board director Curt Prendergast and his staff for printing the op/ed.  

Every day millions of tons of waste plastic are deposited in landfills, on the sides of our roadways and into the ocean, polluting our environment, adding to greenhouse gas emissions and killing marine wildlife. The world is awash in plastic. It is an international problem in search of local solutions. In the city of Tucson, we’re embarking on a program that is our approach to thinking globally and acting locally.

On August 1st my office kicked off a pilot project in which we wanted to see the community’s interest in finding a productive use for plastic waste. In partnership with the city department of environmental services, ByFusion and Tank’s Green Stuff we began collecting the waste plastic hundreds of people have been providing. At the start of the project, we set a goal of collecting 20 tons of non-recyclable plastic by the end of the calendar year and signing up 500 people who want to be a part of our local solution. At year’s end we have collected over 35 tons of plastic and have over 1,500 people signed up with the program. Thirty-five tons is enough to create a pile of plastic 25’ long, 10’ wide and 500’ tall. That’s three times taller than the student housing towers located at Tyndall and Speedway. Based on those outcomes at least 2 things are certain; one, the community wants to take part in a local solution to this international problem, and two, the pilot program cannot sunset on January 1st. There is far too much momentum from the public to walk away from what we’ve begun.

ByFusion is a company that is right now headquartered in southern California. They take the non-recyclable plastics many of you have been bringing to the Ward 6 office, shred the material and through a process of heat and compression create construction-grade blocks called ByBlocks. The blocks are 22 pounds of plastic yielding a 22-pound block. The product is all about creating a zero-waste stream.  

During the pilot portion of this program, we have built benches at the playground just west of the Himmel Park library, installed a bench in the Green Stormwater Infrastructure pocket park in San Gabriel neighborhood, constructed a trash enclosure out at the El Pueblo Community Center and have several large-scale projects in design with multiple groups located in Tucson, Phoenix and up in Flagstaff. In celebration of the success of the program we invited the community to the ward 6 office and built a holiday tree using ByBlocks. The tree is made up of nearly 1,600 pounds of plastic, all of which has been successfully diverted from the landfill. After the holiday season we will disassemble the tree and transform it into a raised planter bed. Since there is no concrete involved in building with the blocks there is an inherent flexibility built into working with them. And the labor costs of using ByBlock in comparison to regular cinder block are substantially lower. The group of us who built the holiday tree had it erected in about 30 minutes.

The challenge is no longer determining whether or not the community will support the program. Not only have hundreds of residents supported the work, but we have all sorts of commercial partners helping to make the program work. Our commercial partners include movie theaters, nursery’s, swimming pool maintenance companies, micro-breweries, restaurants, pet supply stores, the Assistance League and many more. One local company that’s on board produces plastic labels for many of the products we buy. They produce roughly 100,000 pounds of waste plastic monthly. Prior to now all of that has been headed to the landfill. We want it in our program.

There are companies who benefit from the waste plastic. Commercial waste haulers charge businesses by the ton plus a ‘trip fee’ to simply come and pick up the waste and dump it in the landfill. Think of the plastic labels – at 100,000 pounds per month that one company is paying nearly $3,000 per month just to have their waste thrown into the dump. The partnership we’re pulling together can save them money while at the same time result in the production of construction blocks that can be sold and used in a totally environmentally friendly manner. The only losers are the commercial haulers who are right now enjoying the fact that waste plastic is unavoidable.

In January I’ve requested a study session item to talk about how to scale-up the program. I’m very pleased that both Mayor Romero and Council member Dahl have co-signed the agenda request. This program is absolutely aligned with the city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Our challenge is to identify the role the city and ByFusion will each play, and sort out the logistics and costs involved. Clearly the community has bought-into the program. Our job is to figure out how to keep it going. 

Those ‘next steps’ will have to include a realistic appraisal of the costs we’ve encountered during the pilot phase. One purpose of trying this out was to see where new financial obligations popped up. One very clear cost associated with the program is my asking the city to haul the roll off away at least 3 times each week to get it emptied. There’s labor and material involved with that. We’ll have to work out where the central storage location ends up being. Tank’s Green Stuff has partnered until now. I’m anticipating a longer-term rental ‘ask’ for the use of their space. That’ll be a cost. It makes no environmental sense to continue driving tons and tons of plastic to California for processing into blocks – and then to have the blocks driven back to Tucson. Getting that whole manufacturing and processing operation to Tucson will be a cost. And driving to the drop off location at the ward 6 office has an environmental and fuel cost. Maybe we offer opt-in curbside pickup. I’d like to hear from you on that possibility. I’m talking with ByFusion right now about how their part in this becomes ‘localized.’  Somebody’s got to process the plastic and manufacture the blocks. Someone’s got to connect with local contractors and sell the blocks into the local market. Someone’s got to market the program.  Someone has to contact businesses that are right now contracted with commercial haulers who are simply charging them to take their plastic to the dump. They can save money and contribute to this zero-waste diversion program at the same time. All of these are both costs, but they’re also local jobs being created. 

On Saturday I was out behind the ward office pushing the plastic bags deeper into the roll off – making room for more donations. In the short time I was out there at least 10 cars pulled up to add plastic. One was from out by the Desert Museum. One guy told me he had come over from the Mt. Lemmon highway. One lady said she had been coming in from Oro Valley to do the drops. Another had driven in from Vail. And of course, there was our friend from Sam Hughes neighborhood who rode over on her bike with her plastic. So, it’s people from all over the county taking part. One way or another, the program is not ending. 

Here’s the final pilot program status report. Our initial goal was to get 20 tons of plastic. You nearly doubled that. I think we’re all surprised at how sadly unavoidable plastic debris is in our lives. We’ll figure out how the program evolves. Your support has made it clear that we need to.

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