The LSWDD Board has been working hard on producing a planning document to guide development and use of District resources to best meet the future needs of the Lopez community. The text of the document is listed below: Lopez Solid Waste Strategic Planning Outline Q4 2022 Mission of the LSWDD The Lopez Solid Waste Disposal District (LSWDD) provides a convenient local facility for solid waste collection with reuse and recycle options, operated in a fiscally, socially, and environmentally responsible manner with a goal to educate and inspire the community to reduce waste. The Outline The LSWDD Strategic Planning Outline describes the current state of the utility and lays out a vision for the future. The outline is a living document that contemplates the challenges and opportunities the District may face over a five-year time horizon period, defines the actions required to prepare for these trends and events, and sets priorities based upon available resources. The outline development process is managed by the Strategic Planning Committee and is updated annually by the LWSDD Board. LWSDD Challenges and Opportunities Challenges 1) Increased demand for waste management services due to population growth, increased tourism, and residential and commercial development 2) Fiscal pressure from increased waste disposal fees, increased operating and transportation costs, inflation, and disruption of supply and waste management lines 3) Service demand spikes in the summer season 4) Burden and unpredictability of annual campaign to pass operating levy Opportunities 1) High level of community involvement and support for waste reduction 2) Large customer base and support for “the Dump”, which is seen as a community asset 3) Highly experienced and dedicated operational team and staff 4) San Juan County Solid Waste management support 5) Availability of state, county and local resources working to reduce waste 2027 LWSDD Vision An operation that: ● has expanded its footprint to include the former Public Works facility to the south ● is structured to ensure financial viability for the foreseeable future ● has added services of value or supports other organizations’ efforts to further reduce waste ● has reduced the waste generated per resident ● continues to be strongly supportive of and supported by the Lopez community 2022 Goals in Support of Vision 1) Fortify solid waste operations in service of community a) Complete annual review of emergency preparedness b) Complete baler shed expansion c) Purchase box truck d) Develop site plan for expansion in partnership with San Juan County and site consultant e) Create and execute plan for increasing volunteer hours to support operations 2) Strengthen fiscal health of the District a) Forecast 2023 expenses / revenues and long term capital requirements. b) Review plan for sustained fiscal management c) Research potential external funding sources/partnerships 3) Continue and expand environmentally and socially responsible operations a) Develop organics reduction initiative b) Initiate planning to reduce LSWDD carbon emissions c) Ensure equal opportunity access to TIOLI goods by all community members 4) Educate and inspire community to reduce waste a) Create and execute community education plan with topics toward waste reduction (refuse, reuse, repurpose, recycle) b) Identify metrics to display and construct on-site “scoreboard” for Lopez waste amounts c) Create and distribute educational articles regarding the value of LSWDD to Lopez d) Encourage volunteer participation and expand opportunities e) Investigate an update to the LSWDD website to expand and simplify access to community waste & recycling information f) Develop and strengthen partnerships with other Lopez organizations with similar goals to impact waste in the community 5) Reduce waste thru the following efforts a) Continue organics reduction and home composting initiative b) Coordinate with the Lopez School to decrease waste and increase school recycling rates c) Research viability of local glass crusher recycling options d) Join efforts to institute Washington State Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation

Your Help is Needed to Create Commercial Composting for Island Residents and Businesses! San Juan County is exploring how to best implement commercial composting for residents and businesses in the Islands, and we need your help! The County’s Solid Waste Program has created a survey to gauge community interest in such a program. The survey is available now through August 30 at https://bit.ly/3OTj5R4. Commercial composting is the large-scale decomposition of organic waste such as food and yard waste. A commercial composting facility in San Juan County will collect organic waste from restaurants, grocery stores, other businesses, and individual residents. It is designed to handle large amounts of waste and creates compost that can be used at farms, nurseries, local municipalities, or at individual residences. Commercial composting improves soil quality, reduces waste, and saves money. According to the EPA approximately 30% of landfill waste could be composted and turned into fertilizer that could be used to benefit the local community. “We want to hear from all residents on San Juan, Orcas, Lopez, Shaw, and the outer islands to get input on their interest in participating in commercial composting and to help us ensure that an organics recycling program can be successful,” said Katie Fleming, Solid Waste Coordinator in San Juan County’s Department of Environmental Stewardship. For more information, contact Katie Fleming at katief@sanjuanco.com or 360-762-5821.

Have you ever wondered where that disposable plastic cup, old band aid, or chicken bone ends up after you chuck it in the garbage can? Sure, you haul it, along with the rest of your garbage to the dump. But then what, where does it go after that? Well, it gets hauled off the island by truck to the Skagit Transfer Station. And as the name suggests, it gets transferred, this time to a rail car. Then it takes a train trip across the state to its final destination, a massive landfill in Roosevelt, Washington. That's a pretty extravagant journey for garbage! Let's save the travel for something more fun by refusing, reducing, reusing, and recycling!

Did you know that food scraps are the single largest component of landfill waste in the US? What about on Lopez Island? We don’t have the answer and would like you to help us! We will be conducting a household survey to gather information about home composting on Lopez Island. Please help us by participating in the home composting survey the next time you visit the Lopez Dump! Why composting? Read on! There are many benefits to home composting, including: Save Money Reduce your garbage bill by composting food waste. Studies have found that about 35% of household waste is organic material. By composting, you could potentially reduce your garbage expenses by a third! Save Water When you compost, you build soil. Adding compost to your garden and flower beds contributes to soil health, and helps the soil retain moisture. Save Resources Lower your carbon footprint by reducing trips to the dump, and reducing the amount of material that has to be trucked off island and transported across the state to a landfill. Save the Planet When we compost, our food scraps break down into a healthy soil amendment. When we throw our food scraps into the garbage, all that organic material releases methane as it breaks down. According to the EPA, Methane is the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States. Methane gas is a source of significant greenhouse gas emissions and is 28 to 36 times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat, and is a major contributor to climate change. Every time we divert organic matter from the landfill, we reduce potential greenhouse gas emissions. Inspired and want to start composting now? Here are some links to more information and resources about home composting. Would you like a little more guidance? Feel free to reach out to Larissa Mansfield at LSWDD with your questions. EPA, Composting at Home https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home Recycle Now - Backyard Composting https://www.ecocycle.org/backyard-composting WSU Backyard Composting Guide (downloadable pdf) https://pubs.extension.wsu.edu/backyard-composting Are you an experienced composter who would like to share your expertise with others and/or help LSWDD promote home composting? Great, contact us!

Beginning August 13th, 2021, a 32 gallon can of garbage will be $10. Take It or Leave It and recycling remain free of charge. Why the fee increase? Unprecedented Growth in Garbage. Lopez Sold Waste Disposal District (LSWDD) has seen a dramatic rise in garbage at its drop-box facility. Lopez’s award-winning local facility handled over 295 tons of recyclable materials last year. Local drivers hauled off 760 tons of garbage on its District roll-off truck, a 7% increase over the previous year, and removed 137 tons of glass from the waste stream. Now LSWDD has gone from 239 tons of garbage in the first half-year in 2017 to 396 tons this half-year. Skagit’s mainland garbage fees on LSWDD have now increased 20%. LSWDD is no longer able to recycle paper on the mainland free of charge. Both San Juan and Orcas have charged for recycling but LSWDD has continued to opt for free recycling, including paper and glass. Additionally LSWDD created the Remakery so that more of Lopez’s cast-offs can be made into useable products and not go into the garbage. Take It or Leave It is still free for shopping and dropping. With more residents coming through the dump facility than ever before, LSWDD has opened the facility another reday a week. This has added additional trips to haul garbage to the mainland, along with higher ferry fares. LSWDD has hired more staff to keep the facility safe from accidents between pedestrians and other vehicles in a very crowded space. The tiny postage stamp of the Lopez Dump is a valued resource, and LSWDD is doing all it can to keep it open and available for ease of access to residents. The consequence of expanded service, additional staff, increased safety measures means that it costs LSWDD more to continue its unique and valued dump. Rather than increase the levy, LSWDD has decided to increase its can charge for the first time since LSWDD has been in operation. Beginning August 13th, 2021, a 32 gallon can of garbage will be $10. Take It or Leave It and recycling remain free of charge.

The Repair Cafe is where you can bring in items that need simple repairs in four main categories: appliances, furniture, textiles/clothes, and jewelry. This event is to help get all those old, beloved items out of the corners of your house and closets and back into use! If your item needs a replacement part, please get that part and bring it with you. Simple fixes are what we do, not major rebuilds. There are thousands of Repair Cafes happening worldwide. If you want to learn more about the history and the movement, check out www.repaircafe.org If you are interested in volunteering for this event, or future Repair Cafes, contact nikytap@lopezsolidwaste.org El Repair Cafe es un lugar donde puede traer objetos que necesitan una reparación muy simple. Hay cuatro categorías principales: electrodomésticos, muebles, textiles/ropa, y joyería. ¡Este evento es para ayudar a sacar todos esos artículos viejos y amados de los rincones de sus casas y armarios y volver a usarlos! Si su artículo necesita una pieza de repuesto, consígala y tráigala. Lo que hacemos son arreglos simples, no grandes reconstrucciones. Hay miles de Repair Cafe en todo el mundo. Si desea obtener más información sobre la historia y el movimiento, visite www.repaircafe.org Si está interesado en ser voluntario para este evento o para futuros Repair Cafe, comuníquese con nikytap@lopezsolidwaste.org

When driving down Lopez roads, it is common to see a bearded man in a baseball hat alongside the road with a bag in hand picking up trash. If one didn’t know him or his story, he might just seem like a curiosity— not the incredible Zero Waste Hero that he is. That man is Mike Moore, and he has been performing this amazing community service of keeping our roadsides clean for many decades. He is receiving the first “Golden Grabbers” Zero Waste Hero Award on Saturday, April 24th at 10 am at the registration for the Great Islands Clean Up. Moore tells the story like this: “I have always been a hiker and when I came to Lopez I enjoyed walking Lopez Hill, Watmough and the Iceberg trails. Later I became a bus driver for the Lopez School and I began to notice the amount of trash on the roads, even the back roads where the students lived. So instead of hiking the trails I started walking the Island roads and picking up what I found. This was back in the days before aluminum, when you could find rusted beer cans made of metal, and there were even trash piles in the salal left there in pre-Dump days. Today much of the ancient trash is gone but you can always find more so (carefully) join us on the Great Islands Clean Up to leave a cleaner Island for the school kids to enjoy.” Mike Moore has recently turned 80, and Lopez Solid Waste Disposal District and the Lopez Trails Network have come together to honor him with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the Golden Grabbers Zero Waste Hero Award. “Grabbers” are a long pole with a grabber at the end used for litter collection, so it was a fitting gift that is also utilitarian. Moore has been part of the Great Islands Clean Up Leadership team since 2015, empowering all Lopezians to get in on the fun keeping our roads and beaches clean and tidy. This year, at the Spring Great Islands Clean Up scheduled for Saturday, April 24th, Mike will be presented with the first ever Golden Grabber Award at 10 am in the lot behind Public Works, just next to LSWDD aka the Dump. Due to Covid considerations, this year’s registration from 9- 10 am will be a drive through event, but folks are encouraged to sign the large thank you poster as they come through which will also be presented to Mike with his award. In addition, now when you see a bearded man collecting trash along the side of Lopez roads, you can smile and wave in thanks for his many years of work! Mike Moore is happy to accept this gift in the hopes that his actions will continue to inspire Lopezians to be good stewards of our lands and seas, and each do our part to make our island, and the world a cleaner place. Here are two short videos, one of the New Golden Grabbers Award and Mike's lifetime achievement award:https://youtu.be/XCdvOf9kpiQ The other of Mike receiving his award at the Spring Great Islands Clean Up, 2021: https://youtu.be/-QCxqniAIVY Both videos made my Ken Kortge, with great thanks from LSWDD and the Lopez Island Community.

ReMakery Grand Opening, Saturday, May 1 from 11 am - 4 pm Located in Lopez Plaza behind Holly B's Bakery, the ReMakery! 37 Weeks Point Way, Units #10 and #11. In January of 2021, the Department of Ecology announced that due to Covid, there were grant funds that needed to be spent by June 30, 2021. LSWDD applied for their Recycled Market Grant in January, and in February was awarded $50,000 to begin the ReMakery: a new maker space for transforming materials from the recycle plaza and TIOLI into new and usable goods. The ReMakery will be offering classes, workshops, Repair Cafes, Maker in Residence programs, and a host of other maker events. The ReMakery will have industrial sewing machines, sergers, regular sewing machines, 3D printers, jewelry making, leather working tools, electronics repair and tools, and soon a laser cutter, along with host of other useful tools to upcycle and transform materials. The goal of the ReMakery is to educate our community about the value of reduction, reuse, repair, and repurposing items locally to increase the local circular economy (see diagram below). It will provide the Lopez community with space, tools and instruction to help transform materialsthat might have otherwise been exported off the island and to landfill, or far away recycling centers across the globe. The localization of reuse helps decrease green house gas emissions, creates potential revenue sources for local makers and entrepreneurs, and most importantly, continues to keep LSWDD's Zero Waste Mission in the forefront of the minds of the community. Just to help put the need for the ReMakery into context, Pre-Covid, LSWDD was shipping off nearly 1,000 lbs per WEEK of textiles. This equates to nearly 50,000 lbs a year that go through the Goodwill industries, with many traveling to far away countries increasing emissions and green house gases which contribute to climate change. What if we could decrease just a small percentage of these textiles by remaking items locally? What are your ideas? You are welcome to get involved and continue to make our world more sustainable with a reduction in waste. For questions or ideas, or to volunteer to teach a class or create a zero waste item contact Nikyta at nikytap@lopezsolidwaste.org.

Here is the link to the google map of all 70 pins of Free Piles all over Lopez Island! Tour begins Saturday, June 27 at 8 am and goes until Sunday, June 28 at 6 pm. Map: https://goo.gl/maps/18PSt3Av8yrW16Yc6 Please be respectful, follow signs, and give plenty of physical distance. Thank you for participating in the Free Pile Tour of Lopez! Also, here is a list of all the addresses:

SWAP awards the Sarah Eppenbach Scholarship of $500.00 towards higher education to a graduating high school senior. Applicants need to practice an active interest in caring for the environment. Because of the generous donations to the scholarship, SWAP awarded three scholarships to members of the 2020 graduating class. Hazel Arden, Ty Greacen, and Quinn Steckler have each demonstrated a care for the planet, leadership and an understanding of team. The scholarship is given in honor of Sarah Eppenbach, founder of SWAP. Sarah Eppenbach was a force of nature, albeit in a quiet/determined way. Lopez was very blessed with Sarah’s commitment and involvement in the Community, bringing her experience and wisdom to each situation she encountered with gentle diplomacy and grace. With each Community activity Sarah chose to embrace, she demonstrated two critical skills that all should learn to master. The first skill is 'leadership'. For Sarah, leadership was an art. She knew when to lead, and when to follow; when to speak and when to listen. She was always thoughtful and fair. Most importantly, she understood that a strong leader encourages others, which leads to the second skill, team player. All successful enterprises, of which SWAP’s support of the Lopez dump is one and our library is another, are comprised of teams that include both good leadership and complementary skills. Sarah understood how necessary teamwork is, and surrounded herself with people that worked well together. Assembling and maintaining great teams is also an art that Sarah understood. Realistically, Sarah stands as an example to us all, as one who knew few limits as to what could be accomplished with good leadership, a great team, and of course, a fair amount of effort.

The Take It or Leave It (TIOLI) has been closed for nearly three months and LSWDD estimates there are 40-70 TONS of donations just on Lopez Island. Many households have reported that they used the extra time at home during the pandemic to do deep spring cleaning and have accumulated large piles of donations. The TIOLI is planned to re-open in Phase 3, but to help us manage this huge amount of goods, we put together an idea we are calling “Free Pile Tour of Lopez” for the last weekend of June: Saturday and Sunday, June 27-28. Very similar to the studio tour and home tour, where folks drive a self guided tour following a map, we invite folks who have donations to create a “free pile” on their driveway. People who have lived in metropolitan areas might already be very familiar with this phenomena of leaving free goods in piles on the curb or at the end of driveways for anyone to take what they wish. In this case, we are also inviting folks who have large amounts of free goods or want to be featured to send us their address so we can put pins on a downloadable map comprising the “Free Tour of Lopez”. Participants assume all responsibility for their goods, obtaining permissions to place items on driveways, set up and clean up. This is simply an opportunity for a socially distanced and safe gift exchange of goods, neighbor to neighbor. Helpful hints for making reusable goods desirable for adoption are to make the offering neat and tidy, to add clear signage, and attractive displays. Like familiar mainland days of Garage or Estate sale hopping, the “Free Pile Tour of Lopez” hopes to be a fun and engaging way for Lopezians to exchange reusable goods. We hope that you enjoy the “Free Pile Tour of Lopez” in the spirit of reuse that is such a hallmark of Lopez Island culture. If you would like to be added to the map, or have questions, please email Nikyta at nikytap@lopezsolidwaste.org.