The Sherburne County Board of Commissioners last week approved three requests for SCORE funding.

 

SCORE (Select Committee on Recycling and the Environment) is a state program that provides funding to support programs that promote recycling and improved management of waste materials.

 

Each year, the county receives money from the state and allocates an amount for certain programs, such as city and township cleanup day events, household hazardous waste collections, yard waste collection sites, paper and cardboard recycling programs and educational newsletters.

 

The county also sets aside an amount for additional programs from organizations based on approval by the county’s solid waste advisory committee.

 

 

Last week, the board approved a request by St. Cloud Area School District 742 for $16,270.00 to purchase infrastructure and educational material for an efficient organics and food reuse program in Clearview Elementary in Clear Lake and Talahi Elementary in East St. Cloud.

 

The money will be used for:  A cafeteria waste sorting table, a technology that is already working very efficiently in other county schools; waste containers on wheels for quick removal and replacement when waste bins are full; compostable bags which will collect the food waste; classroom waste containers and labels to reduce contamination in recycling bins; Food Share/Food Rescue tables where students can place unopened or untouched food for other students to take at no extra cost; educational materials like posters and flyers to campaign the efforts to the students and influence them to make better food decisions.

 

 

The county awarded the City of Zimmerman $4,473.03 to purchase a grapple to screen yard waste material of rocks and gravel.

 

The Zimmerman site is currently unpaved, which causes the piles of yard waste to accumulate a lot of gravel. When rocks are mixed in with the yard waste, it drives up the cost to grind that material. 

 

The Zimmerman Yard Waste Facility receives an annual SCORE grant which funds the operational, labor, and maintenance costs. Most of the funding is used to reimburse for the grinding of the material from an outside contractor. 

 

When the yard waste is contaminated with rocks and gravel the contractor will charge more for their service because they must run the material through a screener before it is ground up. Purchasing the grapple would reduce overall operational costs at the yard waste site.

 

The City of Zimmerman received three bids for grapples and the lowest bidder was Trueman Welters for $8,946.07. The Zimmerman City Council approved a 50% match amount for $4,473.04. The SCORE grant will match that amount.

 

 

The board awarded the City of Elk River $1,200 to increase its organics collection program by providing residents kitchen containers for conveniently collecting and transporting organics from their homes to the organic drop off sites at Elk River City Hall and the yard waste site. 

 

Elk River in the past has offered residents a curbside organics program for a monthly charge of $2 to collect their food waste at the curb. That food waste was collected in blue bags and picked up by the hauler, who then would transport them to the GRE facility where they were separated from the regular waste. After that, they were transported to the Hennepin County Transfer Station, and then transported down to the Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s Organics Facility. 

 

Since the GRE closure, Elk River had been looking for alternatives to continue the organics service. It was decided that continuing a curbside program for residents would be too costly, so they switched to a drop-off only program. 

 

As an incentive to keep participation up, they chose to no longer charge residents to participate in the program. The $1,200.00 will allow the city to purchase kitchen compost bins, composts bags, organics labels for the bins, and five-gallon large buckets for transporting the waste to the drop off sites. The items will be given to residents as an incentive to join the organics program.