The past weeks have seen a number of environmental anniversaries and traditions; Earth Day, Town Roadside Cleanup Days, discussions on how to maintain a pesticide free lawn, and as always, how to deal with the upcoming tick season.

There is one relatively unheard of event that has occurred over the past 23 years and attracts a very specific group of people. Almost like an underground following, these people are the last link in our ability to live clean, healthy and relatively easy lives. They are the garbage men (and women), trash haulers, sorters, transfer station and landfill workers, and above all else, the last piece in our recycling and sustainability efforts.

My name is David Edwards and this is my first shot at writing for a publication. Why would I choose such a subject to start my writing career? I hate waste, that's why. I don't know where my feeling about it comes from or why. I don't have a sad story to tell about growing up in the slums of a big city, and neither do I have an inspirational story about overcoming some extravagant lifestyle and now I live as a minimalist.

I just hate waste. I hate seeing perfectly good land being used to hold items that we throw away, and that refuse later leaking and polluting groundwater. I think this comes from being a child in the 1970s and 1980s and all those cheesy PSAs and "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute" commercials. I hate seeing perfectly good gadgets and gizmos being thrown away because they don't look pretty and new anymore. I hate seeing people who could use such items and having no system in place to connect the two. And above all, I hate that I know that the technology and resources exist right now that could solve all those problems, but like many people who feel they are just one person, "what can I do?"

Today that changes. In the coming months I will be writing a series of articles relaying to you what YOU can do to help our community create less waste and more opportunities for reusing, reducing and recycling what you don't need or want anymore.

On May 2 I attended an event that attracts like-minded "environmental custodians." It was the 24th annual Maine Recycling and Solid Waste Conference & Trade Show, coordinated by the Maine Resource Recovery Association. This year's theme was "Forging Ahead: Maine's Sustainable Future" and took place at the Samoset Resort in Rockport. I was lucky enough to get a press pass so I could attend for free, with the promise of writing about my experience. For others, the attendance fee was $245 or $325 (members versus nonmembers) to attend the two-day conference, not including lodging.

Now, if you have ever been to your local transfer station and know its employees, or live in a city and have seen the commercial trash haulers' trucks busy picking up garbage you would think, "Why would a town or waste management company want to pay that much money for their employees to attend a conference about trash and recycling? What's in it for them?" A good question and one that I thought of myself being the newbie to this event.

Within each seminar were tidbits of information that if used properly could give the average waste management professional guidance on how to improve their customer experience, as well as eek out new revenue streams. Trends in recycling, whether it's on the consumer end or on the recyclers' end can be very helpful to a hauler as well. For the non-hauler (transfer/landfill employee), safety seminars and a forklift "rodeo" tested their knowledge and skills. For transfer station managers and owners of waste disposal companies, the conference probably had the most value. Not only did they review some boring old and new regulations, but had seminars dedicated to:

• Product stewardship
• Public outreach
• Sustainable packaging and movements to ban single use bags and containers
• Food waste recovery hierarchy
• Innovations in Maine's solid waste landscape
• Promoting program changes to the public (with our very own Jim Guerra from MCSW)
• Financing options for recycling & solid waste projects
• Organics management, and best of all
• Recruiting and retaining a Successful volunteer committee

So now is the time for me to reveal my second motive for attending this event. I have been extremely lucky to be invited to participate in the Waste Watch Committee for Camden, Hope, Lincolnville and Rockport. What the heck is that you say? It is a group of citizen volunteers who are trying to make our communities better by focusing on what we reuse, recycle and ways to reduce what we throw away. You can find out who we are and our mission statement on the Midcoast Solid Waste website or on Facebook.

I have to say that this group is composed of some of the nicest people you will every meet, and on top of that, they are extremely dedicated to their mission. They care deeply about the people and environment in their respective and neighboring communities, and I would invite anyone interested in what we are doing to come to one of our meetings and meet us. You won't be disappointed. Jim Guerra, Mid-Coast Solid Waste Corp. manager, has been a regular attendee of our meetings. He has helped us to understand the waste management systems in Maine, and has also been a crucial liaison between our committee and the MCSW Board of Directors. Both Jim and the Board of Directors have been genuinely supportive of this new committee, which is a testament to their dedication to the people of which they represent, and the environment in which we all live.

Many of our committee members joined me in taking time out of our personal and work schedules to participate in this conference, so that we could learn as much as we can about these issues and understand the challenges from both the citizen's perspective and the waste management's perspective. This will be crucial in making sure that each side is doing their part to maximize the recycling and minimize the waste created.

As I am employed full time and I am ramping up for the busy summer months, I was not able to attend all the seminars, so I will just focus on the ones I did. The first was titled "Food Scrap Diversion Options." Chelsea Malacara, from the city of South Portland's Sustainability Office, presented about a pilot program to increase the city's recycling rate by focusing on food scrap waste. For a year, they took about 600 households and collected information on participation, waste diversion and cost effectiveness. For those of you who have not played the Waste Management version of Trivial Pursuit lately, the average household trash bag is composed of about 30 percent food waste, which is a huge number.

The Takeaway: If your town is paying for trash disposal by weight (usually by the ton) a 30-percent reduction in weight could result in a significant cost savings, as well as potentially creating a revenue stream for the municipality if they managed the food waste in such a way to either sell compost or create biogas to power generators and create electricity.

The second speaker was Dan Bell, of Agri-cycle, a company that owns and operates anaerobic digesters. Anaerobic digesters are basically large pools of organic materials (food waste) mixed with the right amount of cow poo, which contains methanogens, a bacteria that produces methane while eating the food scraps and manure. Over the pool is a thick rubber roof to allow for the increasing gas production. This gas is cleaned and then sent to generators to produce electricity.

The Takeaway: This company is expanding its food scrap collection fleet and would love to take your scraps so that you don't have to pay a tipping fee at a transfer station, again about a 30 percent cost savings. So if you or your town doesn't want to deal with food scraps once collected, Agri-cycle will take them off your hands.

The third speaker was Dean Richmond, of Pleasant River Farms, which is a MOFGA certified organic family-owned farm Mason Township, close to Sunday River. Dean was the one person that I could relate to in this sea of seminars. He is a small farmer running about 45 head of cattle, looking for a way to deal with the manure and dirty sawdust bedding produced by his herd. He wasn't a large enough enterprise to sustain a digester. He tried composting the manure and bedding but found that it didn't compost very well since there was a lot of carbon in his material. He then formed a relationship with Sunday River and he now makes two trips a week and fills up his pickup truck with large garbage cans full of food waste that he incorporates into his compost pile. This helps the materials break down better and he now is able to sell his compost for $50 a yard.

The Takeaway: Even on a small scale, there are ways to turn waste into a commodity that has value. The problem with most recycling efforts is that you lose some (or all) of the value of the material you are recycling when you have to pay to transport it to the facilities that do the actual recycling. Also, if you are a small town far from the recycling facility, you may not produce enough of the material to make it worth it for the recycler to send a truck to pick it up. This is why it works better in cities, where there is a large amount of plastics, metals and paper products in a concentrated area near a facility. But with some creative thinking and some sweat equity (and better recycling technology, nowadays) a person like Dean can do his part to help the environment and his farm at the same time.

At this time I will have to end this experimental column, I have been told by my editor that it should not be too long. But fear not, I have another three conference speakers to review, as well as many updates to bring to you in regards to the Waste Watch Committee and the work we are doing to help our communities. For next week I will be discussing presentations on financing options for recycling and solid waste projects and programs. Should be a real page turner.

With each column I would like to address at least one action that you as a fellow citizen can do to help in our mission.

1. The MCSWC Swap Shop is open for the season. USE IT! For those of you who do not know about the Swap Shop, it is in a tiny building located to the left as you exit the transfer station. This is where you can drop off items that still have a useful life in them that others may, and come and take for free. Yes free. It is managed and staffed by some very dedicated volunteers from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday thru Friday. Please only drop off items that are clean, and usable, and do not drop off items without notifying a volunteer. Our expert staff will need to inspect the items and let you know if the items are reusable or if they need to be taken to the recycling bins or disposed of in the hoppers. Please do not take offense if we do not accept your donation. Our space is very limited so we may not be able to accommodate all donations.

2. Second, ask questions. If you are at the transfer station and do not know where to put a recyclable item, don't just throw it in a bin. When recyclable items are taken to the actual recycling company, it costs them time and money to sort out any contaminants. And if one gets through, it can either damage machines or spoil the batch they are trying to recycle, thus negating all the good work being done. As you know, all the staff members at the transfer station are happy to answer your questions, or if they are busy at a task, ask a neighbor who is also dropping off items.

Thank you very much for sticking with me and I hope you will continue to read these columns in the coming weeks.

David Edwards is a Lincolnville resident, beekeeper and member of the Mid-Coast Waste Watch Committee. The mission of the Waste Watch Committee is to recommend, develop and facilitate programs that promote ever increasing recycling, waste reduction and sustainable management of resources.