to be very, very upfront with the residents and the taxpayers of Vermont and say you get to pay twice now. You get to pay with your taxes and you get to pay as a consumer. And I've never seen that happening in the EPR format where people were told you got to pay twice. Congratulations. But if the cost of recycling was paid for by an EPR program, why would it continue to have to be paid for by the taxes? Well, I have yet to see in Europe or in Canada an EPR program that cut taxes, a local government that cut taxes because it now had an EPR program picking up its recyclables. So taxpayers will still pay that. They'll still pay those taxes. And now they get to pay for EPR as consumers. That's an extra, that's an extra 98 million Canadian and British Columbia that they get to pay. So again, if you wanna do it, just I think you have to be straightforward with residents that now your taxes will not go down. And by the way, you're paying as consumers. Question. Yes, Lynn. And it's interesting to me because I know I'm on Thurmond County, Maryland where I grew up and my family still lives. You can dispose of up to 500 pounds of trash for no fee because the incinerator in Hager State. So I'm thinking that pay and throw has something to do with this here. But my question for you is, can you imagine an EPR system that might cover or have a sliding scale structure, fee structure that is not based on the recyclability of a product but rather its overall carbon footprint or life cycle analysis? Cause that's really what we're pushing for here. Yeah, one minor correction. Montgomery County to 500 pounds is only at the transfer station. They watch that like a hawk. I know my brother's abused it all the time. I'm not thinking of most of that stuff as a C and D or it's furniture, it's heavy stuff.  And frankly, I think it's dumb on the county's part. The legacy page you throw on the county. We got some legal issues that I think we've been overcome over time. I think it would be great if you can come up with a way to do that on the environmental impact. Go for it. I just haven't seen anybody do it that way. Okay. Oh, it's a first time. Yeah, but Sony has to figure out how to do it. Correct. Well, thank you very much for coming in. Obviously, people have questions and you'll make me get some more time to get a break or after. So good afternoons. Dr. Leroucher. Thank you for coming in today to talk to us about, well, the topic at hand. So we're going to signal these products. So the floor is yours. We've actually, I know you're reviewing a number of different things. We spend about half an hour, up to half an hour. So please, leave off. Okay. Well, thank you all for inviting us to speak. It's very exciting to be part, you know, given testimony here, you've just passed one of the country's most progressive single-use plus bills and it's great that you're carrying with that momentum. So I'm Sarah Edwards. I work for a company called Unonia Research Consulting. So we're a very mission-driven environmental consultancy that's been going around for about 20 years and for some of my colleagues who've heard of it. So Unonia actually does mean the goddess of good governance. And I think that's at the resources of our company as a whole. And how we do that effectively is working through a number of different areas. So we have teams within our organization. We have over 100 consultants that work across predominantly rate and resource management and everything from advising a policy through really the integrity of how to support our country across the region. So we understand both how producers, legislators, and those organizations that implement these programs are affected by policy effectively. And we did that through a number of offices here. So we're going to talk to you about a number of different kind of bringing together experience as far as about company from across the road. We are both based in New York City. And this, I suppose, gives you a bit of an overview of the type of work we do on single-use packaging and EPR as a whole. So we have recently just finished looking at a piece for Ontario about how their currently 50% funded EPR model will transition to a full EPR model with the addition of a deposit system for non-alcoholic beverages. One of their goals is to reach over 75%. Currently, they're hovering around 64%. So our work was basically doing a cost benefit analysis of how they could reach that 75%. And that included the introduction of the deposit system for non-alcoholic containers, because they already have one for alcoholic containers. And the moment we're advising the Alberta Urban Municipality Authority on how they can design an EPR policy for packaging and printed paper. So part of that would be reviewing the systems in Ontario, the systems in British Columbia that you've heard about as long as systems in Europe. And on other sides, we've just finished working, for instance, with the European Commission on its single-use plastics directive. So we effectively advise the Commission on which 10 items should either be a subject to a ban or a target or a phasing out. So we do that through economic analysis and review of different policy measures. And then on top of that, we've done a significant amount of work on deposits as a whole. So we've developed blueprint for deposits in the US and how that could be implemented in virgin states. Those states that don't have a deposit system. And also, at the moment, we've just finished doing some review of the California system through some process as well, looking at their legislation and how that might change to address their problems. So I think Cathy has already really touched on a lot of the challenges that you're facing. So I'm not going to go over this again. But there's things around with green plastics. There's producers making some commitments in terms of what they should be doing and whether that's in terms of minimum cycle content or using alternative materials. And so there's a number of, like, obviously system changes, which is why so many states at the moment aren't looking at any reality and how it can benefit their high-spaces of state. And we've also touched on the circular economy side of things. So I think it's important to touch on that. What we want to try and do is, as in line with the waste hierarchy, is obviously not to prevent, to reduce this package in the first place. But when we do produce that package, it can stay in circulation for as long as possible. And that includes a number of different things that we've touched on, like the design of a product, and how that can be recycled when it gets into the market, through to the underground recycling systems that are in place to collect those materials. So packaging in itself isn't a bad thing as long as it's captured, as long as we've got the right systems in place to make sure that we can capture that material. And obviously, we're going to talk a little bit about that. But in order to create this circular economy, the most important thing in quality and material on this comes back to where we've talked about recycling a lot today. What is the definition of recycling? Is it what a resident puts out there every week for perfection? Is it what goes to the material as the site? Is it even what comes out of the back of the material recycling facility? Well, actually, you know, every step of that way, there's contamination in that material. And actually, it's only the material that actually makes it into a product that really the circular climate is concerned about. So it's about how we create the system, creates that quality to allow that material to stay in circulation as long as possible. And then we have to look at what policy measures can allow us to do that. That's a quick question. So the presumption there is you already have that product. Do you deal with sort of before we ever get to that stage the reduce and reuse piece as well so that what flows into this part of the system as small as possible? Yeah, and I think there's obviously, there's different policy measures, things like the right to repair legislation, for instance, that's there to allow, you know, re-manufacturers or repairers to have the information they need to repair a good at the end of its life. But ultimately, I mean, we've talked about can EPR change Pakistan's design. Our view is it can change Pakistan's design. It's a piece of work we're currently doing now for the European Commission is writing some guidance for all 28 member states as to how they could implement a modulated fee. I mean, I don't want to go into the details of that too, you might think, but I actually don't think that's the role of a policy measure. My view in terms of EPR is that you should, guys should be setting very high targets. So you should be saying that I want 70% of the packaging that's placed on the market to be recycled, okay. Ultimately, that would drive them to be, they think they can either get to the 70% and then you hopefully can stretch those targets or they don't put packaging on the market that can't be recycled because they're gonna miss those targets. So you're not stipulated to them how they design their product. You're not even stipulated to them whether they internally have a fee to pay between the producers themselves. All you're saying is my desire to help come from this is ultimately to have only material that's placed on the market that can be captured, is captured and you've invested in the infrastructure to allow it to be captured and therefore recycled. So I think we've talked a lot about the nuances of a designer EPR system, but really as legislators, that's not really your role, your role is to step but outcome-based targets if you want to be achieved. Within those outcome-based targets, you can include for the producers to incentivize their members to look at the waste hierarchy and for those members to be rewarded if they're putting a product on the market that can be reused. So we've talked a little bit about innovation. You can see the likes of Uber EPRs, for instance, asking all their members to use reusable containers in the future. This isn't that far away. This is actually something that's conceivable. I think you should be bold in terms of what you're thinking about because producers are being bold.  We're doing some work for the European bottle manufacturers and then looking at what the cost is to have an individual code on every single product they've put on the market because actually they wanna know what's happening to their product at the end of its life. They don't wanna see it on a page. They wanna make sure that that material is captured and the cost of those sisters through things like blockchain is coming down significantly. So I don't think you should worry too much about asking for something that's not achievable because these things are achievable and we're seeing those things happening at the moment. So I don't rest slightly, probably. But so in terms of what we look at, and I think you've obviously touched on some of these things. You know, you've implemented bands, taxis, we've talked a little bit about the extent of producer responsibilities and those mandatory, enforceable targets in essence are what drives extended user responsibility and the incentive side of things comes from potentials and mechanisms within the design of the EPR system where producers are incentivized to not put a packaging on the market that isn't recyclable or incentivized to put a packaging material on the market that is durable or reusable or hasn't got PFASs in it. It's an internal design mechanism that's an internal incentive mechanism that can come through it with a well-designed EPR system. So these are kind of all mechanisms, I say policy-mechanical mechanisms that you can look at. Sorry to interrupt. Can I ask another good question? So a lot of our discussion has been sort of handling the physical container. Who gets it, where, when, how, how's it managed? Are there systems that are also looking at public health risks associated with plastics and toxicity and building those impacts, those public health impacts, into the policy in order to drive us to less toxic packaging? I don't know of any, in terms of packaging, in terms of toxic packaging. I mean, I think you could say that the changes in the Waste Framework Directive in Europe, which is actually requiring producers to not only pay for the recycling of their packaging, but they have to pay for the littering of their packaging as well. So this obviously has kind of amenity, public amenity, public health and ultimately potentially that material, plastic things that we can see, an unknown cost that we just don't know yet. So that is one way in terms for students to have to pick up that additional cost. In terms of EPR, I always say, our view is that EPR should just cover the packaging that is actually collected for recycling. It should cover the packaging that ends up being disposed of in a landfill site or in a city centre. If there's supposed to be control of your packaging, you should be doing everything you can to make sure that you're covering both the cost of it going to landfill and the cost of it needing to be recycled. That's good when you have protection for an area that's got a higher landfill fees, they're going to have to make their decision as to how they invest in infrastructure to divert that material, but ultimately it's coming back to the targets. And then obviously on the same slide that we're now starting to look at, like different policy makers, you know, voluntary organisations are making their own voluntary commitments. We've done the work in the past looking at how effective voluntary commitments are by industry in there, quite frankly not. So I think this is the best time to capitalise on these commitments and legislate for some of the things that they're saying they're able to do anyway. And it's how kind of you do that through the policy side. So we have just obviously talked about extended producer responsibility. And I think we talked a little earlier about does it create design change? And I think that's a very... Effectively, if you set the targets high enough then there's going to be effectively a cost decision to be made by producers. So they put a product in the market that's going to not be out to meet their targets and they're going to have to pay a penalty for not meeting that target, but maybe that penalty is less than having to change their package of material. Or are they going to change their package of material to meet those targets? And ultimately, I mean, the cost isn't going to be a double whammy, I don't think, for your residents because they pay for their waste as an individual household rather than for a tax anyway. So there's not going to be this double taxation. Ultimately, what you want producers to do for EPR is internalize the externality. So why, as a householder, why as a state of the municipality, should you be trying to manage a product that you have no control over? You don't know what packaging's coming on the market and you don't know the impact of that packaging. Whereas a producer can look at what is the cost to doing business of putting that packaging on the market. And if they choose to still put that packaging on the market because that's the business sense for them to do that, then fine, that's their decision to make. And I think, you know, globally, in the EU has had EPR for a long time. The legislation's recently become much more stringent in terms of what those targets are. And each member state employees that in a different way. And I think, you know, most importantly, on the EPR point of the floor, I had a vote to see me to talk a little bit more about the EPR program that you already have, is that bottle bills are an EPR program. You know, who is paying for the bottle bill in the month? It is producers, especially because the unregulated deposits go predominantly back to the state. So this is an EPR program in operation and it is achieving 75% redemption rates and it is achieving the quality material that producers need to feed into that sector economy and to mediate with them and recycle content growth. So I think that's very important. Yeah, so now we'll put it a little bit to talk about the bottle bill, which we learned about a lot earlier this afternoon. And so Vermont's bottle bill was instituted in 1972. There have been a couple of small updates since, thank you. Just a piece of it. But a lot of the bill is still in place. It's not especially progressive when compared to some best practices across the globe and even across the country. We know Vermont is seen as an environmental leader in a lot of ways. But the bottle bill has yet to sort of catch up in many of those instances. For instance, the deposit value has not been raised since the inception. So five cents back in 1972 is worth a lot more than five cents now. So it's not necessarily creating the incentive that it did when it was first thought up. So that's something that could be addressed. Also, like some others mentioned, the scope, there's drinks now that they didn't conceive of at the time of drafting. And so some drinks that pretty much should be included or not. Why are we penalizing some producers by having their products included and not others? It's basically an inequitable system at this point in time that should be runny as well as being very confusing for consumers who have a soda and then have a juice and they're not treated equally. So there are best practices and the best practice bills regularly achieve 90% redemption. And so we don't think that's a stretch to assume that Vermont can get there with just a few updates. And so the current, the scope of the current program covers by units approximately 50% of the unit to put on the market. But by way, it's about 54%. And you can see here that the wine inciter, which is only 3% by unit of the beverage containers put on market is 23% by weight. So currently, as others mentioned, glass, which makes up the majority of that around of those beverages is very costly to deal with and transport and not so profitable when you go to market that material. So definitely something to consider when deciding how to increase the scope or whether to increase the scope, why go with what has been in place for over 40 years when so much else has changed. And then the bottles that aren't recycled through the deposits only approximately 30% of those containers that don't go through the bio-bill are recycled and then Vermonters are left paying for the containers that are littered or landfill through the landfill fees. And there are approximately 25,000 tons currently that are eligible under the bottle bill. And this would increase almost 50% to about 44 tons with modernization to basically include all beverages aside from daring wellness, which are often excluded in this country and in many programs across the world. And so this has been covered somewhat at length already today. There's obviously gonna be some impact, some transition with a modernization of the bottle bill. And as Alan said earlier, no trend, the ownership of bottle bill material would transfer from municipalities essentially to producers. But this also insulates them from material risk under EPR. Yeah, and if we transition to EPR. And so that would insulate them from the market fluctuations which have been such an issue lately with the China policy and as others in Southeast Asia sort of follow suit. And yeah, so there will be a movement of material if you expand the scope from the curbside recycling bin to the bottle bill, but also from the trash. You know, it's not just bottles that people recycle that then they'll begin to take to the bottle depots. We'll also be bottles that do end up in the trash stream are now seen as commodities.  And should we mention that the bottle bill is the only program really that targets non-residential waste as well. It doesn't differentiate between bottles that are sold in commercial establishments versus those that are meant to take home. So really it democratizes the whole process for all the bottles sold on the market. So we put together a little bit of an analysis of two options for modernization that Vermont could undertake. One would be just a scope expansion. So including all of those beverages currently not covered excluding dairy wellness. And the second option would be expanding the scope to include all of those as well as increasing the deposit value to 10 cents, which would be in line with Michigan and Oregon in this country right now. And with that increase, we would say that that would get the redemption rate from 75% to 85% pretty quickly as the redemption rate in Oregon following that transition happened within really a period of about six months. So there's just a little graph of the impacts from option one. So this is with 202 million additional units redeemed going to that 85% redemption rate. And then you can see here, there will be a loss in material revenue from those materials that would go through the curbside recycling bin today. But there would also be savings from avoided landfill costs from those that are moving out of the trash stream. And then there's also the value of additional materials captured. So when you look at the system overall, really there's a net financial gain to be had in terms of savings and additional revenue when you're looking at this expansion. Question. Do we have any data from other jurisdictions on the sheets when this is grown? So effectively the second option, I mean, obviously the sheets will go down if you put the deposit out as well shortly after. So Oregon, I mean, Oregon machine doesn't go back, but if you're effectively going to cover any loss in the sheets by putting the deposit out to 10 cents, because effectively you're doubling the deposit, you're doubling the value of the sheets in sheets, the number of units that, you know, you're having the sheet attributed goes down, but the value of that single unit goes up. So effectively you're getting more money into the system. We did an analysis actually for New York City. Oh, do we have it? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah, well also to me, I'm thinking if we're covering a lot more containers, then there's a lot more opportunity for sheets as well, even though the cost per unit is way up. Exactly. So you're only covering 52% of containers at the moment. So you could go up to, I think 2% of the wealthiness, I don't think this can happen. So you've got, it's like covering 98%. So you've almost doubled the number of units that you've got that you can capture sheets from. So even if you don't get any change in redemption rate, your sheets are going to go up. If you put the deposit on, you're going to get less, more returns. So you get higher, more value through the system and times the material quality, but your value is still the same. Yeah. Thank you. On the third bar over, value of additional material captured. So is that, can you explain that? I'm just wondering, I know that now we talk about pheromonic glass that's going through the non-sort stream, the zero-sort stream, ends up as a low-quality glass. And so are you saying by doing the bottle-bill channel that now it becomes a higher-quality product and it has an incremental increased value as a waste material? Yeah, so that's essentially for the additional volume and also for that additional material value that you get from the materials moving from the prototypes of the deposits. And we have information on sort of the difference in the material prices that you can get for each different material. And it's, you know, PET, you can get 40% more per ton in terms of prices when you're selling deposit material versus curbside material, just due to the much better quality of this. It's cleaner, it's better, you know, separated and it can basically be made into higher-quality products. You're not gonna ever have a glass of bottle from a single-stream system that's able to be made into a new glass of bottle, but from a deposit system, those sorts of things are possible. So it's, yeah, definitely a higher-value commodity. Okay, thank you. And so this is the same analysis for option two. And you can see here, we did sort of have this little disclaimer that although fewer containers are left under being the 10-cent deposit more than confidence rates for the volume loss. So you can see sort of this same kind of comparison. Pretty similar breakdown with 229 million additional units remaining. So we can go into this in more detail or we can adjust that data, sure. Just, can you not have the answer to this, but just think about, in Vermont, we have specific waste composition study data and we have a recent from 2018. So was that used to look at how much is actually being disposed? Because you can't assume all that's being disposed. Yes, yeah, we used your waste composition data. Anything else for the 2018? We did this analysis a couple of months ago, so it may have been the 2015, but Alicia, we used the one. Yeah, we used Vermont for stuff. And then second, Mr. Putin testified earlier that there's a handle to be per unit container. That's the cost of the system, that's different from the cost of our recycling. Was that included in this analysis? The handle to be? No, we haven't looked at the cost of the system to producers. Well, yeah, that handling fee often gets passed on to the consumer, so it might not be in that increases that much if you're included in the handling fee. Just something to consider.  It's not treating every beverage equally. And so, you know, if I buy a kind of fizzy coat that I'm paying, if I buy a bottle of water, that doesn't seem very fair. Ultimately, each beverage should be treated equally. Yeah, I'm just saying in the cost analysis, as far as how much you would benefit financially, there is that cost if it goes to redemption that should be considered. And the cost of paying the redemption centers for the work that they do. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is really only looking at material value. It wasn't looking at, you know, the cost of operating the system. So this is like the material value element of it. What happens when you move the material from one system to another system? I mean, there's additional benefits on here that we would generally model a system where we say, hey, you're taking this too much time out in your residual waste stream or your trash waste stream. How can your collection system be optimised?  You're taking glass out. What are the savings on your processing fees from not having to handle glass? You know, so there's a lot more in terms of total system cost on this. And I think some of you might have seen the report we did for Ontario, which looked at each of those individual costs, but that's 100 pay report. So it's a really heavy reading. But, yeah, ultimately, there's other system benefits that aren't even included in here. This is just purely about material going from one place to another place. Correct? I think what you're saying is, yes, there may be material system benefits, but there are also other costs that we need to take into consideration. It costs producers and traders and retailers time and money to provide those benefits. And I think that we need to have an understanding of what that impact is as well. I think that's what you're saying. Yes. There are other costs that we need to take. Yeah, it's not the bottom line. That's not the bottom line. No, this is just about material need, but it's right there. As well as the impact to a MRF for the loss of that material. Yes, it makes it well understood because that is going to have an impact on our recycling facility. Yes, ultimately, what will happen to the MRF if the material is taken out, where, what will happen to you? Well, we have less valuable material going in. Yes, so we're going to start with our paper when we're picking it up for curbside. You're going to have mandatory recycling. No, ultimately, you'll put that cost we've passed down to somebody. Everybody in this room. Yeah, everybody in this room. But that is the cost of recycling. This basically shows you that actually more material will come out of the residual waste stream, which also has a cost. You're taking more tonnage out of what's disposed than what you are in terms of material value. So you're saving on your disposal costs. There is obviously an impact of material moving from one stream to another. But what you're showing is that material has a much higher value when it moves from that stream to the other. So ultimately, you're creating a more conducive environment for the circular economy because you're automatically putting material back onto the market that has a value. And when you collect material, curbside, and I think we all recognize this now by what's happened with China, is you're collecting the amount of contamination. And you're paying to collect that in the single stream. You're paying to process that trash through the material recycling facility. And then you're paying for it to be disposed of. So you're paying already for that material at the same time.  The producer's paying for that system for you. And you're getting a good product at the end of it. They effectively give you feedback into the cycle content. And there's reports from the PTA Recycling Association that shows that plastic bottles end up as plastic bottles through a deposit system. Most other PTA bottles end up as carpet. So that's not a circular process. That bottle will never be made into another bottle. And what we want to try and do is keep that bottle being made into another bottle and allowing producers to use that PTA into their processes, not going to an end to a process that's not openly and ultimately subsidizing or allowing the carbon manufacturers to say that they're using recycled contents. Which really, they should be managing their product at the end of it's life. I have a question. Andy, then, Michelle. I was just going to say, so should we move everything? Do we get rid of the curbside at this point? Do we go to the violence and everything? Well, I think they will definitely be moved to more materials going to a deposit-type system in the long term. To take everything out of them. Well, I mean, there's never going to be... They could be in the future. Well, I'm saying is that when the demand for material goes up, producers could want that material. And so the likes of Amazon, forcibly, I mean, okay, there's a system out there called Loop at the moment. I don't know if you've seen it, but effectively, a number of organizations are signed onto an organization and they... Hargidus are signed up, Unilever are signed up effectively. They're reusable containers. They get... They can order online from their hallmarks into trial stage at the moment they've been rolled out and they get delivered their Hargidus ice cream in a reusable container. They order it online. They... When they get their next delivery, it then goes back and gets refilled when they've got the quantity. So these systems... There's actually a reason to pass it, if you don't... Yeah, there's an effective deposit on that, so if you don't... ...return it, they're going to do that after a period of the year, I think it kind of goes out so quickly. These models are not coming, they are there. It's easier with a nozzle than it is potentially with a... ...without the material. But yeah. So you envision the future where, like, there'll be no curbside eventually, right? There should be some trash, really. Yeah, exactly. I don't think... ...the pool needs to be pushed for the future. We shouldn't just push for the future. And the report that we did, it looked like, Ontario was like, these systems work together. Ultimately, what we want to do, we want to make sure the factory we put in the market, if we need to put that factory in the market, is captured and recycled. And what systems do we need that? What systems? It's not just systems. It should be reliable to do that. So no orphaned materials. Yeah, basically. So... I'm sorry. My question is, did you have access to local values, information on sale of material, revenue from sale of materials? So in your statistic, about 40% increased value of Bottleville Pet over Murph Pet. Was that based on just national data, or did you have actual access to sales from Vermont materials from Murphs? Yeah, we used industries and provided data. So if it was like, yeah, it might not be the most specific, but it was East Coast, I think. Because our data is really different here than, you know, other Burks report 25% of the material coming in as contamination, and we were looking at 7%, 8%. Yeah, and we didn't look at the contamination, but it affects the health quality and the quality going out in the market. Yeah, and I just want to clarify that we were meeting the ISRI standard for contamination rates setting our bails to China. Our bails are clean. It's the other part of the country that wasn't meeting that. They were sending 20% contaminated bails over to China, and that's what happened to the recycling system. That had to do with Bottleville or... No, but ultimately, we're still saying that, you know, in terms of data, they're saying that there's still material that's not being captured for the systems we've got. Unfortunately, not once is going to provide the ultimate solution and that's being disposed of, and there is a cost to that.  That is a real cost that is being incurred, that we don't need to incur if we have an extended Bottleville that potentially captures 85% or could, my part of it, capture 90% of that material. And we haven't even calculated in here the environmental benefit of the litter abatement associated with plastic bottles in our environment, and we don't even know the cost, the environmental cost of that material in our environment in the long term. And these are the things we're just beginning to understand, and the public is also beginning to understand. Otherwise, why would the industry start making these commitments about minimum recycle content or commitments to funding organisations whether it's like in partnership so that they can discharge some of their obligations in terms of, you know, they recognise they have a responsibility for the products that they place on the market. And we all do, as a consumer, we do, you know, and I think do as a producer as well. The public is picking up that cost, we're picking up that cost, and that's not what it's going to be. Let's press on, we're asking a lot of questions. It's good that we are. Yeah, the next chart sort of just lays everything out in terms of comparison of the numbers we've got in addition to sort of the unregulated deposits that were represented in the column mentioned. And so, yeah, it's just an overview. If you have any questions about the numbers here. But basically, there are overarching benefits to expanding the bottle bill, to implementing UDR, to expanding the bottle bill, you know, like we talked about, you get a better quality product.  It can be passed on and made into new products. You get a better quality product that buyers want, and that can be then put into the drive, the demand for recycled content when these producers are making these goals. And you know, they're talking about the chicken and the egg of where are we going to get the supply of this recycled content material. They get it from bottle bill states. That's what drives recycled content inputs now, and will continue to do so for the future. So there has to be the supply to meet that demand. Otherwise, they're not going to be able to meet these voluntary commitments and, you know, or required commitments of legislations in that direction. Then also, of course, you get additional punches after the recycle, the team increase the redemption rate. There is less contamination, fewer GHC emissions, and this also relates to recycled content or placing, using virgin material with using recycled content is a huge boon for carbon emissions. You know, not actually taking additional trolling out of the ground to create plastic and using what we already have instead of then putting what we have into the landfill or, you know, spending all this time treating and treading and everything, but using a high quality material to make another high quality material, keeping it within this circular system is the goal. And so there should be policy that pushes for that. Thanks, just a quick question on that. So I don't know the energetics of the extraction of new material and turning it into a bottle versus taking a high quality used bottle and then making another bottle from it. Can you say something about emissions and energy use to do the virgin root versus the reusing recycling route? I don't have got any data now, but I mean, we've got a chart that shows you where the GHC emissions emanate from and everything we do at the back end really isn't having that much impact on a bigger scale. So diverting something from a landfill is kind of affected by the tip of the iceberg.  And we can provide separately some of that data. And I think just on that reuse element, I suppose, is actually the system in Norway is quite an interesting system. Their program only colors PEG bottles and glass bottles, I don't even care. But they have a reusable system for glass and that was environmental, you know, they did the bicycle analysis for it and that was the best option for that. They looked at it for plastic bottles and it didn't actually make sense to have a reusable system. So they actually phase out their reusable system for plastic bottles. So that's quite interesting. So, you know, I think it's different for different material types, I suppose, is what I'm saying. But in Oregon, for instance, now they've got that volume, they've actually started, implemented a new reusable system for beer bottles now. So they've kind of gone from a recycling rate that was dipped for like 70% for early 70s. They increased the scope, they increased the deposit, they've got the months to 90%. And now they've introduced their own reusable for their craft beer industry to use reusable bottles. So they're naturally through kind of the growth of the program, encourage their members to take that step further, not just look at the side of the reuse as well. So gradually leaving the discussion not the higher one, okay? Thank you. And finally, like we talked about, basically just having a system that treats all beverage material equally, treats producers equally, and makes it consistent for consumers. So basically what we are advocating is for both and or EPR as well as an ionization of the bottle bill. So like we said, you know, you already have some form of EPR through bottle bill where producers are paying for the collection and treatment of the recycling essentially. And then we're also saying that even with an EPR system, the products are still relevant and effective. In Europe where they have recently implemented the single use plastics directive, they're finding that to reach the 90% targets of plastic bottles being collected, which is now standard across all the member states that there are countries that are now looking to implement deposit systems because producers have found that that's the only way for them to get those actual collection rates of the bottles. So there is definitely a place for both systems and it can be definitely complimentary. And yeah, plastic gene EPR on its own does not address litter and plastic pollution. So you have to think about actually the redemption rates you're getting. So that's another sort of piece for the bottle bill there. And then a bottle bill under full EPR provides a system that allows the government to set targets. So allows you to ask for the outputs that you want to see and let the system sort of in the market decide how best to get you there and allows producers then to sort of have control to design a flexible system that would allow them to get the recycled content inputs that they need to meet those targets at the lowest cost and provides consumers with convenience and less confusing system makes everything more standard allows them to sort of take more control of their recycling and have a feel good sort of effort with contributing. And then also municipalities have landfill savings with that material that moves from the garbage that's not going, you know, not getting recycled at all currently through the household system. I can encourage savings there. So overall we see that there's place for, you know, multiple interventions that can increase recycling and environmental efforts in Vermont. And that Vermont can continue to be an environmental leader and provide an example for states around. And the future is up. I think be bold because, you know, industries are also looking at how they can do this as well. I don't think, you know, we all said I'm a recycle because my neighbor doesn't recycle. We all shouldn't say I shouldn't do this because, you know, my neighbor isn't doing this. I think there's going to be, there is momentum already made, you can get a feel of California looking at a feel. I think the momentum is there. You should look to see how you can do something that's going to be nice business friendly. I think ultimately as a pastor company we would encourage this, you know, producers to come to the people that you say this is a bill we won and this is a progressive bill. What we would like you to do is set the targets, enforce the targets and then leave us to go and do what we need to do. But the producers aren't quite there yet. I think they will get there because ultimately they won't want this patchwork of bills that we heard about before in order to stop the patchwork of bills. They should be coming forward with the progressive bills that they, you know, would be recommendations for what they would like. Are there examples of the extended producer responsibility on actually being responsible that the stewards, the steward companies that are set up in the EPR, are there examples of those companies and the EPR concept responsible for the deposit and collection part? Or are we keeping our other jurisdictions keeping those separate? We do understand that the deposit, collection and then the collection of the containers and all of that shuffling around involves a number of different businesses and a lot of different people. Has that been folded into the EPR stewardship where they take that off of, they take that deposit return package off of the merchants, if you will, and handle it that way in the EPR? Alberto hasn't got a full EPR system, it just has an EPR type system for the beverage containers. And then effectively the stewards appoint agencies to work on their behalf, so they would appoint a collection agent or they'd put, you know, but they still have a network of redemption centers that work independently. They're still that market driven approach, I suppose. I don't know if that's answered your question or not. Well, actually, I think you answered it, that they're still separate. They haven't been combined. The deposit return and the sorting and the trucking of those things around still remain. And then the EPR for containers is a separate thing. They haven't been married. Well, I think they effectively what those programs do is appoint an agent to do the work most cost effectively for them. I mean, ultimately, they just want to capture the material. I understood that for... But where we have, it looks like we're still using a dual system of EPR for containers but also a deposit return system which is separate from the one set up by the producers. British Columbia is the same producers that come in the way of programs. They've chosen to collect beverage containers for a deposit system because they think that's the most effective mechanism. They've chosen to collect other package of material for a curbside system because they think that's the most effective system for that packaging. So, but it's still managed by the same producers. Yes, yeah. So then, okay, thank you. I have a question to sort of ask Cathy while you're here. It was the fraud question that came up this morning. This morning. That feels like a lot of time. It feels like it's been an extra day. It feels like it's been an extra week, well. And you know, Mr. Bout was saying there are already more glass containers we need through the redemption system than are sold by Vermont registered deposit initiators in the Vermont community system. So I was trying to square that with what we've been hearing all day because that sounds like our recycling rate would be 100% if you are 101% or something. So I don't know, I'm trying to square that concern. I'm not doubting the legitimacy of a fraud concern, but do you know how to solve that math problem built in? I think there's a couple of things going on there. He did say commingling system. So the national, the big national brands are collaborating in commingling. So they're containers with the redeem to be put together. We do have a lot of brands that are not participating in commingling that are in similar glass. So if at the redemption center, those non-comingled containers go into the commingled container, then that's causing the manufacturers of the commingled products to pay for that, that container that shouldn't be in there. And if you do that at none times, you could have more than 100% of the glass that those brands, the commingled brands soak. That coupled with, no matter what system you have, when you put a bound to your deposit on it, there will be fraud. And we respond to every complaint we get, but you can't be everywhere. And some of it might be accidental. Maybe people do occasionally pick things up in New Hampshire, but they also buy in Vermont and they just burn it all together as opposed to the deliberate pictures that he showed us. And I think there's some of both going on. I think it's technology and enforcement. I mean, in Oregon, they've got Washington that doesn't have any deposit, and they've got 10% deposit, and they've got California that's only got 5% deposit. So they have 8 people, employee 8 people, just monitoring fraud in system, going to those redemption centers that are on those borders, monitoring throughput, following up on complaints and things like that to try and get on top of it. You know, it's very difficult to get data on any of, you know, to get good data, but when we've done work on it, go overseas. And there's mechanisms you can do to try and prevent that, you know, state-specific file coding, but maybe a bit too much, things like that. But we think that the fraud rates are around 4%, 3% or 4%, in most systems. The higher the fraud rates, the more likely you are to start seeing these elements of fraud as well, because it's only so high you can go, and then you can start really pointing where that fraud might be coming from, because there's other types of fraud as well. Producers putting units on the market that aren't, you know, the insult that aren't covered, so. I'm just forgetting, is New York 10 cents? No, five. An equal? So 10 would, would 10 make us, is there any other 10 cent deposit joining us and adjacent jurisdiction? Just curious. What's quarter of a million? I don't know what Massachusetts is for. No, it's only, the only 10s of U.S. are Michigan and Oregon, but Quebec, I think, is the other 10 out of 15. And they actually, Quebec actually invested money into kind of technology-based approach and they provided grants for electronic sorting equipment for some of their centres and RBM machines and some of the retailers to try and get better governance in the system, to try and look for as well. So they actually gave grants for all that technology improvement. I think, you know, those technology providers can provide that machinery on a volume basis, so per unit process, as well as on a capital investment, so you can do it either way. I think one of our first presentations also, it was the BC experience where they were talking about 90% of their glass was going into making new bottles. So my impression was that people are not making new bottles in New England, or there was a facility in Massachusetts at close. So is that kind of, especially for something that heavy and relatively low value, is sort of a hit or miss thing in terms of what your physical marketplace is like in terms of the opportunities to handle those materials? Yeah, I mean, I think, I feel, yeah, it's harder. You don't want to transport glass very far at all, because it's very handy and very expensive, so. Yeah, but I mean, that potentially comes into when you might look for more reuse in some of those bottles and having, using your local craft beer network to optimize that glass, that glass use locally. I mean, these guys are probably better versed on markets for glass. And my last question, but I promise for now, is, this is really trying to work, colleagues, so I had thought that glass was a bit of a bane of your existence, like that it ended up breaking, contaminating and grinding up parts and shortening your life spans. So if it was something that you had sounded like to me, it would be a positive to have glass out of the mirfs, is that? I don't think. Well, we're still gonna have glass at the mirf. You want to expand it on. Right, this can be pasta jars, or anything. Right, so that still has to be managed. And once you install the equipment and you have the labor, the cost is the same. It's still cost the same to process it. It's just the fact that there's no markets locally for glass. There is wear and tear on the system, but if you get it out right up front, which we do, both mirfs do, because it's smart to do, then you don't have as much of that. But I would ask the question about transportation, right? So when there aren't markets, it doesn't make sense to ship something 100 miles away because it might have an incrementally better chance to become another bottle than having it beneficially reused locally. That these are global life cycle impact questions. That'll constantly change it. As long as it's constantly changed, you could do it. That's right. Except for now, and two weeks later, it will be, sorry, yeah, but. We had the model bill for 45 years. Or if you are for oblasts. Right, yeah, that's right. And I think that's what changes it. I think the problem with that is that you're, you know, there's, you have, it needs to be done on a light product.  I mean, that's why we say you should have a deposit on all beverage containers, because that's fair. You start putting a deposit on a, as I said, a glass mayonnaise jar, and you could have it on a plastic mayonnaise jar as well. Because there's no effect of what you're different. It's just that you don't wanna have the glass. You know, that plastic, the mayonnaise jar, has a good, has a higher value if you collect it in the water system. Maybe some people think it's wise to pay more for soda than it is for water. Maybe not wise, but they're willing to. Help you. Well, I mean, the theory of choice. Care for you. You can win me. I'm sorry to pop it, but. So in the United States, our bottle bills paint. They target the type of beverages rather than the type of container. And so are you aware of either Canadian or European bottle bills where they're considering moving toward looking and managing container type rather than beverage type? And because we're doing a lot of discussion about glass in Vermont, as far as, what should we be doing with that? Almost all of the Canadian programs now move to, just about all beverage types. So that has. Do they have, it hasn't looked, so they're not, they've most have covered the beverage sector, but it's not necessarily material. I think, yeah. I think it's starting to be looked at though. We've been in conversations recently where they're talking about food containers as well. Yeah, and what, you know, my problem with food containers is that they're included. And even if you just kept it, you know, even if a program just kept it under beverages, are they thinking about, because there's always gonna be new beverages. Yeah, I do. Oh, because, I mean, Alberta system just says any beverage. If any beverage, so they collect tetrapact, they collect pouches, they haven't got a market for that material, but their members have to pick up a cost for that material, whether it's goes to an electric recovery or wherever else it might be, but it covers every beverage in whatever container. It covers a bag in a box. It covers, you know, some of those materials are very difficult to handle with those recommendations. It's just boxes that are in there. Yeah, but even those kind of box lines. Box lines. It's a box of bag inside. To tell the box. Those things are really difficult. And that's kind of the problem. Yeah. It's the problem. That's not a very natural sound. It's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's difficult for them. But they don't have as many sources like they have here. It's probably up on legal. Yeah. But, yeah. Yeah, but the conversations are expanding and we sort of advocate more flexible legislation that doesn't, you know, name everything so that as the market emerges, the legislation can expand to include things rather than you have to go in and change the legislation every time there's new products that come on the market. Yeah, other programs like adult projects and things like aerosol cans, people are looking at. Because it's kind of similar. People don't want them in the box. That's a very aerosol can. So, and you have a deposit on an aerosol can. And that, you know, if you have technology as well, it's very similar to managing aerosol can it is to measure the same shape, you know. It can be scanned easily. So, that's another area. Okay. Laura. On that point. So, I think everybody found the Ontario study really interesting. Do you have this whole idea of the kind of broader language that gives flexibility? Do you have other studies or examples of language you could share of kind of what's been working elsewhere in terms of, you know, effectively setting those kinds of targets and giving that flexibility to the producers to deal with it. I'd love to see any examples of how that's working elsewhere in analyses or a language review. I think we have enough of those things. Sounds. And I just wanted to circle back just briefly the health impacts. So, is that, you know, we had a, let's see. I'll just hit this way. The disturbing presentation last week from Dr., last week, two weeks ago, Dr. Myers thought about endocrine disruptors. So, we, I would say Vermont was on the more health-protective side of things for setting PFAS levels at 20 parts per trillion rather than the federal 80. But in terms of now there's data coming out that as an endocrine disruptor, the highest safe level might be more in line with one tenth of one part per trillion. So, far smaller. And I just don't know if that kind of science is making its way into the assessments that are saying what kind of plastics do we prefer to see in the environment and what kinds would we prefer not to see in the environment because of their health impacts when either food contact or it could be as litter or it could be there in the ocean or even in the aerosols and so forth. We, I mean that's not really our area of expertise I would say, the health impacts of some of this. I mean we do work around microplastics and some of the impact of emergent views around microplastics, but we haven't looked at the PFAS areas either, so you can't really comment. Sure, okay. Kathy will figure it out by our next meeting. Sorry. Sorry. Okay, well we are four minutes to our journey. So everyone's been, thank you very much for coming. Thank you for your questions before we wrap up as a community. Okay, thank you. So thank you everyone for, it looks like we're working hard today with a lot of data. We didn't have a chance to look back and look at people's submissions. So I'll make sure that, you know, I think probably one way to help us move along between before next meeting is to sit at that packet, just to make sure everyone answers the most current questions. I think a few submissions came in in the last few days. And then I'm gonna try to set up some sort of table for, you know, start to see what the pattern is in terms of what we are saying and then we'll send something around to help have people rain and show you the sort of, maybe a Google poll on all the things on the list. You know, start to see where there's some center of gravity amongst the group for taking action. Not that we have to come up with a consensus-based recommendation, but just it will be helpful for someone reading this report to know that seven people were interested in moving this piece forward and only one, some other few things or something. So just to clarify, so are we voting on options? No, I just thought it might be helpful that, you know, informal and just to start to have a sense of what is wrong. What are people feeling like? This is the area where you believe is the most promising for doing additional work. Not us just to come up with a plan but that in terms of bringing forward kind of a summary to the legislature and say we've been through this journey together. We've looked at a lot of different things and here are the areas where we think might most productively be looked at further by the legislature. I'm wondering, I mean, given we've, you know, gotten a ton of information to me, I mean, could the lens be, if you're setting up a kind of matrix or something, like how different policies are actually moving us towards the whole set out in the statute? Like which ones are, do people, you know, feel like our key pieces of moving it? I mean, I'm just like, we all vote for different things. I don't know how informative that is. We all vote for our own and I don't know where we go. But more like, you know, how are we looking at how do these fit together? I mean, there's some clumping of, I mean, there were a lot of like really ideas and comments and stuff. Well, I just said this sort of thinking a lot would do. So we can tune the concept up. I think that's a good improvement to say how do these ideas start to change the boxes that are in our original charge? Or it's, you know, might be helpful too. And there's obviously trade-offs with any of the potential options that we go down, you know, the terminal benefits and cons of their housing is what impacts this is differently. It's probably important that we know the potential benefits of going down a certain approach. And, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I think our goal is always fair and balanced. So let's make sure that we pass along the full story as we know it as opposed to some preconceived outcome or something like that, you know. Anything else? I just want to get clear. So we've had our two over meetings. Then we have a one meeting in November. Yeah, but I think it's the second Tuesday. Yeah, 12th. 12th, yeah. So it would be great if we could have, and I know we wanted to ask these folks lots of questions today. And so we kind of did it to ourselves. We kind of made up our discussion time. But it would be really good if at the November meeting we could have some community discussion time. Yeah, I mean, I actually thought we would have an hour of it today. I know, I know. And it seems actually different that we have witnesses who traveled and a chance to do a deeper dive on a number of things to stick with the opportunity we have. But I agree. So there was one witness who, because of illness, needed to reschedule. But I think next time we're gonna shift modes really to thinking about basically report writing and starting to draw things into a conclusion and have that kind of discussion. Just like we started to do with like, well, how about blasts at the Murphs and this and that. And I think the pro and con thing is a good idea. And it's for my fellow people to see how what the opportunities and costs are. So the report is due December 1st? Yes, but we don't have our sixth scheduled meeting until December 3rd, right? So, you'll have to take it out for the committee chair. Right, it's not gonna work. We're all one in jail. Yeah, the sergeant and arms will be gathering the two of us in the living. It's in the cellar for three days until it's in. No, I think we, because of the holidays, it just seemed like the first was, it's well ahead of the session. I mean, that's the important thing. And so rather than disrupt people's lives around the holidays, just honor the holidays, I get by them and, you know, turning in our report a week after will still be very timely. And well before the end of December, which is another bad time to have any kind of deadline, you know, for our meeting. Great, of course you mean. All right, thank you. Thank you, everybody.


Where did humans and all other living things on our planet come from? This problem puzzled humans for centuries, and there have been many different theories through the ages. Then, in the mid-19th century, a long came a naturalist called Charles Darwin. He set off on a five-year voyage with the British Navy on the HMS Beagle to circumnavigate the globe and carry out plant, animal, and geological surveys of the places they visited. During the trip, he visited the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. On his return, Darwin worked closely with ornithologist John Gould to study the varying species of finch he had brought back from the Galapagos. They noticed that the finch species varied in the size and shape of their beaks, and that this variation was based on their diets. Darwin deduced that when the original finches from South America came to the Galapagos, they migrated to different islands and had to adapt to different conditions in order to get food and survive. These adaptations were passed from one generation to the next. He believed that individual members of a species are all slightly different from one another, and that those that are best adapted to their habitat will stand a better chance of surviving to reproduce and pass on their beneficial traits to their offspring. Over time, those beneficial traits become more common, allowing that particular species to evolve. Critically, Darwin felt that it was not the environment that produced the variations, but chance occurrences, which we now know to be genetic mutations that enabled an organism to better exploit its environment. After more than 20 years of experimenting and developing his ideas, Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in a book called On the Origin of Species, extrapolating the theory of natural selection and combining it with discoveries made by modern genetics allows scientists to assert that all life on our planet came from a common ancestor that existed about 3.5 billion years ago. Through natural selection, new species are formed, some species change, and some are lost through extinction. In this video, you have learned that the voyages and research of Charles Darwin played a pivotal role in developing a theory about the origins of life and its variations on our planet, and that evolution is a process of continual change within a species as a result of chance occurrences. What else can you find out about Darwin? If you liked the video, give it a thumbs up, and don't forget to subscribe, comment below if you have any questions. Why not check out our Fuse school app as well? Until next time.


So, what really is search engine optimization? This module the one which we covered before and quite a few modules which we will be covering they all discuss and talk about search engine optimization. So, what really is search engine optimization? So, this is the module coverage. So, basic definition of search engine optimization which of course is very comprehensive and kind of a very humongous kind of a definition and what is search engine optimization now? Because times have changing, there are many different reasons why people search which of course we will be covering in the next module and what do the experts say about search engine optimization? Now, in the text there are quite a few experts who have talked about search engine optimization given definition so I have selected only few of them only few of them because time doesn't permit to cover all of them so let's go ahead. So, this is a kind of a big definition for search engine optimization so it is about the content what is there organic search results that we have discussed in the glossary the results which are presented and it has to become prominent and this is not only technical work it is marketing work also so it covers a lot so there is no single definition of search engine optimization in the text there are 60 plus experts and they were asked how they define search engine optimization and of course they have given their own definitions and all the answers and the perspectives are unique and none of them is wrong so what do the search engine professionals say? What search engine optimization is what it really is let's look at it so this gentleman I think this picture says it all that whatever is in your heart what you are looking for okay and it is your mind in between is Google that links your heart and mind right so hearts minds and souls okay so that's all matters your customers this is most important thing so presenting to your customers what they really want and over here the intent comes into the picture also for which we have a module which will be covered subsequently then there is another expert who talks about search engine optimization what is important over here is who are your visitors what they are searching for when they are searching why they are searching intent that will cover where they are searching how they are searching it is a cell phone it is a tablet okay it is a PC it is a laptop and so on you need to know all those things then another so we have this honeycomb over here this honeycomb over here okay and search engine optimization finds lands over in findable how findable it is so again you see that these are number of things it usable useful okay valuable you see there are many bells over here you can put more be alleys you can put more be alleys over here findable valuable usable okay so all these things if they are covered okay that is search engine optimization more what do the experts say how and where location the user is searching why they are searching what is the optimal how to completely satisfy them so these these points are similar to the ones which were presented before and then of course this is more Google specific will Google consider if Google didn't exist it where will be the results how they will be discovered of course Google has not been around for forever Google has not been around for a forever right there were other search engines also but what Google offered that is tremendous as compared to what other search engines were offering so this is what the experts say some of the experts which I have selected out of the 60 plus experts which are given in the text so this is all I have for this module for you