and I did the initiative to to do it
because I think it's really important to
take care of third we talked with DeLand
resident Avalon mole-rat one day after
her city decided to ramp up their
recycling and conservation efforts and
for this campaign it's about education
because contaminations effecting rising
recycling costs so understanding what's
recyclable allows us to get results so
we have some special guests here with us
today to talk about the education
recycling campaign first we have public
works director Dimitri's Presley good
morning morning thank you so much for
being here so there's a lot of myths of
how what's your cycle and what not so
what are the one things that you find
that people recycle that they're not
supposed to well you know we've done
some statistics on it and right now one
in four item that's set up for recycling
is contaminated and so we've launched
the campaign to kind of handle that and
so that's what working on that a lot of
things like glass you know different
things like certain aluminum's that they
try to put in that's just not recyclable
and so that's what we're working to try
to educate the public on making sure
we're recycling the right items so when
you say contaminated are we do we need
to do things before we throw them in the
recycling bin what what qualifies as
contaminated well you know of course any
of the juices like if you have a soda a
plastic container you know you need to
make sure you rinse it out then place it
in any type of other contaminants or
liquids that are in it need to be kind
of rinsed out and cleaned out so when
it's put in it's not as a it doesn't wet
up the other stuff and contaminate it
because that's where we're losing their
process from that from it to contaminate
what about you know plastic shopping
bags I know that a lot of times those
also cause problems for you they do but
those are things that can still go in
and they got a place for that the
plastic on that so that those are
normally fired it's getting away from
the glass as one of the things that
they've seen over the years is thinking
this can you know it's a recyclable item
right now there's not a market for it
with the processing and and there are
some neighboring cities like Deltona
that announced that they were forced to
kind of suspend the whole recycling
program because of these costs because
of contaminants and you guys are just
saying hey it's costing us more money so
we're actually going to take the effort
to try to educate people
city has taken a real good approach to
making sure that we recycle right and so
we've brought it before our Commission
and staff and the decision was made we
wanted to continue it's in the best
interest of our citizens and it's the
best interest of our environment and so
we're going to continue to recycle oh
you go ahead we're looking on the screen
we saw your app tell us about your app
yeah we have the recycle coach app it's
an app pretty much where all citizens
can go on our residents of DeLand can
get on that app and said Apple or
Android and you can get on and it tells
you about your your waste days and also
gives you tips on how to recycle right
making sure you're doing the right thing
with your recycling items so the
campaign started in March lots been like
we've had good response right now that
from that app we've had about 60%
increase of subscribers signing up to
make sure they recycle so it's coming
along really well that's great exciting
times and happen if someone's watching
us that is a resident of DeLand and
maybe doesn't have the right bins and
stuff how can they get around to doing
that of course they can contact our
office six to six seven thousand and
they'll direct you in the right
direction to get over to Public Works
and and we'll get a hold of our hauler
and make sure they have what they need
Demetrius thank you so much we're toss
it now to Julie who's with a special
giveaway right yes another component of
this campaign features other city
conservation initiatives join us now
Maryellen Calabro DeLand city forester
and Dylan's recycling mascot skip DeLand
fall when we were sitting there she said
a trash can just walk through and I
thought that this is the day she finally
lost her mind but it was actually yes
yes so thank you so much for being here
first of all tell us about the annual
tree giveaway well it's April 20th this
year we've been doing it for over 20
years this is going to be my 12th year
doing it we have about 2000 trees
looking for a new home 14 different
species and a variety of species I've
got a lot of smaller trees larger trees
so whatever size property you have we
should have something that'll work for
you I have a sweet gum here with me
today which is a nice tree that's going
to get very tall but we also have some
trees that are much smaller okay and so
when people come I assume you have to be
a