DATE: December 10, 2015
TO: Council Sustainability Committee
FROM: Director of Utilities & Environmental Services
SUBJECT
Update on EPA Trash Reduction Grant
RECOMMENDATION
That the Committee reviews and comments on this report.
SUMMARY
This report will update the Committee on the project's first quarter accomplishments and outline activities planned through next spring.
BACKGROUND
EPA Region 9 awarded the City $800,000 from the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund for the Youth-Based Trash Capture, Reduction, and Watershed Education Project (Project) proposal. The grant is to fund a four year, $1.6 million project, including matching contributions of $800,000 from the City and its partners as in-kind resources. The Project began in June this year and will end in spring of 2019. It is designed to reduce trash from entering the San Francisco Bay by partnering with local school groups to install large trash capture devices (large underground stormwater filters) in the City's storm sewer system, characterize and quantify trash collected from each device, assess trash sources, and implement trash reduction initiatives based on trash collected.
The City is partnering with the Hayward Unified School District, local private schools, and the City's Youth Commission, from which seventh through twelfth grade students will have an opportunity to assist the City's stormwater pollution prevention program with trash capture design, trash collection and assessment. Additional partners include California State University East Bay, East Bay Regional Park District, Hayward Promise Neighborhood, Chabot College, Keep Hayward Clean & Green Task Force, Alameda County-Wide Clean Water Program, and the Eden Area YMCA. Subsequent trash reduction activities will include researching the sources of trash and designing anti-littering campaigns amongst their student peers and beyond, and helping to develop anti-littering activit...
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