Eastern Iowa, Goodbye Joan's place

Area behind Marriott, Coralville - gorgeous!

I headed to "the dark side" Monday and Tuesday - Coralville (a suburb of Iowa City) for the annual Iowa Recycling Association (IRA) and Iowa Society of Solid Waste Operations conference. Knowing I'd be in the heart of Hawkeye country, I threw in my Cyclone quarter zip. Good thing too, because the Marriott Conference Center was freezing!

The City Carton Recycling folks broke out their Hawk polos across from our DNR booth. Somebody had to represent the good guys. Though nobody else had on the cardinal and gold, I had plenty of supportive comments - and took no crap. I guess it helps when you win the big game 2 years in a row! So proud.

Colleague Scott Flagg and I arrived early Monday for a Bottle Bill meeting. Same 'ol stuff - some glass recyclers plan to submit legislation to expand the bill once again this year. I'm not expecting much, but I do agree with them. The present system is dying on the vine as handlers haven't gotten a raise from the $.01 per bottle/can they got in 1988 when the bill passed. Small town redemption centers are dropping right and left. People are getting frustrated because there are fewer and fewer places to take their deposit items.

The beverage and distributors will fight any expansion. I wish we could find some middle ground that would keep items out of ditches and landfills and keep our recycling rate at the near 90% rate the present system provides. That's a tall order though. I can understand why grocers don't want them back in their doors, but haven't they had over 30 years to come up with alternatives? The outside areas/separate entrances work.

After lunch Scott and I went on a tour of Iowa City's new East Side Recycling Facility. I've reported on it before, since they are part of my program - Environmental Management System. Awesome education facility with a drop off for used motor oil, place where people can get compost. They also partner with Habitat for Humanity and the Salvage Barn.

After that, we toured a couple places that have located in town because Proctor and Gamble manufacture shampoo and other home products there. First we visited ALPLA - they make many of the containers P&G products go in. Blow mold, injection - you name it. They wouldn't allow us to take photos as they make their own equipment. I had a burning desire to use my phone to snap a quick shot, but I squelched it...didn't want my arm broken, or encased in plastic! Very interesting place - operated by surprisingly few people.

Next we walked to Heritage Environmental. They started up in town to assist an un-named client with off-specification products. (Proctor and Gamble is my guess!). The place smelled like shampoo - they de-package it, explaining typically this product is colored wrong, or touched the floor - stuff like that. I decided America needs to get over our "perfection" requirement. How about a store for stuff that's not quite right? Like the old bread store?

Anyway Heritage has found uses for the slickery stuff. They use it to help asphalt slide out of trucks. Genius! They're also coming up with new uses all the time. They are also dabbling in other things like carpet recycling, and water filter recycling. Interesting company - with the home base in Indiana.

That night was schmoozing time. Nice to see people I hadn't chatted with for a while. This is when my history - having been "one of them" for 10 years helps! Got to see my pal Susan Salterberg, and lil buddy Christine Richter - though my conversations with her came in short bursts between interruptions from her clients (they took priority - darn them!). I also talked to Kjrsten Bobb - who I'm FB Friends with - but I hadn't seen in person in forever!

On Wednesday Scott and I went to supper with Susan and a couple women about my age. They tried drilling Scott about the baddest thing he's ever done. It was hilarious - like he was under a bright light. He didn't spill his guts though.

Wednesday was my big day. Consultant Cory Sander and I gave a program "EMS Jeopardy" to market our Environmental Management System Program - my baby. We thought using the Jeopardy format might seem less preachy than the traditional ed format. We were right! Jason, the education guy from Cedar Rapids is good with technology and they have these clickers that we handed out to the 25 people who attended. The computer program kept track of $ scores and we handed out prizes for the top 3 in various categories. Water bottles, flashlights etc. I filled in bits of information on answers of questions. Phew - glad it's over.

When I got back to DSM, I spent my last night in Waukee at Joan's. I am somewhat at a loss about that. It's been such a great situation for me - and I've so enjoyed getting to know Joan better through this past nearly 4 years. She joked that I kept her informed on family stuff (through her bro Jeff, and he said the same thing...) And I sure slept well (most of the time) in the big bed in the basement. It's nice and cool and quiet down there. Even though I know I'll continue to see Joan periodically since we'll be living in town, it won't be the same as living with her. It was hard to clean my stuff out of the drawers. I'll miss her!