Learn and Lunch with SWS - June 26, 2025

Welcome everybody to our first SWS open house. I want to welcome our assembly members, Mr. Constant, Mr. Myers, Mr. Johnson. Thank you guys for coming, we really appreciate it. And behind you really are all the SWS staff that we have behind us.

So SWS, yeah, that's the crew. You've got folks from finance and engineering and operators and transfer truck drivers, and you've got energy and sustainability, and you've got the MOA Deputy Director, Mr. Stafford. You've got foreman from the regional landfill. So you have a representation of really everybody that works with and around SWS. Our Superintendent, Ian Goodwin.

They keep coming in. David Persinger. Our fellow sister utility, AWU. And Anita, Anita Nelson from ALPAR, Executive Director, thank you for co-hosting today. Yeah, absolutely, pleasure.

Great to meet you all and look forward to the conversations. And it doesn't happen here, we're going to have booths out there, so we can always have individual conversations, or if you have questions, feel free to ask us afterwards. Yep, so today we're just going to rapid-fire this because We are hoping that you're paying more attention to what you see going across the tubing floor really than what we have to say here today. But it's a nice place to be. This building, we stood this up and opened the doors in 2023.

So we've been in operation and just rocking and rolling since then. Our mission really is safe, innovative, and sustainability for Anchorage. That's really our bottom line. And I try to say that every time that we talk to you all. So we're going to talk about what is Solid Waste Services.

Most of you know and are champions, and we appreciate that. But we want to talk about how we serve residents, some of the innovation and what we're working on, and then how to get involved in the future. So our service area is everything inside that red line. That includes curbside recycling, curbside composting, and curbside garbage service. If you live inside the service area, recycling is free, something that we're happy to be able to provide.

It encourages residents to recycle. That means they have to pay less for their utilities, which is great. We have a lot of different functions within Solid Waste Services, as you know, two utilities, two separate utilities, the disposal utility and the collections utility. The facilities today, the material recovery facility is open. We were just talking about that.

If you get a chance and want to go over there, check out the woodlot. Where are— Ian, are we shredding wood today? Do you know? We were this morning. Okay.

Lunch breaks, I don't know if we will be when they go over there. Yeah, but you'll be able to check out, check it out, check out the operations over there. But we also run the Girwood Transfer Station. You're here at the Central Transfer Station. Honestly, as a resident, I never knew what those big red trucks were on the Glen Highway.

I had no idea what they were. Now I'm keenly aware. Anyway, and then you see up here at the top the Regional Landfill. There's the disposal, customer service, vehicle maintenance. We have a vehicle maintenance shop here and we also have one at the, at the administration and vehicle maintenance out at the Regional Landfill.

So we average about 300,000 tons a year for what is buried at the landfill. That's really why we're here. 80% Of what's buried at the landfill is what you see heading to the landfill today. There's no— the only real pulling out or segregation of materials that you see that's brought in is the white goods, we call it. So like any of the appliances, like your hot water heaters, your refrigerators, we pull those out because we want to be able to drain out the Freon, for example, and that kind of thing.

So as you see that coming out and going onto the tipping floor, you might see a loader pick it up and they'll pull it out, out of the waste stream. But everything is buried out at the landfill. We collect it, we dispose of it. What do we do, Kevin? Push, pack, cover.

Push, pack, cover. That's it for the landfill. I always like asking him that because it's really good. So we also collect the landfill gas out there, and Doyon operates the plant. If you get a chance to come out and do a tour, it's kind of nice for you to be able to see the operations in person and be able to understand And we are doing a lot of work right now on our gas collection and control system.

You hear me say it all the time when I'm talking to your committee about it. So we talk a lot about the collection of it. But there's a lot of opportunities for either pulling it out and recycling it and/or what we're heading towards now, which might be the waste-to-energy project. Over here at the Material Recovery Facility, facility, the organics. According to the EPA, 58% of landfill gas is created by food scraps and organics.

So we have an opportunity to do more with diversion. Every single year we increase the amount of diversion. Last year it was almost 627 tons is what we collected last year in organics just by being open only 3 days a week. So people are catching on to it. This year we also accept fish scraps, which if you're a gardener, you know fish carcasses Those are great for the dirt.

So we're encouraging more of that. We'd rather it come to us and be used for beneficial use rather than going to the landfill. There's the woodlot. It's going great this year. You remember that we did, we opened it up for free as a wildfire mitigation and we get the Anchorage Fire Department grant.

So it's helping to subsidize that operation, which is, we're trying to be creative with our financing to find other ways to finance some of these projects. So we're really happy to partner with AWU for that. And people are happy. They literally are the happiest place on earth is over there at the Woodlot. So go over there and just check it out because those people are very happy.

So we say trash is treasure. And that's kind of what we're going to talk about today is what is the value? Look at what's on the floor right now. What, what out there could be treasure? What do you see?

It's not rhetorical. Like, what do you literally— what's out there? A sofa. Push that right now. Oh, see, I see trash going.

We're gonna have to work on that. We have more work to do, Holly. I'm feeling seen. I'm feeling seen.

Okay, so, uh, with the waste characterization study that we did in 2017 we found that 58% really could have been considered organics in that organics pile part. So if you really think about all the stuff that we are burying at the landfill, there's a great opportunity to start pulling out more of those things or to at least be able to start using it for beneficial use, which is what we're going to talk about in, in the future. But for now, we want to kind of explain to you this very difficult complicated, delicate— not difficult, delicate— waste stream that we have with our recycling. And Anita is going to talk to us more about that because we are like an island up here in Alaska. Everything gets shipped in and recyclables get shipped out because we don't really have much of an established circular economy right now.

So Anita, you want to take it away and talk about what Alcar does? I'll send you some of these around if you don't mind taking one and then passing it back. Those are great pictures. So as she said, I'm Anita. I'm the Executive Director for Alcar.

We've been around since 1982. We are very small, but we like to say we have a big impact. We have an all-volunteer board of 18 I'm the only employee, and we have no physical office. We operate remotely, and our operating budget is under $500,000. So with that, it takes a lot of partnerships to make things happen.

So for example, out of the state of Alaska, as you all know, we're very dependent on all those shipping containers coming in. All those shipping containers come in. Well, in order to do some good, what we do is we fill those with recyclables, working with the recycling centers in Anchorage, Valley, and Fairbanks, and a little bit with the Kenai. And so the recyclables that are collected and sorted are put in those shipping containers and sent back to the lower 48 at no cost. So it's through our nonprofit that we're able to secure those agreements to get those recyclables to move at no cost.

That's the only way it becomes economically viable. As you know, shipping container costs are huge. Huge. So at least we do at least 1,000 shipping containers every year of recyclables going back to the Lower 48. So we have agreements with recycling centers, not with municipalities.

We don't determine what commodities are recycled. That is through the RFP process with the recycling centers and whichever community, the borough, whoever it is that's setting up those contracts, that's what both sides. So we have no say, ALPAR has no say in what commodities are collected or recycled. As part of that agreement with the recycling centers, we get a portion of those proceeds back. We in turn are a grant-making agency, and so what we do is we provide grants for litter prevention, collection events.

For example, down in the Kenai area, they did an e-waste collection event this summer with Sultana, Homer, and Lawlock, and I think New Halen and Fort Ground. And so they collected a whole bunch of recyclables, so we helped provide a small grant in order for them to carry out that type of activity. Those grants also go out— we do about $100,000 worth of grants out to mostly rural communities to engage up to 1,500 youth to go out and pick up litter. So it's not only teaching them job skills, but it's hopefully teaching them something about the environment and hopefully making, you know, non-litterbugs as they grow into adults and an appreciation for their environment and where they live and a little bit of community pride. So that's our goal.

We do about $100,000 worth of grants out to these communities, mostly rural villages, um, probably about 90 communities. It's usually small grants, it's usually used as seed money to allow a community or a village to then say, okay, we got $1,000 from Alpar, will you match that? And so that way they can kind of double up on their money. We kind of start the process rolling for them. Some of the other things that we do is we also said securing those over-the-water agreements with the AML, TOTE, Matson, trucking companies like Weaver Brothers and the Alaska Railroad is in rural villages.

We also have what they call the flying cans. Flying Bottles program. So we've moved up to 12 tons of aluminum cans out of the villages through that process. That's a process that works through the Alaska Air Carriers. So once again, you've got small planes flying into a village.

They've got space, backhaul space they call it, available on their airplanes. So we take those aluminum cans, they come to the Anchorage Recycling Center. They give us reports and then we pay out villages for the market price of those cans. So then it usually goes to support their youth environmental programs essentially, and to continue those programs. We also give out grants for those small rural villages to get can crushers.

We have pictures and stories of places where they were literally taking 2x4s with a hinge in between to crush the cans in order to send them. So we're like, well, there's a need. Here's something we can do to fill that gap. So we get corporate sponsorships. In order to give out some grant money so they can get either hand crushers, real hand crushers, which are much safer than using a 2x4 when you got a bunch of kids crushing cans, or else mechanical ones that might be able to plug in.

As you know, with many of the rural villages, we also offer up to the size they could get a baler if they have a large enough community. As you know, many of the rural communities, they may not have an electrician, they may not have variable sources of power to run that equipment, so that's kind of a delicate dance. It's really based community needs. We also distribute up to 200,000 ALPAR bags to various community groups to do litter pickup in their communities. If you've ever seen the yellow ALPAR bags, they're not to be left by the side of the road.

They are— if you end up with an ALPAR bag as part of a community group doing a cleanup, there should also be a process to get those to where they need to go. But we also work with with folks that are— generally it's going to be like, say, DOT, they have Adopt a Highway, municipality has Adopt a Garden, Adopt a Trail. We will give them bags. We don't give bags to individuals, unlike the chamber does here locally. These are bags that are given to entities because it's more efficient for us in the process.

We also give bags out to those that are doing marine debris cleanup. So a lot of folks that are getting NOAA grants right now to do marine debris cleanup, they also get bags as well. Pick up litter.

I think those are probably most of the things. I know for that many of you might have questions about like, why doesn't this recycle or that recycle? Unfortunately, you know, it all depends on where you live, volume of the product that might be being collected, and the value of that product. At the end of the day, even though we're a nonprofit, we still gotta, you know, turn the lights on and pay the bills. Meet our mission, which is to get money in the door to then disperse out to where the various groups are.

So we really do focus on being a grant-making agency. If folks have questions afterwards, feel free to reach out. Thank you, Anita. And ALPAR hosted— co-hosted this event, and all the food that was available in the other room is all sponsored by ALPAR. So thank you for—.

Yes, what's Absolutely. We appreciate it. And so, you know, when we talk about what does that recycling process look like, you have to think about each one of these steps as cogs in the wheel to actually make the whole thing work. And so I think about glass, for example. You have to have, for example, you have to have the market and the demand and the retailing aspect of it in order to make the whole thing work.

If you don't have the volume matching what's going into the volume that's going out, you don't have a true circular economy. And so it's a very delicate, delicate balance. One perfect Cinderella story that they do have in the valley, they do have the circular economy Thermal Cool of Alaska. I'm not endorsing their product, I'm just using this as an example. They take the box, they make the blown-in insulation, They make hydromulch for mulching hydra seed, and they also make pet bedding, but it's all made from the cardboard.

They employ 7 people, and this is a great opportunity for the Valley to be able to keep it in place. So in a moment, we are going to play a game, but I'm going to advance to the next thing because I want to get to this next. I want to talk about our innovation and where we're heading. If you get a chance today, we'd love for you to go check out our EV truck. We have 2 of them.

They're out on the street. They, all the drivers on the disposal collection side or on the collection side of the house, they've all had a chance to drive the truck. And so if you get a chance and you see them out in the, in the environment, so to speak, speak. Say hi, be cool. Uh, now we're going to get to the exciting part.

This is our waste-to-energy. This is our Deputy Director, uh, Mark, in Tokyo, Japan. And that's the stack of a waste-to-energy, uh, plant there. And the cherry blossoms look stunning, and it looks like a fantastic trip. But just to show that there's nothing coming out of that stack and it's operational now.

So you're going to see our new SWS logo with the lightning bolt because that's where we are heading, is waste to energy. So we know we're in a— we have this natural gas shortage facing us, and SWS says, well, what can we do to help? It's not only lengthening the life of the landfill project, but it's also supplementing with the, um, the gas issues that we need today. When you look at the EPA hierarchy, this is what they say is like the best case scenario to do with all of this stuff. The best thing is not to have any of this stuff at all— source reduction.

Second, recycling, composting— that's the next best thing to do. Um, the next best thing to do is energy recovery, and that's the waste-to-energy topic that we're, we're heading. And then treatment and disposal is really what we're doing now. So we want to at least step it up a few notches with both recycling and energy recovery. So this is the part where I also talk about our sister utility, AWU.

And David, your stack here is in the middle. This is asplund, right? And so what are you doing there? So we're— that's a beautiful July day, sunny. Kind of like today, and we are burning about 20 wet or 20 dry tons of biosolids a day through that.

So biosolids is the organic materials that get flushed down the toilets. We remove them at the treatment plant. They become a— they're a high-energy residual. Currently we incinerate them with a multi-hearth incinerator that takes a lot of gas and electricity, and it's got a finite life on it. It's about the same age as I am, but it's had a lot A lot worse life than I have.

But really, this ties into AWWU because we are facing having to replace that incinerator or do something with those biosolids. And currently we're incinerating them at about $3 million just in gas and electric, plus all the air permitting and other things like that. So it's a big expense. And then the residuals from that ultimately end up going back to the landfill. So this is an ability for us to deal with our biosolids issue and take something that currently is a huge energy suck, primarily natural gas, and turn that into an energy source which would actually, instead of taking energy away from the grid, put energy back on it and help us deal with the problem that we need to, you know, a residual that's challenging to deal with.

Such a win for both utilities and for the city to make that happen. So we've talked about this before, but These are all the awesome benefits of what this waste-to-energy is going to do for saving money for ratepayers and keeping the money, keeping the money within Alaska. And that's really the goal of this project. And I do want to identify Mr. Shimshimer there in the back. He is our project manager for this.

And also Rebecca, you— she's with our project management office. So the other good thing is the ability to do the treatment of PFAS and PFOLA. We don't really have that right now. They have to ship all that stuff out of state. So if we have the ability to incinerate it here, boy, that would be a big unblocking, so that making way for progress that we don't currently have.

It makes it very troublesome and difficult to deal with. Reducing the landfill use and obviously extending the life of the landfill which is what SWS is always ultimately wanting to do. And then the greenhouse gas emissions and the leachate both are topics of interest and issues for SWS, so that helps to clear the way for that as well. And it's obviously a dependable and renewable energy, making that— creating the 20 to 30 megawatts of power that fills at least 10% of the gas shortage gap. So those are kind of, uh, really good things for, for us.

So the other cool thing that could happen is we want to, and we will be engaging with the rail belt. We had a preliminary conversation with the railroad and they're excited about the prospect of, in the Lower 48, there are many places in the Lower 48, particularly on the East Coast, where there are no landfills. States states don't have landfills. They rail it all over to neighboring state where it gets landfilled or where it gets used. So we're like, why don't we do that here in Alaska?

Why don't we use our rail belt to collect the refuse, the treasure, from all across the rail belt to be able to build volume and capacity for this system? So that's where we're headed with it, and we will be engaging with the different communities here soon in the future. We've had some preliminary conversations with some folks south, and they're excited about it and they want to learn more. So it's a journey we're all on together, but one that's really exciting and could really transform the whole state in the way that we do and the way that we look at what we used to call garbage. Now we call it treasure.

We shared this before with you on the timeline, and we will be engaging with you guys and giving you those timeline updates as things progress as we learn things. We've talked about this before, so this will become more granular and you'll see more detail in it in the future. So now I'm going to go back to this because we're going to play a game called Trash is Treasure. So Anita, my assistant, you guys have your voting cards. These are your voting cards.

So I'm going to pass these back to our friends in the back because You guys should all play too, so here, grab these bags. Everybody grab some. Somebody else. We're gonna test the staff too. So ready?

We're gonna play Trash is Treasure. So the way this is gonna work is you gotta keep track of your own points, your own, like, however many points you get, and we'll see who wins, okay? So the way this is gonna work is Trash, if you think it's gonna go in the trash, you're gonna hold up the blue tag. No, sorry, the pink tag, that's trash. Treasure is the blue tag.

So you're gonna vote trash or treasure. And if you say it's treasure, for bonus points, you're gonna say what you would do with it. Where would it go? Okay, is that clear? Trash or treasure, and if it's treasure, where does it go?

Okay, so we're gonna pick up an item and then— so let's practice. So pick up an item. All right, so you guys, here's a gimme. Yeah, it's either trash or is it treasure? All right, I better see all blue.

Yes! Okay, so now pick some people who says it's treasure. Pick Pick where they— what can you do with it? Raise your hand. Who wants bonus points?

Who wants bonus points? Where? Um, there's a recycling center right down the street. Yes, that's one. What else?

Where else can you put it? You can take it to the street, but do what? The landfill, at the recycling bin there. There's another point. So you can take it to the recycling center out at the landfill.

Where else can you take it? What else could you do with it to recycle it? Curbside pickup. Curbside pickup, that's right. Anybody have any other bonus ideas?

Nope? Okay, that was good. That was a good, good— and the crazy thing, if you don't already know about aluminum cans, you can infinitely recycle them without degrading the material. So it can just— if you recycle it, it will continually be transformed into another can infinitely. And if you have kids, we do a Can Do Kids recycling program at the Anchorage Recycling Center.

So if they go to the recycling center to drop off their cans, they not only get paid for the cans that they drop off, but they get put in for a monthly prize. And that's what Alvar has to pay for, is that monthly prize to kids. So cool. Yep. Okay, pick another one.

All right, we're gonna start with these ones. Okay, do you want the items in there or just the box? Uh, we'll start with the box. All right. This is another easy one.

We're giving you guys all the gimmes first. Okay, trash or treasure? Looks like it's a treasure. Okay, what do you do with it? We should hear all kinds of ideas now.

Toilet paper. Make toilet paper? Recycle paper. You're gonna make toilet paper? I mean, I'm curious about this from Awu.

Yeah, you, you could. It could be recycled and turned into to— yes, yeah. What else? But you're raising your hand, Chris. Well, there's that Thermal Cool.

You gave us the Thermal Cool. Yeah, they could use it. Also, there's a private recycling place over here, takes cardboard. Yep. Yes, so you could take it across the street, you could take it to Thermal Cool.

What else could you do with it?

Burn it. Burn it. You could, you absolutely could. Matt? I believe you can take it also to the landfill, put it in the recycle bin.

That's amazing! Yes, you can. Good job, Matt. Grind it up and compost it. Grind it up and compost it, absolutely.

It makes really great weed blocker too, if you want to put that down on a walkway, it makes it great for that too. Anybody else have any genius ideas about what to do with cardboard?

Save it year after year and use for Christmas present wrapping. Ah, reuse! Very good from our energy and sustainability person. Very good, Michelle. Okay, all right, all right.

Gosh, you guys are getting the easy ones. Trash or treasure? Yep, James. Okay, now what number is that? This one is a number 1.

A number 1? Okay, what do you— it's a number 1, so what do you do with the number 1? Bottle. Take the cap off and turn it in. You can save the cap.

Leave the cap on. You can turn it into Tuba Force. Yes, yes you can. In fact, that's what that green little container is right there is for Pat. So Alaska Plastics, they have a booth here today.

If you get a chance and go over there and talk to them, they have some really good information. But they will take all plastics. So all the plastics up here can go to Alaska Scrap. But those in particular, you keep the cap on, you can put those in a commingled bin, you can take it to PAT. That's pretty much all you're going to do with it, really.

Uh, so what— so to keep it simple, out of all these plastic items that you see up here, are there any others that could go in the commingled bin? Anything with that neck on it. Yeah, anything with the neck and the bottle cap. These two would— could be, so long as they're a number 1 or number 2, could go in the commingled. Everything else has to go to Patrick because we don't take it.

It's part of that what Anita said. So, but this, what else could this be used for, these pots? Planting. Reuse. Yep, reuse.

Um, You can, in the fall, they usually have like a take-back system either at botanical gardens or Yarducopia. Nick should be here today. He will have some great information if you're interested in learning more about Yarducopia. There are some really cool things that they do in the city for, if you do composting and you need certain feedstocks, they can provide it for you for free. You can bring materials in for free.

You take materials out for free. It's a very cool little community of folks that do that. Uh, okay, what about this?

It's all— Matt? It looks bad from here. This is worm food. This is our staff worm food. So this is treasure.

These are our food scraps, thanks to Nicolette in the back. She is our worm keeper. I was fired. Because I stopped taking care of the worms. But we, we, if you get a chance and you go talk to Nick, he will tell you all about the worm farm and vermicomposting.

Anchor Gardens is here. Are they here? No, they're not here. Anchor Gardens teaches composting and vermicomposting, which is composting with worms, classes, and they're doing that for SWS and providing it free for residents to be able to learn more about how to compost and how to keep worms. We love our little worms.

We have worm bin number 1 of 7. There's a, now a, what's that called, hereditary chart, ancestry chart. We're bin number 1 of 7 of these worm farms in the ASD. So as our worms continue to make more baby worms, we make more farms, worm farms that go into the school district. So it's kind of fun.

But if, for you all, SWS staff, if you didn't already know that we have our container in the freezer. Kelly, can I add something real quick on the question for the worms? So everybody's probably heard of microplastics and that's a new challenge, right? And microplastics are pretty much in everything. I recently saw some research where they've been using mealworms to consume and actually break down microplastics in various matrices.

So there's research where the worms actually may be able to deal with some of that pervasive microplastic contamination. So it's kind of an anecdotal thing, but the worms are pretty important. It is. In fact, I do have a slide that shows how smart those worms really are, because in a compostable cup, not much different than this compostable container container here. Those worms will eat all the wood product on the outside and left a very thin Saran Wrap, perfectly round cup left of like a Saran Wrap cup, which was crazy because they don't eat the plastic.

But this is a controversial one. I'm glad Anita grabbed it. I was like, uh, I don't know, this is a controversial one. A lot of people think they're doing great by buying these compostable containers, but this container is not necessarily compostable because it does have this plastic liner in it. And so there, well, it can be recycled.

You can put this in the recycle bin for plastic, but you, but you would not want to compost this and you would not want to put this in for your bin because of the microplastics. So there's that. Okay, what about this one? Crash or treasure? It's treasure!

Oh, we got them! Excellent. So this is, uh, when you get a chance today, we would like for you to go over to the Household Hazardous Waste Facility. This is Anchorage's best-kept secret, one that I'm not proud of, um, because everyone should know about the ReUse Store. So, uh, they should be able to go over there.

You can get this kind of stuff for free. It's already, it's open containers, so the reuse store, you never know what you're going to find over there. But Anchorage residents can bring 40 pounds of household hazardous waste, HHW, to either this location or the landfill. They can bring it, 40 pounds for free, and then you can pick it up for free. So those are That's kind of the coolest thing.

So today when you get a chance, hopefully you can walk over and take a look at that as we go on our tour. What time is it, Dave? I do have one kind of exciting announcement to make, uh, that we just received word this morning that Senator Murkowski has earmarked— not earmarked, she's put us on the list anyway for congressional delegation spending for 2025. For $1 million for our waste-to-energy project. So that's exciting.

We're not all the way home with that yet, but that's a very good thing. And on the list, we are number 1 on the memo that was transmitted to Senator Kennedy for consideration in the committee, Energy Committee. So we'll know more about that in August, but it's very exciting. It's a win for our team, and it's baby steps forward where, you know, they always say, when is a good time to when is a good time to start changing what we're doing? It's today.

So we're moving in that direction and happy to answer questions. I want to thank Logistics for helping, helping us with this event. They helped put it together. The flowers that you see over there are all recycled from an event last night, and all of the containers were also recyclable materials. This is a zero waste event and this is also something that we are trying to work on, Rochelle and I are, and the rest of the SWS team, of encouraging more events that are zero waste.

You've got lots of options over there. Uh, the garbage is your very last option, but there's a compost bin there for food scraps, there's paper for all the paper products, there's plastic for all the Alaska scrap plastics. So this is one of those things that we should be doing in all of our Anchorage events, is making all of our events zero waste and communicating that to people. I went to an Anchor Gardens conference in the spring where they said bring your own cup. You don't—.

And it's cheaper for them, they don't have to buy coffee cups. Everybody brought their own cup, they used real utensils, All of these utensils and plates can be recycled, so this is where we should be going. This is what we can be doing if you bake it in early. So any questions? Mark, did you want to say anything?

Uh, no, that was good. Good job. I like the new logo too. Yeah, by the way, we have a new logo. Good job, Holly.

Sometimes it's catch as catch can where they get to talk to them about the good news from today. What's the good news? So that was, that was like years of advocating with the delegation, like even from like my first stint here at the meeting. And, uh, you know, a lot of hard work went into it from like everybody here, you know, at the, uh, 8th floor, you know, the assembly members, Chris, you know, whoever was advocating for us in DC. All that helped out.

So that's, that's So we've still got one more hoop to go through, or a couple more, but it's good to be on the list. And yeah, that's a good sign of partnership with our federal delegation too, and trust in what we're doing here, and understanding what the vision is. So that's a big win for us. So good job. Yep.

Any questions?

None? You guys ready to walk around? We've got vendors here, partners from all over. Please take the time to go and talk to them. Uh, we are going to do a tour where we're just going to walk over to HHW and we can talk more about how this facility operates.

Just a word about what you see out here, you know, we bury, like I said, that 300,000 tons in the landfill and, you know, you've got public coming in here, you've got commercial coming in on the other side, our trucks come in on the other side, and then the hand unloads here. And then as you go out, and we'll walk around, you'll see the white goods and the hazardous waste and that kind of thing. So get a chance to talk to some of our folks here. We all— we're excited to meet you and talk to you too. So thank you, thank you for coming and spending the time.

It means a lot to us. Uh, we've never done this before, and I think that in this small community that we're in together. We are all in this together, and we appreciate your continued support for SWS. We appreciate it. Makes our lives, uh, helps us to be able to operate a lot easier.

So thank you. Okay, thank you guys. Thanks for coming.