Recycling Tips

I am writing an extra post because I want to share some recycling tips for you. These apply specifically to the City of Phoenix, but most cities in the Phoenix area have similar recycling rules. Check with your locality to learn more!

Before working at Solid Waste, I considered myself a pretty decent recycler. It wasn't something I gave a great deal of thought to, and convenience was key, but I tried my best. However, I have improved a lot as a recycler. I always recycled paper, plastic bottles, cardboard, and glass bottles, but I didn't think about other items. Here are my tips:

Things you can recycle that you probably aren't (or I wasn't, until recently):

• Shampoo, conditioner, body wash bottles- just rinse them out in the shower to get the last bit out 
• Laundry detergent jugs- you can now recycle all plastics, 1-6, including these
• Plastic food containers, like margarine tubs
• Food cans
• Glass food jars 

Things you can't recycle that you (or friends and family) might be throwing in:

• Paper towels- just because paper is in the name doesn't mean its recyclable! paper towels are compostable though
• Pizza boxes- these are too greasy/contaminated
• Plastic bags- these get stuck in the machinery at the MRF. Take them to the grocery store to recycle instead

Most important is to keep out food waste, including paper containers that are greasy or food-y.

Hopefully that helps some well meaning people who just don't think about or realize all of the items that are recyclable! This is certainly not all inclusive, but you can look up your city or town online and see what their specific policies are.  Happy Recycling!

Thank You Letter

Although I am not finished with my internship quite yet, here is an idea for a thank you letter to my supervisors:

To Lorizelda Stoeller and John Trujillo,

Thank you both so much for this opportunity to intern at Solid Waste. I have really enjoyed all of my experiences out in the field and in the office. John, it is fantastic to have the support of a manager for the internship program, and have a manager who values the work of student interns. Lori, you are extremely kind and helpful, and lead by example.

I look forward to the rest of my year here at the City, and I hope to learn and contribute a great deal more.

Sincerely,
Megan O'Brien

Looking Back

What were the most important things you learned from this internship? Look back to your first blog post. Did you meet your initial goals? Why or why not?


Here are my goals from my first blog post:

My three goals for this internship:

1) Learn about city government and its sustainability programs

2) Gain research skills

3) Network and learn from my coworkers

I am only halfway through my internship, as it is a yearlong experience, so I still hope to learn a great deal more. Here are my thoughts so far on reaching my goals:
1) I have gone to some City Council Subcommittee meetings, and learned about how the Public Works department fits in to the City as a whole. I came in knowing very little about all of the programs in Solid Waste, which I now know is an extremely efficient and hard-working department with a lot going on behind the scenes. Not only have I learned about sustainability programs, but I have also helped shape them!

2) I have done a lot of research, and learned a lot about other cities and municipalities solid waste programs. I have emailed and called different people, and learned how to better organize and present information.

3) This is the goal I would like to focus on in the next half of my internship. While I have gotten to know my coworkers better, I would like to learn what they do in more detail and collaborate with them more on projects.

I have also done several events and ride alongs out in the field, and I have learned why the solid waste division values field experience so much. It is very important to know what is going on at every level. 

Although I am finished with this intern class, I am not done with my internship, and I look forward to learning a lot more in the coming months. 

Transportation and Infrastructure City Council Subcommittee

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting, to see the presentation on our Solid Waste Programs. We had already made a presentation about a month before, but the Council had some concerns about them, so the leaders altered the programs. It was great to see some of the work I had done had contributed to the presentation, and the subcommittee recommended our programs.

I found the presentation before ours very interesting; it actually got to the crux of the challenges of public service. The presentation was about proposed changes in bus routes, to be more efficient and save money. It was clearly extremely well researched and had included stakeholder meetings and extensive cost-benefit analysis. The presentation was very detailed down to the bus routes that were going to be changed.

One bus route was proposed to be changed from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes. A citizen, who rides the bus route, spoke against this proposed change on behalf of his community. Many of the riders have no alternate form of transportation, and there is no bus shelter for the stop. Council members were concerned for the residents, but the administrators from transportation said that just that one route change would save the City $80,000. Even to compromise at every 20 minutes, the City still would not be able to save the $80,000.

This is why it is difficult to run government like a business. If the City were a business, they would most likely easily choose their bottom line and save the $80,000. But council members and administrators have to be concerned about their constituents, especially the most vulnerable citizens from low-income areas who rely on public transportation.

The subcommittee voted to recommend all of the changes except for that one route. They could not sacrifice the well-being of the constituents for the large savings.

What are the strengths of your organization? If you were in charge of a similar organization, are there any things you would do differently?

I could choose several levels to respond to this question- the entire City of Phoenix, the Department of Public Works, or the Solid Waste division. I'm going to focus on Solid Waste, although some things I think apply to both Public Works and the whole city.

• Innovation and Creativity: I feel very appreciated as an intern. The leaders at Solid Waste are always looking for innovative and creative ideas, and they like having new, young people to contribute. They have recruited several young master's educated students (mostly ASU MPA's) to the division.  Not to say that the workers who have been there a long time can't contribute creative ideas too- they welcome ideas from all levels.
• Value all of their employees and encourage communication: Something that is unique to solid waste is that they encourage all employees to do ridealongs to gain an understanding of operations firsthand. They do not want to have a deep chasm grow between those in the field, like drivers and landfill operators, and those of us who are at City Hall in a cubicle all day. I have also attended meetings out in the field with other City Hall folks. 
• Great Leaders: The supervisors I work with the most are great leaders. My supervisor is an Administrative Assistant II, Lorizelda, and she is a really great leader. She has a lot of responsibility, but she wants the interns to have a great learning experience, and she helps us out when necessary but also lets us take responsibility for our own projects. I also work with John Trujillo, the Assistant Director of Public Works. He is a great advocate for the internship program in general, and has a great enthusiasm for his work. I often see him walking around the office just to see how people are doing- this is not something you always see from a boss. Both Lorizelda and John have these very positive attitudes that inspire and motivate people to do a good job.

I'm actually not sure what I would change about my organization. I think I need to still spend more time here; I still feel like I only have a basic understanding of what goes on. I will be here for a year, so I feel at the end of my time I will have a better idea. So far, so good!

Career Services Post 2: Federal Jobs Webinar

I was struggling to find the time to attend a career services event, but then I discovered that there are Career Webinars on ASU's website, many of which have been recorded and saved: https://eoss.asu.edu/cs/students/webinars. I decided to watch the Go Government webinar, which is about applying for federal jobs and internships.

I have applied to some federal jobs and internships in the past, so I was interested to see what advice would come from the webinar. There was some great information about federal pay grades, how to search for federal jobs, and how to make your application stand out. There was an employee from the General Services Administration who gave some insight into their particular Pathways programs.

I already knew some of the information, but there were also some useful tips. For example, the Federal resume is expected to be much more longer and detailed than a regular resume.

It's great to know that ASU has this resource of pre-recorded webinars available, since it can be hard to find the time in our crazy work and school schedules to attend an event in person.

Public Works Department Meeting

Last Friday the 15th, I attended a staff meeting for the entire Public Works Department. Public Works includes not only Solid Waste, where I work, but also Fleet Services and Facilities Management. Neil Mann, the director of Public Works, MC'ed the meeting. This was an especially exciting meeting because Acting City Manager Ed Zuercher came to speak to us. He has only been in the position for about a month, and he explained that he is trying to go to as many staff meetings as possible and meet as many City of Phoenix employees as he can. He made a political kind of speech about the direction of the City in general and then took questions from employees. He reassured employees regarding their pensions.

Here in Phoenix we have a council-manager form of government, which means that the City Manager is actually much more powerful than the Mayor, who is basically just a city council member. Former manager David Cavazos left the City of Phoenix for Santa Ana, which is why Ed Zuercher is the Acting Manager. He has a lot of control over how the City is run. So it is great for the employees to get the opportunity to ask him questions about whatever they wish.

I also got introduced, along with other recent hires to the department. There were a couple of presentations, including one about the new Solid Waste Programs I have been working on.

Overall, the whole department is full of friendly, highly-experienced employees. I really like the working atmosphere of the City as I have experienced it so far.