STAR North Texas Council
STAR North Texas (NTX) had a very active year, organizing and hosting numerous well-attended events throughout 2023. In December alone they co-sponsored the 2023 DFW Enviro-Mixer Holiday Party with STEP (the Society of Texas Environmental Professionals) and partnered with EarthX for their Rockin' Around the Recycling Tree holiday party (pictured right).
General membership meetings in 2024 will be held on the second Thursday of each month, 11am–12:30pm. Want to join in? Register here.
Other NTX events in 2023 included:
- Earth Day Litter Cleanup of the Trinity River in Fort Worth, coinciding with TRWD's Trash Bash. They had a great turnout, which led to a successful cleanup!
- EarthX: Organizing and working at the STAR booth.
- Networking happy hours in March, June and September in Dallas.
- Lunch & Learn on "Hard to Recycle Items" held in Grapevine in August. Three local experts presented from Spot-On Services, City of Denton and Frito-Lay Arlington.
- EarthX July networking event: attended EarthX's first networking event as a group.
The STAR North Texas Steering Committee is represented by Sergio Gonzalez & Lora Hinchcliff (co-vice chairs), Mike Bednar (secretary), Robert Medigovich, Lanny Shivers, Clayton Swize, Terry Shultz, and Daulton O’Neill.
STAR Business Council
The STAR Business Council (BC) holds regular monthly online meetings on the first Thursday of the month at 10am CT. These are open to all who are interested. Register here to receive email reminders.
Having finalized a legislative platform for the 2023 Texas legislative session in late 2022—follow-up recommendations to the Council's successful work on the Recycling Market Development Plan (RMDP)—the BC's Vice Chair Steve Shannon briefed TCEQ's advisory group, the Municipal Solid Waste Management and Resource Recovery Advisory Council (MSWRRAC) during their January meeting, as well as to the Texas Economic Development Council (TEDC) on February 23rd. There, he shared the current activities around the RMDP and its educational program to reduce contamination.
In 2023, the BC held one of the most successful Walk the Halls events to date, on March 28th, with nearly 25 people sharing the Council's legislative platform with key Texas legislators. The platform contains follow-up recommendations to the Council's successful work on the Recycling Market Development Plan (RMDP), published by TCEQ in August of 2021. Over twenty five visits to House and Senate members and/or their staff’s were made in pairs of at least two per meeting. STAR Mission Partners Universal Recycling Technologies (URT) are especially thanked for sending almost 10 people to participate.
In June, Council Vice Chair Steve Shannon presented at Keep Texas Beautiful's annual conference on the recycling infrastructure deficit in Texas "and the need for local and regional governments and agencies to coalesce and cooperate with their Economic Development Corporations to solicit and facilitate the development of collection, densification, transportation, processing and end-use market facilities and systems."
The Council is in discussions with the Texas Economic Development Council—which represents the 725 local EDCs across Texas—and other stakeholders, to partner on future workshops that will stimulate development of recycling collection, processing and manufacturing industries; particularly in non-urban, underserved communities.
If you are interested in participating or working with the Business Council, please contact Richard Abramowitz at: richard.abramowitz@outlook.com.
STAR Business Council Steering Committee members are: Richard Abramowitz, RMA Consultants, LLC (chair); Steve Shannon, Orion Solid Waste Resources Management, LLC (vice chair); Karan Bali, Dow Chemicals (secretary), Chris Luce (SmartSort Technologies Inc.), and Ken Thomas.
Central Texas Council
STAR Central Texas Council (CTX) holds monthly online calls on the third Tuesday of every month at 3pm CT. They are currently planning tours, meetings and meet-ups for 2024, including a tour with City of Georgetown in the spring, and a City of San Antonio tour next summer.
If you are a STAR member and would like to be involved, make sure that Central Texas Council is checked in your membership profile to be added to the mailing list (log in to our website with your email address & click "Forgot password" to create one, if needed).
STAR Central Texas Council's Steering Committee is currently represented by: Amy Thomaides as acting Chair; and Quin Pugh as acting Secretary.
