Appleton Common Council District 6 Update for September 13, 2026
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| Bales of Recycled Aluminum |
Greetings, District 6 Neighbors,
Unfortunately, we woke up this morning to the realization that yesterday’s Packer game was not just a bad dream. Clearly, there is much work to be done. Meanwhile, we cheer for the Brewers after they clinched their playoff berth last week and could clinch the division tomorrow.
This lovely cool weather leads us into a full council week. All of the Monday committee meetings were cancelled last week for the Labor Day holiday, along with the Fox Cities Transit Commission, the City Plan Commission, and the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee, so we have a relatively light agenda Wednesday evening.
The Library Board will meet on Tuesday evening, where the agenda includes approval of the August bill register and a budget amendment to record funding from the Outagamie Waupaca Library System (OWLS) for the children’s programs - $1,000. The board will also vote on the report of the Finance Committee, which contains the 2027 library budget. We recommended a $15,000 increase in the budget for part-time wages. This would allow staff members to participate in more training and staff development. There are a number of free courses available; the limiting factor has been coverage to allow time for employees to complete these courses – the $15,000 recommendation would free up 1000 hours for training time. A revelation for me was the fact that the library’s budget for materials has stayed constant for ten years, while the cost of materials, like everything else, has increased pretty dramatically. Finally, we will approve committee assignments for 2026-2027. In addition to the Finance Committee, where I am automatically assigned as the alderperson on the library board, I’ll serve on the Planning Committee for the next year (or at least until April of 2027 when council committees are reassigned after the 2027 election).
The Safety and Licensing Committee will hold a special meeting at 6:45 on Wednesday evening ahead of the full council meeting to consider a full-service brewer application for McFleshman’s to allow them to sell beer outside of the brewery during Lagerfest on October 3.
One item that will not appear on the full council agenda is Resolution #9-R-26 Establishing Public Oversight and Accountability Standards for Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) and Mass Surveillance Technologies. As I noted last week, the committee referred this item to staff with a request for the Information Technology Department to create a Request for Proposal for expert consulting in technology/cybersecurity to evaluate the proposed amendments from Alder Meltzer. It seems clear from news reports that Flock is a bad actor – on the way home from the meeting I heard an interview with the mayors of Sheboygan and Stevens Point and one of them noted that Flock had attempted to sell data back to their public works department. I am hoping that information provided by experts will let us determine if ANY ALPR/surveillance technology meets the requirements proposed in the “citizen drafted ordinance” which is the source of Alder Meltzer’s amendment proposal. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on next steps.
The council meeting will begin with a number of proclamations:
- Constitution Week
- Think Train Week
- Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
- Senior Center Month
- Hispanic Heritage Month
- Recovery Month
I don’t see much on the agenda that might be separated for individual discussion and votes. There is a potential closed session on the agenda to discuss the city’s counteroffer for the sale of land in the Southpoint Commerce Park. The purchaser offered less than the going per/acre price and the city countered with the per-acre price that the council approved earlier and added the provision that the property cannot have a data center as its primary use. I don’t expect that we will need the closed session and that the item will be approved.
I’ll take advantage of the light agenda week to write a bit about the tour of the Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste Center I took last week with members of the Appleton Sustainability Advisory Panel (ASAP). I had toured the recycling center before, but this tour also took us to the Terreva Renewables Facility. Terrava partners with the solid waste center to extract methane gas from wells in the landfill and convert it to natural gas which is sold to fleet owners with vehicles such as large trucks and buses that run on natural gas instead of diesel. A portion of the sales are returned to the county. The process also reduces the need for flaring methane gas, which diminishes some of the odor associated with decaying food waste in the landfill. New Outagamie County landfill plant to turn methane into natural gas.
We also got to look at the newest part of the landfill and find out exactly how a landfill is constructed. Fun fact: the landfill employs a falconer who has a team of three birds whose job is to discourage the seagulls who are drawn to the landfill. Unfortunately, he was not there the day of the tour, so they were using pyrotechnics and other noise to discourage the flying pests, who apparently are the source of many, many chicken bones found on the roofs of buildings around the landfill site.
Back to the recycling operation, we are really lucky that Outagamie County is still home to so much of the paper industry, because most of the cardboard and other paper products from the recycling center is sold to local companies. The majority of all the recovered recyclable material stays local, other than aluminum which is shipped to Atlanta. Overall, 90% of all the material from our blue bins is able to be recycled. I know we’ve heard stories about recyclable material being shipped overseas and burned, but that is not happening here!
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The photo on the left shows 2000-pound bales of recyclable cardboard/paper and the photo on the right shows 900-pound bales of recyclable aluminum.
The recycling center basically breaks even, with the sales of products covering the cost of running the facility.
What was very obvious from the tour is the amount of non-recyclable material that has to be separated from the usable materials. The most obvious was plastic bags – employees along the line have to try to pull out all the bags and other trash as the material moves through the line. Although we didn’t see one on our visit, our guide told us that he sees a shoe go through the line during pretty much every tour he gives.
If perfectly recyclable material comes to the center in a plastic bag, the whole bag goes into the landfill. Paper grocery bags are good for holding recyclables until they get to the bin. You can recycle plastic bags at grocery stores or at the Habitat ReStore. At the ReStore, you can see some of the products they make out of recycled plastic grocery bags.
For material that is too big for the bin, you can take advantage of the resource recovery center at the solid waste site. There are labeled bins for many different types of materials, including fluorescent lights, Christmas lights, Styrofoam, wood, metal, tires, etc. You don’t have to pay to dispose of recyclables in these bins. I found out that roofers can bring loads of shingles to the center – those are ground up to use in asphalt for roads. Tires are ground up for soft playground surfaces such as those in all our city parks/
The recycling center website has a great place to determine where waste should go:
There is also a great app called Better Bin that is very helpful in figuring out if materials can be recycled and where.
I hope everyone gets a chance to get out and enjoy this wonderful cool weather over the next few days. There are so many things happening every weekend during the fall that it is hard to avoid fear of missing out (FOMO) when you decide what to do. Remember that the Appleton Downtown Farm Market continues through October 17th.
The Fox Cities Marathon races are happening this weekend, so keep road closures in mind as you make weekend plans around the valley.
Have a great week!
Denise
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