The Telly Awards 2024 - Media Relations and Communications Division

1:57:30Okay. Thank you. Um How long is item fifty-five?

1:57:37Thank you, Mr. Chairman R fifty five. I'll be very, very brief, but uh wanted to recognize our media relations and communications team. We've been here before celebrating um tele awards, which which recognize excellence in uh in uh video and television across all types of screens. Um but we've never really won a gold award. And uh I'm happy, and if Sarah Andrea and her uh andira, sorry, and her team can come up. Um Um happy to announce that we actually did win both a gold and a bronze. In the interest of time, I only will only show you the gold

1:58:07winner. Uh but um uh it was called a stinky story and how Pasco County is turning poop into profits. So go ahead and roll it. That's good.

1:58:23Pasco County's Solid Waste Department is always looking for ways to help the environment and keep things out of our landfill. Hi, I'm Sh

1:58:33Shannon Kennedy with Pasco County Solid Waste Department.

1:58:41One of the projects we're very proud of here in Pasco is how we handle our biosolids. So let's just call it what it is. A biosolid is poop. It's flushed down the toilet and eventually ends up here. We have our very own public-private, one-of-a-kind biosolids processing facility that turns biosolids, or poop, into commercially available fertilizer. We paid for and building. The facility, which is right next to our West Pasco resource recovery facility, and Merrill Brothers operates

1:59:11it. Ted Merrill is the co-owner of Merrill Brothers. He's been in the solid waste business since 1982.

1:59:16Our Pasco County facility is our newest and it is state-of-the-art. We bring in nearly 50,000 wet tons of product a year, and through our specialized process, we produce Florida Green Fertilizer. At first, the sun does most of the work. We spread out the biosolids on our greenhouse floor and shirt it up with the tractor and tiller. Large ceiling fans help to dry out the product. As the top layer dries, we till it again, exposing the wetter material from underneath. It doesn't completely

1:59:46dry out in the greenhouse, so we also use an oven belt pasteurizing process. We blow hot air up through the biosolids belt and through the product, drying the biosolids even more. The result is a high-quality Class AA byproduct registered with the state of Florida as a fertilizer. This process saves Pasco about $250,000 per year.

2:00:11Merrill Brothers is a great partner, and this project is very successful both commercially and environmentally. Farmers use the fertilizer to grow crops and grasses for grazing animals. It's also used for composting and to grow. Sod and fruit trees around the state. Most of our fertilizer is sowed to local agribusinesses, so it's even more of a win for Pasco's economy. This is just one example of how Pasco County and the Solid Waste Department are using innovative ways to minimize impacts on our landfills, benefit our environment, boost local businesses, and keep our waterways clean.

2:00:41Thanks for watching and head to mypasco.net to learn more about how we're serving our community.

2:00:52I'm always floored. I think I could talk for hours about that project. It's amazing. But uh you know the video and the promotion of it is is certainly great. I mean producing videos and things like that could normally cost tens of thousands of dollars to do that on the outside, but we're able to do that just here. So Uh our star is here as well, I see. Very good. We've got some rips from from Merrill Brothers. But I would just ask Sarah, do you have any words you'd like to say? And and Mr. Chair, if it's okay, I would like to indulge the board with a picture on on this with the board if that's fine after Sarah speaks.

2:01:19Thank you, Board Sarah Andira, Public Information Officer for Media Relations and Communications. I just want to say thank you to the board and to all of you for your continued support of our division and our team. I want to say thank you to County Administrator, Mike, Joanna, Dr. Mark Bellis for all of their support and leadership to our team and guidance, and of course, the assistant and county administrators. It's it's our departments, it's all Branches, it's the 57 lines of business that we collaborate with on a daily basis to tell our

2:01:49story and to tell the great things that happen in Pasco County on a daily basis. So our our friends at Solid Waste are behind us, Shannon, who was the star of our video. Um, and like Mike said, all of our videos are produced in-house, it's our small team Aaron our videographer is on a shoot right now he couldn't be with us um but we we produce shoot write the scripts and do all that with collaboration with with the departments so thank you to everyone thank you Mike thank

2:02:19you Joanna uh hope you guys liked it yeah

2:02:23thank you but I had one question when did we start this because I remember doing the tour

2:02:28Actually the project was was I think originally negotiated back in two thousand fourteen, fifteen is is when we we got underway construction, I think.

2:02:36I

2:02:36guess

2:02:36I took a tour in sixteen when I went around there. So Yeah. That's good.

2:02:41Yeah, but I want to want to. Does it smell? Yes. Smells good.

2:02:48I wanna bring some CEOs, but I don't wanna offend them.

2:02:52Yeah, it's a gr it's a great project. It does smell like crazy, but I'll tell you what what they do is phenomenal. It saves us a whole bunch of money. Environmentally it's great. Um and we had the Jordan delegation over uh a few months back that they were very, very impressed with it.

2:03:05Right. You see mural trucks up and down fifty two all the time. So we I watch 'em, so it's uh buttons.

2:03:14I'm gonna take the picture.

2:03:14All

2:03:14right,

2:03:14let's go. All right.

2:03:38be somewhere else?

2:03:43Oh

2:03:43you should grab your earrings.

2:03:50Oh that's place.

2:04:00Sarah

2:04:00was your car. Dina has it.

2:04:04Okay, one, two, three.

2:04:31Yeah, I just like it.

2:04:34It's like my small piece.

2:04:40I'm over fifty. I need people grown up.

2:04:46These young people.