2020-02-26 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chair Pequeño directed the agenda back to item 5b. b. Continued discussion on recycling activities, updates, and breakthroughs. Chair Pequeño said he missed this discussion when it began at the last meeting and asked if someone would start it off. Commissioner Adams said there are always new and interesting things happening in recycling, and there has been a lot of activity with the Zero Waste group and Recycle Hawaiʻi. The commissioners had been provided an email with her thoughts on waste reduction and some links to articles that may be of interest. She has a chemical background and is very supportive of processes that could not only recover energy but conserve molecules that are present in the products so they can be used again to make more valuable products. The Big Island has challenges because of its scale, but there are options for smaller operations to either melt down or break down waste into useable material. She disagrees with a comment made earlier that incineration is incineration. It depends on whether oxygen is present. Pyrolysis waste to energy does not use oxygen and efficiently reduces waste. Several other commissioners said they would like to keep this agenda item as a standing item on future agendas. Chair Pequeño said he’d like the commissioners to become acquainted with the recommendations in the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan so they can have a discussion on it at the next meeting, and Commissioner Adams said the commission should decide what its role is relative to the plan. It may be appropriate for the commission to be an overseer of it. This could be an agenda item once the report is final, as the comment period is closed for now. Perhaps progress on the recommendations in the plan can be an item in the director’s report once the plan is final. Commissioner Gaffney said it could take six months for the plan to become final, and he wanted it discussed sooner than that. Director Kucharski said he could start adding the status of the plan to his director’s report as a standard topic, and Chair Pequeño said that would work. Commissioner Gaffney said they need to make sure when considering new opportunities and technologies that they don’t lose site of the fact that liquid waste is also an issue. There may be technologies that allow liquid and solid waste to be combined and benefit the overall system. 6. NEW BUSINESS There was no new business. 7. REPORTS/CORRESPONDENCE a. Director’s Informational Report. 9