21-08-25 EMC minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Chair Adams said she had also references tracking all the different legislation in the different 56 There are interesting studies that talk about the pros and the states, and some of the policies. cons. There are a bazillion issues around EPR. It is having an impact on a growing number of companiesthat is having an impact on how do we incorporate recycled content, how do we do source reduction in the packaging and in the way we provide our products. Change is happening; it’s just not real fast. It’s also not going to be in the way of, well, we’ll just give everybody a bunch of money and you can run your own programs. It’s not necessarily going to happen. But progress is being made and the effort to say we really all need to get to source reduction is critical. Recycling Specialist Sanne Berrig reiterated that EPR is a huge new concept that is really important. We have the electronic waste and the advance disposal fee for glass where the wholesaler collects 1.5 cents, and that money comes back to us in the County to continue working, she said. While we are looking at the bigger future of EPR, she if we could continue to tweak the existing ones, because we really rely on that money. For example, the ADF for glass had been 1.5 cents for 21 years now. There was a bill introduced in the last session (that did not advance). That’s something that is an existing program, it’s not ideal but it would be great to have support on those. All of the counties heavily rely on those funds. Commissioner McIntosh asked whether EPR requires the manufacturer to take back their products that are not reused, rather than the County or the State being responsible for disposing it. Because even if we collected money, there really aren’t that many programs set up in Hawaii to take recycled material and take care of it. That would be the main difference between Hawai‘i and the U.S. mainland. Maine can ship it to California with no problem. We have a big problem shipping because we only have our boats. Rep. Lowen said that is the fundamental idea. It’s not prescriptive exactly how they would get there, but these producers or manufacturers would be responsible for ensuring that these increasing percentages of their product did get recycled. That would include making sure that there were programs, collections, recycling capability at a local level. Would the bill, Commissioner McIntosh asked, differentiate between large corporations such as Coca-Cola, and a small startup in how they are treated? A small company run out of a garage would not have that ability to follow the law. Rep. Lowen said that is a good question and would depend on what our definitions are for producers and manufacturers. She wasn’t sure if, for example, a local company creating a cosmetic product would be responsible or rather it would be whatever company is importing those containers into Hawai‘i. If a local startup were using a plastic container, is that what he is 5 “Guide to EPR Proposals” https://epr-frontend.vercel.app/ 6 “In my Opinion: Comparing the nation’s first packaging EPR laws” https://resource- recycling.com/recycling/2021/08/24/in-my-opinion-comparing-the-nations-first-packaging-epr-laws/ 10