21-08-25 EMC minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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you would pay for a certain amount, and you could only throw away things that you paid for in the recycle bin, and if it’s going to the trash, it’s a different cost to it. A lot of people are concernedabout Pay As You Throw, that it would make people litter or throwit in aditch somewhere. That is an initial issue but we do have a fairly good track record in several places that shows it is not an issue, but it requires education and enforcement, making sure people are at the transfer stations or the collection points, and are catching the people who are littering or are dumping their trash. PAYT programs should encourage source reduction and recycling. We could get some money. And it would be a heck of a lot easier with curbside collection, and we know it’s not possible to do curbside everywhere on this island, but there are some places where it would probably make sense. And how do we get that to happen? It would basically be looking hard a PAYT as an option. If there are questions we can send off to DEM, dealing with opportunities to reduce costs or to get revenue at transfer stations, she would like to collect them for next time. Commissioner Cardwell said she had a concern with limiting transfer or reducing station hours for the reason that lines are already super long, at Kea‘au Transfer Station in particular, it’s the one where she goes most of the time. She had an experience with something she wanted to take to the Reuse Center, and she had a pretty nasty experience with the person who was working there. And she gets it, they are totally overwhelmed at the Reuse Centers. And what is happening is a lot of people don’t want to wait in those long lines, so they end up dumping their stuff at the Reuse Center, and a lot of it is not necessarily things that – a lot of it is trash. And people end up dealing with trash. So if we reduce the transfer station hours even more, that’s going to happen even more for the Reuse Centers. Chair Adams was saying, let’s take better use of Reuse Centers, but that will backfire. The Reuse Centers are already understaffed and overwhelmed. There was the concern about the PAYT increasing littering, but the littering is already happening. She drives from Kalapana to Hilo and there’ so much trash along the roadside, especially the closer you get to the Kea‘au Transfer Station. That’s another concern of hers. She doesn’t know if PAYT would increase littering, but she thinks reducing the transfer station hours could definitely increase littering. As it is, people don’t want to wait in that line, and if the hours are reduced that much more, then there’s a higher likelihood that people will just dump it wherever they can dump it. She doesn’t think that is a good solution. Chair Adams said one of the issues and the reason we were recommending an operational study is, why are the lines so long? Is it because they don’t we have enough chutes or they don’t have the transportation circle set up? Do we need a larger transfer station at large locations? The Reuse Centers are tucked inside the Transfer Stations, but if they are being understaffed, that’s a contract issue with the County. It is, what are the causes and what can we do about it? It isn’t necessarily, well, you need to have 49 people at every transfer station seven days a week, because we can’t afford that kind of staffing. Commissioner Cardwell asked whether it is possible to have a contract for a volunteer group. She is sure there are plenty of people willing to volunteer an hour or two at a transfer station or a Reuse Center to help out with this problem. Every time she talks to people or friends about this issue, people want to help, and they want to do the right thing. It’s kind of like what Rep. 14