2021-09-22 EMC minutes draft - Laserfiche WebLink

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they drop off. They just drop it,so we take it. We as a recycler recycle it with our other Hi-5. We have people in Los Angeles that we can ship our non-Hi-5 plastic to. Ms. Mitsumori said we also do scrap metal, such as aluminum, glass, copper, lead, tire rims, catalytic converters, and batteries. We also do newspapers. Mr. Kadota said he shreds the newspaper and sell it to our growers. That’s our new avenue. We also shred photovoltaic panels, Ms. Mitsumori said, and we just started a pilot project to look at single-use alkaline batteries. Because we get a lot of those through the things we collect, and there hasn’t been any way for customers to dispose of it except through the landfill. Mr. Kadota has a big heart for it, and it’s just trying to make the business of it work, and managing all the moving parts, including the recycling market in general. Mr. Kadota said that if the Commission could help with the diversion fund, that would be great. But now that the United States is getting onboard with the non-HI-5 plastic, which is HDPE, natural and colored – HDPE natural is at 80 cents per pound, so the cost of recycling is there now. So that’s why he is trying to tell the County that it is viable now, or is getting to be viable, so we need to move in that direction where we start the diverting these recyclable items again, because the price is there. He gets 26 cents for the colored HDPE and 80 cents for the clear plastic, which are milk cartons, which are non-HI-5. Chair Adams said it would be a discussion for a future agenda how we could expand again and do more recycling than we used to do, and how to deal with the fact that the markets are changing faster than County rules can change. So how do we cope with that? But we will put that off for a future agenda. Commissioner McIntosh that for the non-HI-5 glass the simplest solution would be to allow them to drop it off just as everyone else does. Even if you increase the amount that the County or the State gets, it’s not going to solve Mr. K’s problem because they don’t get funds from that. Chair Adams said it’s certainly another option, and it’s one that was recommended in the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan to allow small businesses to use the transfer stations. We will follow up with the discussion offline, and she would be happy to do that. b. Create a fee for oil recycling at the ‘quart’ scale to enable generation of funds so the County can better deal with oil waste coming from non- commercial sources. (Burns) Chair Adams didn’t have too much information about this, but it ispart of an extended producer responsibility program to require a fee for oil recycling at the quart scale. Right now it’s at the 55-gallon drum scale, or so. There is already a system in place for larger scale oil recycling for manufacturersand sellers, but not at the consumer quart level. She asked Ms. Berrig for any input. 7