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terms of the cost of recycling. They do help us but the funding maybe should be a little more.
<br />And we have to hurry because it’s all legislation. It goes through your County, then it goes up.
<br />So we got to kind of hurry on this like everything else. I understand it takes time.
<br />Ms. Mitsumori added that it’s a dynamic ecosystem with the producers, as well as the State,
<br />ourselves (Mr. K’s), retailers, so it’s a multiparty thing, and different parties have different
<br />perspectives on this law. So, the producers put an amount into the fund, which goes to the
<br />State and to the County, and then we receive that allocation, and the County right now is
<br />reimbursing only for the residential (e-waste), and some of the producers together receive the
<br />recycling at the back end. And then they recycle it through an association of what they call
<br />OEMs. The OEMs are willing to cover the cost of shipping and recycling, so then we pass it on to
<br />them. Because they are connected to the OEMs, they are saying, we basically are reimbursing
<br />in-Hawaii handling to make sure that the $5,000 we are putting into that fund, therefore we do
<br />not want to cover any other costs. So, if the County doesn’t use that funding to cover, for
<br />example, non-residential e-waste handling on-island, they don’t want to pick up the recycling
<br />for that, because they are saying we already paid for it, why should we pay for it twice? And so,
<br />what the County doesn’t cover, Mr. K’s has to find additional funding for, which is essentially
<br />asking the commercial sector to pay for it, so it’s coming from the island. So basically, these
<br />different restrictions create a different dynamic around how the producers are seeing what
<br />they are paying into the fund at the front end, and what they are willing to cover at the back
<br />end. They are kind of saying, we are willing to cover at the back end, only what you used the
<br />money we put in at the beginning, at the front end, to cover for your island costs. So that’s how
<br />they are seeing that fund. So, one thing is, we would like to take a look at that law with all the
<br />parties involved, and say, how do we understand this law, and how can we come up with an
<br />updated interpretation? Because as we said at the beginning, this law is quite old, and
<br />everything has changed so much. Second, we are anticipating more e-waste because we are all
<br />dependent on devices now, so how can we plan for the future with more e-waste? Third would
<br />be lack of parts, supply chain issues, recycling, reusing is even more important. For Mr. K’s we
<br />do try to refurbish things that are more reusable and selling it as a very low cost back on the
<br />island. Because a lot of it is still good. It’s just, you know, five years old. It’s not the latest. So
<br />the more we can refurbish and keep on island is even better, but that has itself has a cost
<br />because of security and data erasure, and other things. So definitely we would like to increase
<br />what they pay at the front end. We would like the State to allocate it a little more fairly to the
<br />County. We would like to look at the entire law with different parties, which she understands
<br />would be very complex. We would like to look at the whole system, whatever works out, and to
<br />really plan that e-waste is going to expand, along with data security issues, which adds to cost.
<br />
<br />Chair Adams suggested that we get commissioners to volunteer to look at how we take some
<br />next steps evaluating what the opportunities are, whom we all need to get involved in a
<br />discussion, and what role EMC should play. If any of you are aware of existing groups who are
<br />working on e-waste, let us know and maybe we can gin up something for next meeting. She
<br />knew that Chris Chin-Chance has a lot of good ideas, what he would like to see from the DEM
<br />side, and there are many parties who care about it. Contact me, she said, and we’ll see what we
<br />can arrange for a further discussion.
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