21-09-22 EMC minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chair Adams recalled that at one point in his presentation Director Mansour pitched for a consultant who could develop the option of different business models that could be used to pay for the true cost of managing our waste. She asked whether Commissioners have a view of whether they wanted to support that? Director Mansour said the Commission had sent a letter during the Council’s budget discussions requesting funding to include a third-party consultant to come in and do some analyses. Chair Adams said that was specifically for wastewater, but the same thing could be done for Solid Waste. It’s looking at, what are the real costs and how do we cover them? It’s looking at what are the real costs and how do we cover them? And there are different models that can be used, whether it’s PAYT or an enterprise fund that charges fees that cover the cost of doing business, and the “free” disposal that we provide now for our residents. There are different ways of laying out the costs and some of the challenges. She agrees with some of the comments made at the meeting, and specifically Ms. Robinson had said we need data. We need to know the cost of doing these different things, to know the cost of collecting and disposal of rubbish around the island with the system we have today, the cost of doing recycling, and then the “hidden” cost that hopefully the life cycle assessment approach will tease out. Commissioner Cardwell asked what is the cost of running a transfer station, and what is the total cost of running all of our transfer stations? One of the things we are running up against, which Mr. Kadota spoke to earlier, is that a lot of people are bringing things to Mr. K’s. It’s in a convenient spot and people can just drop their stuff there rather than going to multiple places to dispose of their waste. And in most places, people have trash or recyclingpickup once a week. That’s how it works in most places, and part of what we are up against is people are used to bringing their trash to the transfer stations whenever they want. They are expecting for itto be open seven days a week, 24/7. Well, there’s a cost to that. So in thinking of all of this and connecting the dots, what she is wondering is, if we were to cut back on transfer station hours, would that cost savings allow us to have something like trash pickup, so we could do both? We could allow for the transfer stations to be open a limited amount of time so that people who want to take their trash could still do that, but it wouldn’t be seven days a week, and also have a more conventional trash pickup system, which is in most places, and that might cut back on roadside garbage and all the litter we see on the highways. She’s thinking out loud, but she would like the data too. What is the cost of running these transfer stations, and is there a way to limit the transfer station hours so we could use that money in a better, more efficient way? Director Mansour said the data were shared with the Committee so we already have the cost for each transfer station with 90 percent certainty. We just need to reorganize it and put it in more legible charts for everybody to see. 1 Chair Adams added that the presentation is in the online “References” folder. 1 “Solid Waste Division: Priorities, Challenges, Solutions.” http://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/1/doc/112625/Page1.aspx 13