21-09-22 EMC minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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encourage the Department and the Council to push up to the State level? What do we want to see in an EPR program? 1. Extended Producer Responsibility: Which priority programs should EMC recommend to DEM, County Council, and/or the Legislature? For example: a. Increase glass fee for non-HI-5 glass and fulfill allocations directly to the County. (Burns) Chair Adams asked Ms. Berrig to comment on the non-HI-5 glass collection and recycling, whether the Advance Deposit Fee that is paid by those who ship glass to the County, is covering the costs. Ms. Berrig said it is not. It probably covers 50 to 60 percent, maybe a little bit more. Doubling the fee would be warranted, she said. Twenty-seven years is a long time not to increase the fee. Mr. Kadota said that his business also collects non-HI-5 glass at his site. So because of the bars and the patrons that come in, they just want to drop it off and we tell them to go to the transfer stations, but they get irate and they probably just throw away if we tell them that. Because it takes a while to get to the transfer stations, and unless they are doing trash recycling there, they tend to do it here, because we are a pretty big recycling facility for the HI-5. We attract a lot of customers. And we are kind of environmentally conscious. We take in cardboard and whatever they drop off. We tend to try to tell them to get to the County’s transfer stations but they want to do it here, so we do the cardboard. But getting back to the glass, we are taking about $1,600 a year in glass. It doesn’t sound that much but it is non-HI-5 glass so it does pile up. What we are trying to say is we are trying to get some of that money that the County is giving out to whomever has the transfer stations contract, but we are always saying, can it be extended to other facilities, or my recycling center, because we do collect and it’s hard for the customers to always go to the transfer stations. So that is with the glass. And we are also thinking that maybe we should be putting the glass – I know it’s not part of the subject – into the landfill, as fill, or roads, which we are trying to do, or try to do some colored glass for decoration. Ms. Mitsumori said Mr. K’s Recycling would like a collection site to be able to either dispose of the non-HI-5 glass with the official non-HI-5collector rather than be treated as a commercial site. Because it’s not our glass. It’s glass that the community brings to us. As Mr. Kadota said, having to dispose of the non-HI-5 glassourselves is on a back-of-the-envelope calculation about a $1,600 cost, which is a lot because the recycling is about volume and the profit margin is very small. So in addition to what Ms. Berrig said about the cost, that number does not represent all of the glass. And we are not even asking for glass. People just bring it and we tell them not to bring it, and they still do. So, if we were to collect intentionally, we could get even more. Recycling is best when it is a habit, so if people just habitually come to our site to drop off everything at once, that could help to collect more glass. So our request is, one, to increase the amount as Ms. Berrig said. There’s more glass out there. Two, to allow Mr. K’s to be treated as a collection so residents can drop off their glass, with the official collector, or if we as a private collection site could be able to submit for more non-HI-5 glass reimbursement. 4