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sustainable feedstock and buyers, and keeping that system in motion isa challenge. And who’s <br />going to do it? Because somebody has got to make enough money to spend time doing it. <br /> <br />Commissioner Burns said it’s a complex issue. Making an effective change in the short term is <br />going to involve working closely with the County in the existing plans and ideas that they are <br />trying to implement now. That is difficult now because there has been an overturn in staff and <br />folks have moved around, so this reset button has been hit again. So many of the ideas we <br />discuss and the public comments on overlaps. It may just be an issue of public relations in the <br />sense of the County doesn’t have the time or resources to make it clear and accessible what <br />they are working on and trying to do. And that is a conduit that we could be here, making <br />things more aware in the public sector and promoting what seems reasonable and useful to <br />move forward. The point of sale fees would be among the most likely to be enacted in the near <br />future versus ideas that are going to have to start fresh and go through the whole process to <br />become policy. <br /> <br />Chair Adams asked if that also meant the non-HI-5 glass and extending EPR items to include <br />consumer-size oil containers. Commissioner Burns agreed, and also added charging greenwaste <br />for certain folks or limiting times and locations for greenwaste operations. It’s unfortunate that <br />with staff shifting dramatically that we’re spearheading efforts. It’s going to require going back <br />to those folks and trying to identify their priorities, and working with them to publicize those <br />and get the support in order to make it happen. <br /> <br />Chair Adams invited Mike Kaha, Acting Solid Waste Division Chief, to respond. <br /> <br />Acting Chief Kaha sent the Director’s and Deputy’s regrets for being unable to attend. The <br />Department would welcome any kind of help that we could get, he said. It’s a difficult time for <br />our budget, and it’s never an easy time to talk about these issues and how do you pay for it all. <br />That is the unfortunate part of it. Having someone to plan out all of these discussions about <br />what to do with recycling and so on takes money, and it’s quite difficult to continue doing. We <br />really value the scrap metal program, it’s something that everybody wants, but there is a <br />number to that, and it’s more than half a million dollars that you have to put money toward. <br />We continue to try to bring that program out to everybody. Metal is not something that is <br />prohibited from our landfills. Is this something that we want to continue right now, or do we <br />want to put it toward other things? These are the hard decisions that need to be made. <br /> <br />Acting Chief Kaha said the Director is trying to help the Solid Waste Division by getting more <br />people to fill the holes in the organization to push a lot of the plans through. We have one <br />engineer licensed and we have two engineers that are by trade, and what we need is more of <br />that at our Division. We need some clerks to push our plans through. Otherwise, it ends up <br />being where we come to these meetings and it’s just a lot of discussion, and we aren’t pushing <br />plans through. He is asking for help to get that to the Division. If this Commission can help with <br />that, he would appreciate it. And with the things we are looking at to fix our sites and get things <br />done in Wai‘hinu, we send one guy out do everything. It’s so difficult, but having that <br />8 <br /> <br /> <br />