2021-11-24 EMC draft minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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able to provide people with the ability to recycle. And then enforcement is not easy. For example, we could have an ordinance saying you will not put green waste in the landfill, period, you will recycle it. It is not illegal to throw electronics in the landfill in the County of . Should it be? And there are those of you will be thinking, weve got to keep plastics out of the landfill. Again, very difficult to pursue, and also not really our biggest source of waste in the landfill. Construction and demolition waste, I wish we had a better way, she said. Weve got one outfit, Reuse down in Kona and then weve got the Habitat for Humanity ReStores that will take construction and demolition waste. Thats a lot of volume that is currently going into the landfill. So there are some ways around that. At any rate, thats the topic that she was thinking about starting to consider. Commissioner Robinson liked the intent to minimize whats being dumped, but without a solution or a place for what were banning to go, she does not think we should pursue that. She did not know that electronics were not officially banned at the site. She does not throw batteries or computers in the trash can, but there is a place for them. So if were going to pursue something like plastic or other construction materials, there should be another avenue, another solution for the public to dispose of that waste. Commissioner Cardwell agreed with Commissioner Robinson and liked the idea of banning things from going into the landfill. The East Sanitary Landfill is already full, but as Commissioner Robinson said, if people dont have a place to bring those other things, then its going to end up being illegally dumped. And currently, other than HI-5 plastic, only No. 1 and No. 2 plastic can be recycled. Shipman takes No. 2 and Atlas Recycling takes No. 1, but its really inconvenient unless you live near Keaau, because people from Kona are not going to drive all the way to Keaau to recycle their No. 2 plastic. So she did not think it is a good idea to ban those things from the landfill without a convenient place for people to bring them. Chair Adams reiterated this discussion is just to begin thinking through it. It would be for specific items that yes, we do indeed have in place an alternative for people to recycle it, but it would be part and parcel of increasing the amount of reuse and recycle capabilities on the island. Commissioner Olson stated again that in the last 50 years, we have created a grand total of three new waste sites for the island, and the population has tripled in that time. In his own district of Puna, when he first showed up here, there were almost 9,000 of us, and as of the recent Census, we are now over 58,000. And those are just the ones that got counted. And we have absolutely no new waste disposal sites. We have rehabilitated a couple of them, but theyre the same old site, and of course, only one of them is actually located in such a way that really serves the community. We have one disposal site and that is the West Sanitary Landfill. She was talking about things you actually bury permanently in the ground. And she agrees we have challenges in the collection of waste, whether its a transfer stations or private. Thats why weve got this whole Permitted 17