2010-11-03 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MR ARMOUR: How much revenue do you get from the HI5? MS. SAKO: Just under a million dollars. MR ARMOUR: That’s based on sales in the county and then you get a certain percent of that? MS. SAKO: I’m not sure how the state calculates it, but then part of that money goes back into the program. I think you guys contract with inaudible, or part of it at least to manage the sites and the collection. MR ARMOUR: When you have the recycling bins at the transfer stations, I know in ours, you go over to glass, you dump the glass in, and there’s probably 50% of it is beer bottles which are a nickel each. Do you sort that out to get your nickel back? Or is it just crushed and dumped? MR. TORIGOE: Public waste containers that are out in the street MR ARMOUR: The ones at the transfer station. MS. O’HARA: The recycle bins are segregated glass and everything else, and so sometimes people throw HI5 containers in the glass bins, is what you’re saying? MR ARMOUR: They throw it in the other one. And that would be harder to sort. Our transfer station there might be 10 cases of beer sitting on the ground. And I’ve seen the guard, for lack of a better word, taking and dump them into the bins and throw the cardboard back into the recycle boxes. The truck comes and picks up all the glass. And sometimes I’ve gone there and there’s somebody inside the dumpster taking out all the bottles. And I was just wondering if the county does anything or if it’s just hauled away crushed. MR. TORIGOE: Frankly I don’t know of the top of my head. I have to check on that. That sort of thing is contracted out to haulers so I don’t have nuts and bolts knowledge of exactly what they do there. MS. O’HARA: To answer your question, cause I do know. It is contracted out. They all do recycling at the transfer stations. So, it goes to the contractor’s site and they actually can sort out quite a bit of that out of the glass stream and even out mixed goods stream. So, it is probably not to the county’s direct benefit. MS. WONG: One more question. I went online and looked at the Legislative Auditor’s web page, and there was a follow up review of the 2006 audit of the Department of Environmental Management’s Recycling and Diversion Grants Program. And then on October 15, in the Hawai‘i Tribune Herald, Colleen Schrandt was quoted as saying, the county’s Parks and Recreation, Environmental Management and Public Works Department will face the Legislative Auditor’s scrutiny this year. Twice your department is in, so are you aware of what they’re looking at?And are you addressing those issues, Legislative Auditor’s issues? 22