|
GOVERNMENT
TOTALLY FAILS RECYCLING EFFORT The
last couple of years have been extremely difficult for the
recycling infrastructure on Maui. First,
we are no longer able to compost paper at Maui EKO, nor cardboard at
Apana’s, resulting in a new very high tipping fee for both.
Also, instead of being paid $10 per ton to haul glass (the
non-HI 5 glass like wine/liquor bottles and food containers) we are forced
to pay up to $90 a ton to unload our commodity and to compensate, we
must add a surcharge which effectively double-charges for glass
recycling (See our website for details).
Our government has completely failed us.
These past few years have shown, beyond any doubt, that our
County and State governments do not care about recycling.
They only care about appearances.
If you doubt this statement, ask yourself why we are guaranteed a
county owned and operated landfill to dump "trash" but there
is no County sponsored recycling processing facility of any kind to
divert material from our dwindling landfill space?
This State, being made of small islands, could easily be one of
the forerunners in the recycling world but excuses, inactivity, and
letting someone else deal with it seems like the most common
“action” from the government. One
would think that over time our recycling infrastructure would improve at
least a little, and certainly not go down the drain like it has over the
past two years. We need our
County Counsel to create a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) now!
A County owned MRF was supposed to be up and running by January
2006! Money was budgeted and spent for this purpose, but, for
some reason, they gave up on it. The
absolute total apathy of our Government on behalf of recycling is
stunning. They simply do not
care about taking the necessary steps to increase the recycling rate.
Last October 3rd the Maui News published a front page
story about the landfill overflowing by December 2006 largely due to the
fact that the current diversion rate is less than 20%!
The County claims roughly 28% diversion but those numbers include
scrapped cars, and appliances, which no-one else
uses in figuring their diversion rates .
Maybe this type of dishonest number bandying has something to do
with the lack of integrity surrounding the government’s slipshod
mishandling of the solid waste system.
This could all be solved by drastically raising the landfill
tipping fees to generate the revenues necessary to fund diversion
processes without dipping into the general fund. Three
separate studies over the past 12 years have indicated this to be the
critical factor. Why has the
County Council ignored theses studies?
Why do the County and State continuously and caustically fight
each other with regard to such an essential service not unlike water,
sewer, power, police, and firefighters?
Obviously, our government officials don’t care how much money
is wasted since they will receive their paychecks, whether the landfill
operates or not. After all,
it’s not their money that’s being squandered.
Please
write to
the
elected
officials listed.
Share your anger and disappointment and demand that a County
sponsored MRF be built immediately!
Also, please write to the Governor and demand that she work to improve
the recycling effort instead of her continued opposition to good
recycling programs (like the Bottle Bill/HI 5 program). Maui Recycling Service is a small company that simply does not have the resources to solve all of the recycling problems we face, besides, we don’t think that good people, like our customers, should be forced to pay more and more and hold the burden for the rest of this society, just because they have a conscience, or own a bar and are forced to recycle glass, whatever the cost. This is and has been a crisis for Maui County for well over ten years. How many decades must pass before an honest straightforward competent system is in place?
|
|
If
not now, when?
Governor
Lingle, I
have been informed that the funding for the Advanced Disposal Fee (ADF)
on glass (glass not covered by the State Bottle Bill Program) will be
several months short for “…section
14. The legislature
determines that there is in the environmental management special fund at
least $2,000,000 in excess of the requirements of the fund…” Act
52 made the false claim that there was an excess of $2 million in the
fund, when in fact, there was no excess in the fund as witnessed by the
fact that they ran out of money. Since
there never was an excess, the $2 million needs to be replaced so that The
County & State recycling offices have told me that there is no
recourse on this matter, and that I should just pass the higher costs of
glass recycling onto our glass recycling customers (hotels, bars,
restaurants, etc.), who already paid in ‘advance‘
to recycle glass. The ADF
fund is specifically for glass recycling: “Moneys
from the special account shall be used to fund county glass recovery
programs established in accordance with the requirements under section
342G-86” There
are three actions the State can take to correct the glass recycling
problems we face on -
Restore the $2 million mistakenly taken from the ADF fund in 2004 -
Revise the Bottle Bill to include most glass containers, and/or a
commingled rate for glass -
Change the ADF law to distribute the ADF funds based on a variety
of factors, including defacto population and glass recycling rate I
look forward to your response and your action on this very important
issue. Sincerely, Shaun
Stenshol President
|
|
(b) The department shall distribute the moneys contained in the special account to the counties in proportion to the amount of glass imported into each county based on the county's de facto population. The distribution shall be in the form of direct contracts with the department as permitted under chapters 103 and 103D or transfer of funds from the department. (c) No more than ten per cent, in the aggregate, of the revenue collected in any one year may be used by the department for administrative and educational purposes and to promote glass recovery, recycling, and reuse in Hawaii through research and demonstration projects. (d) All moneys distributed to the counties under subsection (b), and not used by the counties as specified in section 342G-86, shall be returned to the State for deposit into the environmental management special fund at the end of each annual contract period. [L 1994, c 201, pt of §2; am L 1998, c 253, §1; am L 2002, c 176, §11]
|
|
Click
here for Contacts |
|
|
Maui Recycling Service Dedicated to local and global sustainability P.O. Box 1267 Wailuku, Hi. 96793 (808)
244-0443 Fax (808) 244-0614
|
