Hearings set on bottle bill rules

The Maui News
Saturday, March 05, 2005

By EDWIN TANJI, City Editor

HONOLULU – Announcing hearings on draft administrative rules for the state's beverage container deposit law, the state Department of Health advised Friday that it can't fix problems inherent in the law approved by the Legislature.

But a Maui state senator questioned whether the state administration is being sincere in its efforts to implement the law, which seeks to encourage recycling and reduce the amount of glass, cans and plastics going into landfills.

For Sen. J. Kalani English, whose 6th district includes East Maui, Molokai and Lanai, there was a major question over the Health Department's progress in getting the law to work. In approving the law, the Legislature provided an implementation section that will expire March 31.

The Department of Health was to prepare administrative rules to manage the requirements of the law, but says the process won't be completed until May 6.

Laurence Lau, deputy director for environmental health, said the existing language can continue to guide the department until its new rules are established.

"By rule, the director has general authority to administer the law," he said.

English, who chairs the Senate Environmental and International Affairs Committee, said a joint House-Senate panel met with Lau before the session began Jan. 19 and was assured that the administrative rules would be prepared in time, although legislators had their doubts.

"We had an informational briefing with the House committee on the environment, one of our very first meetings in January, where the department was to give us an update on the bottle bill," English said.

"Instead they gave us a report on why it's bad and why it should be repealed."

He said he wasn't convinced that the department legally could operate under the law's provisions, which expire March 31, but he said the bigger issue is the administration's apparent resistance to implementing it at all.

"We put in the rules as part of the bill because the administration could not come back with its own administrative rules. They said they could not reach agreement with the industry," he said.

In an announcement of the draft rule, Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino noted that consumers are seeing problems with the law providing for a deposit to be paid on metal, glass and plastic beverage containers, with consumers refunded a 5-cent deposit on each container that they turn in.

"We know many consumers have experienced frustration with the current beverage container program," Fukino said. "The administration is working to improve these rules to make the program more efficient and manageable."

But Lau also said there are limits in the law, as approved by the Legislature.

"Some of the public's major complaints cannot be fixed by rule and must be fixed in the law by the Legislature," Lau said.

He cited as an example the fact that retailers are not required to set up redemption centers for the containers that they sell. The law also specifies that containers cannot be crushed before they are redeemed.

The Department of Health announcement said, "The Lingle-Aiona administration believes this law is poorly written," and said the state administration is encouraging the counties to set up comprehensive recycling programs for all types of trash, including paper and yard wastes.

English said the Legislature had approved a bill to require retailers to set up redemption centers for the convenience of consumers, but the bill was vetoed by Lingle. The veto was to support businesses and retailers that objected to having to set up redemption centers, he said.

"The administration fought us on putting that into the law. The retailers, of course, fought it. They said it interfered with their ability to do business," English said.

"I think the consumers should be calling on the owners and managers of the stores to ask them to please put in a redemption center. It's a consumer-demand thing; if the consumer demands it, the business will accommodate them."

Lau said the draft administrative rules simplify the guidelines set up by the Legislature in the law, deleting some redundant provisions and clarifying others.

"We are trying to make the rules more user friendly, shorten them and cut out unnecessary working," he said.

As an example, he said, the draft rules eliminate a provision that says the staff at a redemption center must take the containers out of a box or bag brought in by consumers.

"We didn't think it mattered if the staff at the center or the consumer removed the containers," Lau said.

He said the draft also reworks the provision that provides for containers to be redeemed by weight than by an actual count of containers. The draft includes provisions for the department to re-evaluate the weight valuations "as needed" and to establish formulas for various mixes of containers of different sizes. Consumers have challenged the procedure that determines payment based on weight.

The draft also shifts responsibility for setting up redemption centers to the counties when there is no redemption center within two miles of a dealer carrying products for which deposits are required.

The Legislature's rules provide that "the state, with assistance from the county, shall establish the redemption center with funding from the deposit beverage container deposit special fund."

The draft state rule provides that "the respective county shall determine the need for a redemption center . . . then the county, with the assistance of the state, may establish the redemption center with funding from the deposit beverage container deposit special fund."

The current rules are part of Hawaii Revised Statutes 342G. The Health Department's draft administrative rules can be found online at http://www.hawaii.gov/health/about/proposed/sw/draft_11-282.pdf.

A public hearing on the draft rule will be held on Maui at 6 p.m. April 21 in the Lihikai Elementary School cafeteria.

Edwin Tanji can be reached at editor@mauinews.com.

Copyright © 2005 The Maui News

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