House Standing Committee on Energy & Environmental Protection

Alright. Aloha, everyone, and welcome. It is Thursday, September 24, noon. We are in Conference Room 309, and we are here for an informational briefing for the Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection to get an update from our Department of Health about our Deposit Beverage Container Program or the HI 5 program. And then we have a couple other presenters here as well.

We have the Container Recycling Institute and someone from Encorp, which is the producer responsibility organization that runs Vancouver, BC's program. Joining me is my vice chair, Rep Perruso. We have Representative Cory Chun here in person. And then on Zoom, it looks like we are joined by Representative Matayoshi, chair of CPC, Rep Kirstin Kahaloa, Rep Matthias Kusch, as well as our presenters. And so, yeah, without further ado, we're gonna have Department of Health up first to start your presentation. So take it away.

Good afternoon, Chair Lowen, Committee Members, and both in the room and online. My name is Kathy Ho. I'm the deputy director for environmental health at the Department of Health, and we are pleased to provide you updates on our Deposit Beverage Container Program. Over the last year, our staff has worked tirelessly to address the state auditor's recommendation to reduce opportunities for fraud. We have taken on this work while maintaining their program responsibilities.

And for that, I'd like to thank them for their hard work. Now we are focusing on how to make recycling more convenient and to increase redemption rates. Thank you to this committee for convening us today. I'm looking forward to hearing from the other presenters on the different approaches that could work in Hawaii. I'd like to, I'd like to now introduce Lane Otsu, who will go through the updates with you. Again, thank you.

Thank you, Kathy. Chair Lowen and Members of the Committee, thank you for giving us the opportunity to share a little bit about what's happening with the DBC program. I see. So if I start at the top, we just wanted to list program objectives that we're working towards. First, we need to increase participation and recycling rates for deposit beverage containers and also to reduce litter.

We're also working to strengthen the connection between manufacturing decisions and recycling program management to divert waste from the landfills. And that is our link to EPR activities. Yeah. Third would be to improve transparency and accountability of the used DBC program and to also address program deficiencies. Next, I just wanted to share some some features, numbers, as far as program performance.

So in fiscal year 2025, we recycled 515 million containers. And just to list requirements for the containers, requirements of the CRCs pertaining to the containers, they're required to transport the material to out of state to a recycling facility or send it for a, send it to an in state recycling facility that's permitted by the department.

Points two and three aren't an option right now. So 100% of the DBC containers goes out of state for a second. And as far as numbers of certified redemption centers, we currently have 51 sites, and we have 294 beverage distributors registered with us. Those are the distributors that paid the deposit and 1 cent container fee to us.

For this next slide, what we're trying to provide a little bit of context, I guess. We quote redemption rates for mainland programs that have their deposit set at 5 cents. So it's comparable to our situation. And so we have Hawaii in blue, Massachusetts in orange, New York in green. New York's is fairly stable, but we do see some decline in Massachusetts. But and then our rates for the past couple of few years have been in the team.

Can you speak up a little bit? I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh, just can you speak up a little when you're speaking. You're speaking very softly?

Oh, okay. Is this okay?

Thank you.

Okay. Okay. For the next slide, we just wanted to share the number of redemption centers that we have in the program. It's a total of 51. And then on this map, we show the breakdown with Kauai with 5, O‘ahu with 23, Maui 7, 1 on Moloka‘i, and 1 on Lānaʻi. And I'll just note that the Lānaʻi CRC is under contract with us.

And then we have 14 CRC locations on the Big Island. We just wanna get into a little bit of sort of specific things that we're trying to improve on. So the challenges listed here along with the current work are predicated on our efforts to cite more redemption centers. So in the process of doing that, we just cited a few challenges.

And the first and biggest one, I think, is is just difficult for CRCs to secure land that can accommodate a full certified redemption center. The issue that we know all of the CRCs encounter is that sort of difficulty in maintaining staff. We know that everyone has, you know, a lot of churn in their staffing. And, you know, I don't think that's unique to the recycling business.

I think that's, I think, widespread. But and then third would be the statutory requirement for number of hours for CRC. So at least thirty hours in high density population areas, which five hours must be on Saturday or Sunday. So I think to kinda tie these challenges together, I'll explain a little bit of our situation with Kailua.

So Kailua lost the sole redemption center almost two years ago. It was remnants that were at they were located sort of in the loading dock area of Aikahi Park Shopping Center. So when they lost their lease, it invoked our retailer requirement. So we did, we did mail letters to the affected retailers. And the process has been drawn out a little bit, but I think it looks like most of them are gonna exercise the exemption that's in statute.

But aside from that, you know, we were trying to identify any sort of usable parcels in Kailua and, you know, because it's a high density population area as defined in our statute, there really is no, like, open space that operator can, you know, install a full functioning CRC. So, yeah, as part of that, you know, we're even trying to identify parcels that could accommodate maybe a mobile unit, but then the mobile unit would then wouldn't meet the hours requirements.

The idea is just to provide some sort of redemption services to Kailua. So as far as us checking on available parcels, there's none in Kailua proper or even in... So we've been working with the county, City and County of Honolulu, and they have a couple of sites that might be qualify or have the, you know, the proper, access in open space. And once one is in Waimānalo, second one is, above, above the Kawainui Marsh area above Koai'a Corridor Road.

But we're in we're in sort of a holding pattern on that because, as it is, the city and county is doing a beneficial use analysis of all their open parcels. And so they're saying to us that, you know, they need to wait until that study is complete and, you know, maybe they can get in line depending on what the study comes out with.

Similarly, we're talking I'm trying to work with Hawaii County to, well, and potentially issue an RFP to provide space for a redemption center. They've done that, they've done it in the past, you know, connected to our contract with them. And so we're working with them. We're gonna meet with them soon, issuing another RFP.

Current work, you know, we're just mentioning that we are adjusting the segregated rates and also the handling fee that's going into effect next week. So just as a quick, which reminder, the segregated rates are the conversion formulas that the CRCs use to convert redemption by weight into number of containers. And then the handling fees are the fees that we pay to the CRC to aid in the transport and recycling of their redeemers.

So, yeah, taking a look at the auditor recommendations and our work over the past year that Kathy had mentioned. So these are the recommendations that the auditor had to us after their most recent audit. And these were in, I think, possibly the last three audits. And then we find we decided that we're gonna dig in and address each of those. So if I go to the next slide. Yeah. So these are our projects to improve and address potential fraud in the system.

And so all of these stem from the eight recommendations that were in the previous slide. So the first group is audit and process improvement. You know, we've just contracted with Spire, who are an auditing firm. And then the purpose of that was to conduct audits of certified redemption centers and also distributors, and then also to assess our processes and make any suggestions on how we can improve those. Second is DOH combined payments to CRC.

So essentially, we revised our claims process to so that it provides third party documentation operator. Act 158 from just this past session changed requirements for the distributor independent audits. And what we did with that was that we're trying to balance our audit coverage while reducing burden on small businesses. And last in the section is we finalized our accounting and enforcement angles. So far as improving technology, we made progress on several different fronts, I think.

We've rolled out online submission system for inspections, which our inspectors use. Also for DBC distributor submissions. And then we're also working to expand electronic systems for CRC reporting. And so just wanted to give you a snapshot to breakdown for our current year. So we have that one is set aside for increasing redemption opportunities. And that's the bottom line with the transfer to the general fund. We'll just note that that hasn't taken place yet, but it is in our budget.

What's the deposit of the fund? What's the balance of the fund?

Balance of the fund is we're at 70 or 80, I think.

I have that one.

The total cash balance... Hi. Katie Arita-Chang with the Environmental Health Administration. The total cash balance is about $105 million of which $79 million is encumbered.

Thank you.

Thank you, Katie. That brings us to the last slide. We just wanted to list some of the areas that we're gonna be working on. Past years work has been focused mostly on internal processes. And now that we're sort of at the I guess let's say finish line. We know we have work that'll continue past that, but I think we're past sort of the bulk of that work. So now, from now on, we're turning our attention on trying to establish more redemption centers. And we're available for questions.

Okay. We'll do a quick if there's some burning questions, and then we'll do more at the end.

It's just about the slide, the major expenditures. So that first line, the deposit refunds and handling fees. So when she says that those monies are already encumbered for 2027, does that mean that... I'm just having a hard time understanding how they could already be encumbered if we're still in 2026. Sorry.

Hi, Chair. So those are this is fiscal year planned expenditure. So fiscal year 27, which start we're almost in Q2. So Lane and the program right now are working on new contracts with the certified redemption centers that will start October 1st. So they go October 1st to September 30th, that'd be here.

And so we have a certain amount of money that we need to encumber or set aside based on a projection of what we think for their contracts. What we think is gonna be paid out and deposit handling fees. And then based on what's encumbered, they make actual payments based on documentation and other requirements.

I have a quick question. Do you have a map of the redemption centers on each island just like a visual image of, like, where they are, what's the distribution?

I didn't bring the individual maps. We did we did have some prepared, so I can I can send this to you.

Yes, please. Okay. I have more questions, but we'll save it to the end. Do you have anything right now? No? Okay. Anyone online have an immediate question? Raise your hands. Okay. Then we're gonna move on to our next presenter, which is the Container Recycling Institute, and this is an organization that focuses on policy for deposit return systems and other and jurisdictions across the country and in other countries. And so I believe we're having a presentation from Susan Collins, who I will have introduce herself briefly. So Susan, go ahead. Thank you for being here.

Thank you to the Chair and Members of the Committee. Yes, my name is Susan Collins and I am the president of the Container Recycling Institute. The Institute has existed for 35 years and is focused on research and education around beverage container deposit systems and other packaging recycling systems, but, really, the bulk of our work is on beverage container deposit laws, both in the United States and around the world.

And so today, I'll be presenting some information on the sort of the state of all of the deposit programs in the United States with a little bit of international information and then some Hawaii specific information. So let's go to the next slide. So the first most important thing that people need to know about beverage container deposit return systems or DRS is that they're enormously effective in terms of really high recycling rates.

I call these programs the rock stars of recycling because they are within within a couple of years of starting operation, they have very, very high redemption rates. These are the rates that exist in the United States, shown here on this chart, three different colors for the three different material types, and the containers that are on deposit in the United States have redemption rates that are two to three times as high as the containers that are not on deposit.

And there are 10 states in the United States that have container deposit programs, but the states don't all cover all of the eligible containers. So let's go to the next slide. This shows the rising popularity of these programs around the world. I know that you're gonna hear from the province of British Columbia, and the one of the exciting things about that province is that it was the first program in the world. It started all the way back in 1970, more than fifty years ago.

Since that time, over the first 47 years of the development of these programs, they grew and got passed in more and more jurisdictions until they reached about 357 million people in population in all different countries on different continents around the world. But then things really heated up.

They got really popular. Starting at about 2017, we saw an incredible rise in the implementation of new programs in new places. So the programs that existed in the first 47 years are in blue on this chart, and in yellow is all of the new places just in the last ten years. And those new programs are now covering 554 million people.

So the program popularity has more than doubled around the world, and we very much expect the total coverage to reach a billion people around the world by 2030 because we know that there are new programs that are in the process of being approved and in the process of being implemented.

Let's go to the next slide. So here's a little bit on Hawaii's history. We've got the beverages covered. It's a pretty comprehensive program. It just doesn't include wine and spirits and those are included in dozens of programs around the world, but the rest of the coverage is pretty good.

This is the ten year history of redemption rates in the state, and we can see sort of a steady decline in the redemption rates. That's not dissimilar from other programs in the United States. The ones that still have a 5 cent deposit have been seeing a steady decline. Not a huge decline, but just year by year, a little bit of erosion, and I'll show that in a in a coming slide. Let's go to the next slide. So I know you can't see everything on this page.

This is dense. It's a lot of material. I mainly want to make everyone aware that this information is available. We have this. It's a one page chart. It is so dense that we've split it into two pages for the purposes of this presentation. We release this chart every year. We update it annually, and we also release a mini report with it. So it gives all of the updated information for the 10 US DRS states and summarizes it all in a side by side way so that you can compare state to state. It's available on our website, and we're happy to send it to anybody who can't find it.

We're happy to send it to you directly if you send us an email. So we wanted to let you know that this chart is available. Let's go to the next slide. This is just the other half of the chart with the other half of the states, and then I'll cover some of the information in here more directly in the next slide. Let's go to the next slide.

So here is are the redemption rates for the 10 US deposit states for last year, 2025. This is redemption only. So in many of these states, additional beverage containers are captured through curbside recycling programs. This is just meant to show what the redemption rate is in the deposit program.

So the overall recycling rates are a little bit higher than what's shown here because with it's more when you add in the curbside containers. We've got it color coded here. So all of the states that have a 5¢ deposit across the board are in gray. Those with the 10¢ deposit across the board are in green. And some of the states have a mixture. Like, I'm here in California.

Most of our containers are at 5¢, but the larger containers are at a 10¢ redemption rate or redemption value. And something that we know about container deposit laws is that the incentive is a very powerful motivating force to get people to return their containers and not litter their containers or to pick up litter because it has a value, and it therefore is logically true that a larger incentive has a larger effect.

So it's not a surprise that the states that have a 10¢ deposit instead of a 5¢ deposit have some of the highest redemption rates in the country. And, indeed, we've seen in the last few years, Oregon went from 5¢ to 10¢, and they saw a huge increase in their redemption rate of about 20 points. Connecticut was even more dramatic. It went from a redemption rate in the mid 40s all the way up to redemption rate in the low 90s, as shown here.

So let's go to the next slide. The what we found for changes in the last year, so this is comparing 2025 to the previous year, 2024, most of the states didn't have very many changes. Connecticut was the big one because they have such a recent change from 5¢ to 10¢. Maine did show a big change of five percentage points, but we understand from talking to the folks in Maine that that's more a difference in how they're counting things.

They're getting better reporting data from their distributors. So it's really a refining of the existing numbers more so than a change. And most of the rest of the states experienced just a slight decline in their redemption. I will say that California was going through something a little bit different.

They just added wine and spirits to their program, so that always affects the numbers when there's a change like that in the program, and the fact that they were able to pretty much hold the redemption rate steady is great because usually it takes a little while for people to get used to redeeming new beverage types. We also wanna point out that that there were other lots of other changes in Connecticut.

Connecticut had a list of, like, 12 different changes that happened in their modernization bill that passed in 2021, and that rolled out in stages, each one building the foundation for the next program change. The last thing I wanna point out is that Vermont had an increase in their handling fee very recently, and both Maine and Vermont are moving to a producer responsibility program in the near future.

Maine's producer responsibility program passed a couple of years ago, and it will be implemented October 1, so just in a week. It's coming right up. Vermont passed the law that requires a producer responsibility organization just this past June. So we won't see Vermont's producer responsibility organization for about three years.

Let's go to the next slide. So I've already mentioned the benefits of deposit systems, very, very high redemption rates. I didn't mention at that same time that it also produces really clean material because of the way people return materials. They're not mixed with other things, so the materials are of utmost cleanliness, and they can easily be used by manufacturers to make new products.

These programs also create jobs and new businesses. We've talked about the redemption centers. Those are new businesses that wouldn't have existed without this program. Also, they conserve energy and natural resources, reduce greenhouse gases, and prevent pollution. Next slide.

So I wanted to mention drop off programs, bag drop programs because they are becoming more and more popular, and I think I'll save most of what I'm gonna say because I think the Return It presentation is gonna get into this a little bit too. But it we went from a country that didn't have any bag drop programs until it started in Maine about a decade ago, and now these six states have at least some bag drop.

You know, it's only pilot programs in California so far, but I wanted to mention that it's a really growing, popular way for people to return containers, and it has the feature of being able to be small and versatile, flexible. So it's being used in some places to sort of fill in in between major redemption centers. Let's go to the next slide.

We're gonna go back in time now to the beginning of Hawaii's program because this is an important thing that Hawaii did all the way back in 2008. So the law was passed in 2002. The program was implemented in 2005. And in 2008, the state conducted a public opinion survey or public information survey, and this is what they found. First of all, you can see on the left, the residents polled hundreds of residents from around the state were polled.

They found that 77% of the residents reported redemption activity of some kind, compared to 65% having reported that two years earlier in 2006. There was also high awareness of the program. Over 90% of residents statewide had reportedly heard of HI 5. And that's really important because when the program was new, there was a lot of public education around it, which is the exactly the right thing to do, and I often use Hawaii as an example.

When I'm talking to other folks who are either going through program changes or implementing a brand new change, there has to be a lot of public education around that. Additional findings were that three in five residents personally redeemed containers at redemption centers, and the program at that time had a 60% approval rating. Let's go to the next slide.

I wanted to touch on the fact that that there were a number of bills that were introduced last or this last season, but a few months ago, that would have made changes, either wholesale changes to the law or just tweak certain sections of it, and that the one that passed had to do with the auditing process for beverage distributors. Next slide. This is a similar map to the one that you saw earlier.

We, and there's one one little slight change. One number of redemption centers is different in our information, but it's basically the same information that you already saw about the distribution of redemption centers. I will say that there was years ago, there was very much a concern in Hawaii that redemption centers were gonna be closing because the handling fees were not sufficient to pay the redemption centers enough. And Hawaii adopted a best in class process of doing financial surveying of the sites every year to figure out what the proper handling fees should be. And we've seen that now year after year after year.

The new handling fees come out every year. They're calculated, you know, by auditors who are trying to get that number just right, and it has created stability with the redemption centers in the state, which is a good thing. They're not dropping like flies like what we saw in California. Next slide. So we do have some recommendations based on what we have heard are some of the problems that are trying to be addressed.

There's still an issue with not enough redemption centers or not enough redemption locations in the places where people need them. This is both a rural issue and an urban issue. And it sounds like the Department of Health is aware of this and is trying to address this from the presentation we just heard. But the idea is to map the existing redemption centers and identify both rural and urban redemption deserts so that those can be addressed. Because it should be just as easy to get your deposit refunded to you as it was to pay it in the first place.

Also, it seems time to redo some of that public opinion research that was done so many years ago, conduct a public opinion survey to see if the public is able to use the system, how frustrated they are, and what they would prefer to see done about it. And then using the information from number 1 and number 2, as well as successful solutions from other jurisdictions, develop a plan for improvement along with budgets, responsibilities, timelines, and funding sources.

There are several things we can point to that are happening in different states or different provinces in Canada or different countries in Europe that have been successful, so there's a lot of good lessons learned from around the world that can be brought to bear on this program. And I believe that's my, well, there's a thank you slide, I think, at the end or Q and A. I do wanna share what this art project is because this is meant to show what one person's beverage container consumption looks like in the United States.

This is 822 containers. They're just the right mix of aluminum versus plastic versus glass versus juice boxes. They're just the right mix of water versus soda and other beverage containers, arranged in an artful way with the people there for scale so that you can see really how big this pile is. So beverage containers are often trivialized, but when you add up everything that we consume over the course of a year, it is not trivial. And so I just wanted to share that with you and thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions or stay and answer questions later. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. I think we will we're gonna have the presentation from Return It, and then we're gonna do Q and A. If you can stick around, thank you. So great. Next, we have, on the line, we have Cindy Coutts and Mickey Ho from Encorp or the Return It program in Vancouver, BC. Again, I'll let you go ahead and introduce yourselves, but thank you so much for being here, and the floor is yours.

Great. Thank you very much for inviting us today to talk about the deposit return program that exists in British Columbia. My name is Cindy Coutts. I'm the president and CEO of Encorp Pacific, better known as Return It. And my colleague, Mickey Ho, who is the director of communications and stakeholder relations is here as well.

I'm not sure who's running the deck here. So who we are? We are the not for profit stewardship agency or producer responsibility organization that operates the beverage container deposit return system in British Columbia, Canada on the far west coast of Canada for over thirty years. We were originally established by the producers to manage our regulatory obligations in BC, the deposit return recycling system for most ready to drink beverage containers.

We employ closer to 90 employees today and between 800 and a thousand indirect employees as part of this program, so driving the economy as well as environmental benefits. To date, we've recovered over 25 billion containers. Next slide, please. So just a little bit on language. In Canada, extended producer responsibility is the broad concept which moves the burden of collecting end of life products and packaging from the taxpayer to the brand owner and ultimately to the consumer. Under the umbrella of EPR, we have many different tools.

A deposit return system is one of those. A curbside collection program would be another. And often those different tools can work in combination and collaboratively with each other. So in BC, one of the things that has worked really, really well, and we'll get to the things we did well and we didn't do well. But one of the things that worked really well was the regulatory framework. It's a results based regulation.

It sets out a number of very key results and then turns the obligation to meet those results over to the producers or the brand owners of the beverage, the beverage containers. So some of the things that are required is that we hit a recovery rate of 75% of all beverages sold into the province. We have certain accessibility requirements. We have certain consumer awareness requirements, reporting and auditing requirements.

And so this is where Encorp Pacific and Return It were established in order to execute the obligations of the brand owners. Next slide, please. So we have a number of guiding principles in our program. So in addition to all of the benefits that Susan mentioned around deposit return systems, these are really important. So it's a true cost based system. There's no cross subsidization of revenue or costs across multiple material types, and this is how we get to that design for the environment true circular economy.

All brand owners are treated equitably. We want to impact the consumership, the consumer price of the product on the shelf as minimally as possible while achieving the results. We want a consumer friendly and convenient collection system throughout the province, and we want to divert from landfill all of the usable end products and make sure they are converted into new products and packaging. Next slide.

So in 2025, we achieved a recovery rate, your redemption rate of 78.5%. And just a bit of a caveat in comparing all these numbers, we have to be able to compare the different products that are in a program So we often hear of 90% recovery in some of the European countries, and they may only have glass, plastic, and aluminum in their program, whereas ours as you'll see is much much more diverse.

So 78.5% recovery rate is quite good and above that regulated requirement of 75%. We diverted 135,000 tons of CO2 equivalent through our activities. 99% of the population of British Columbia is aware of the program, and we have 99% accessibility of all the folks in BC to the program.

And that's fairly substantive given the size and the geography of British Columbia, which is not dissimilar to Hawaii, but lots of mountains and lots of islands. In our program, we have a variety of beverage types, water, pop, which is your soda, juice, milk, plant based products, energy drinks, wine, spirits, de-alkalized beer and spirits.

And we have a variety of material types. So those beverages, as long as they're ready to drink, irrespective of what container they're sold in those containers are part of our program. So all the different plastics, aluminum, pouches, gable top containers, drink boxes, glass, bag in a box, ceramic containers, and bimetal containers. And when we collect those containers, we have to make sure that they are not landfilled or used for energy recovery. That's part of the regulation.

I won't go through the individual recovery rates here. You'll have this as a reference. All of the commodities collected, and as you heard Susan say, are very clean because they're part of a deposit return system, and we manage the recycling of these containers. We follow them till their final resting place when they're converted into new packaging or products in order to promote the circular economy. We also try to recycle them as close to home as possible.

So containers are, are returned in British Columbia through a number of different options. We have redemption depots, 162 of them. We have returned to retail in British Columbia, and we have outside of home collection through curbside and IC&I collection. About 85% of our redemption comes through our depot network. We have 162 independently owned and operated depots.

You can see their location on the map. We have five corporately owned depots and 23 express and go locations. We collect directly from 417 retail locations, but many of our depots also collect directly from retail. We use a network of 38 transporters and 15 consolidation sites, and we have an R&D facility as well in the infrastructure.

So this just shows you how we manage our accessibility.

This is the Lower Mainland in British Columbia so the Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver area and all of the dots on the map are, redemption sites and we look we overlay that with population density and we map a two kilometer radius around the site and this is how we identify our depot deserts. So the areas that you see that are rust colored are highly densely populated but we don't have convenient redemption sites.

So our goal, just like all deposit return systems, is to provide convenient accessibility because we know convenience drives recovery rates. One of the ways we do that is through our bag drop program, which is called Xpress. Xpress.

Consumers can commingle all of their containers at home into one clear bag. They sign up for a free account and then they can drop off their bags at a whole number of locations across the province with a label with their account number on it and we will count the containers and deposit return the deposit into their account in a in a few days. Consumers love this program. There's no lineups. They don't have to sort any containers.

We have 450,000 participants in this program. A full 17% of all of our recovery comes through the bag drop program and it grows every year. It's very popular. Next slide. We, we

we have a number of different facilities to meet different needs and I liken it to the the jars in the top of the slide. So British Columbia is the empty jar. We fill it with rocks and those are the physical bricks and mortar depots like the one you see on the left hand side. And then we look at smaller depots that may be just collecting express bags, so not full service depots.

But there's still some room in that jar to be more convenient and this is where we have our unique express and go containers which are unmanned repurposed shipping containers that have been decked out to be able to take those express bags for customers in either really densely populated areas where we can't site a bricks and mortar depot or really rural areas that don't justify a bricks and mortar type solution.

This is just a little more information for you on the Express and Go containers. As I mentioned, they're standalone. They are, unstaffed so you can have them open for longer hours. And, we have 25 of these located, sprinkled throughout the province of British Columbia. So our system is funded, in in three ways.

Obviously, some of the commodities we collect have a value, some have a cost, but some of those create revenue. Unredeemed deposits, so we collect 78.5 percent. The rest of the unredeemed deposits go into the program to fund the program and if at that point there's a discrepancy between revenue and cost, we levy a container recycling fee on the sale of new beverages and that CRF is meant to be kept very low for consumers and is is calculated based on the actual cost of different container materials.

It shows you our current CRFs. So aluminum right now has zero CRF and our largest CRF is for a ceramic bottle at $30 per beverage container.

This is eco modulation at its best. We don't have an appropriate recycling home for ceramic materials and this represents the fact that it it is very expensive to collect these separately and then store them for right now. Slide. I'm just gonna show you a a few seconds of this.

We're we're in the middle of modernizing and we've developed an AI solution to count and identify every of our container types, that broad range of container types to be able to offer consumers much quicker visits to the depot because the biggest complaint is I don't wanna go and have to wait in line for very long.

So we'll we'll just literally show, three three or five seconds of this, Nikki, if you could. That's great. Thanks. So the AI system actually counts a 100 times faster than a human. So it's pretty exciting.

We do a lot of consumer segmentation work to determine where the the 22% of beverage containers that aren't coming to us end up and how we motivate individuals to participate more heavily in the program. And right now, we're focused on the second from the left, the overconfident contributors who represent about 16% of the people, but they are responsible for about 31% of all of the beverage containers discarded in British Columbia.

They think they're really good at recycling but they often are just overconfident and when they get busy they discard just one, only one. And so the the promotion and education that you'll see on the next slide was developed to try to influence these folks to pay more attention to their recycling habits. Oh, I'm sorry.

Go go one hands.

Not gonna recycle that? It's just one.

For you, maybe. But it's also just one for this tidy trucker and this desperate dad. It's just one for this fully loaded fisherman, this rush hour rider, and this overtired over timer. Just one for the drive through diner. It's just one for the backyard barbecuer, and just one for the underpaid intern, which means it isn't just one.

Every beverage container that gets thrown out adds up. So don't trash them. Return them.

All of our depots are granted. Return return it. So we've got a call to action right in our name. So just to give you a a little bit of a sense of of how we really push the promotion in education, we have a $6,000,000 budget for promotion and education to keep recycling in the forefront of British Columbian mines. We've also updated to be able to have an an app for Return It.

Again, trying to modernize, make it very convenient for folks to find redemption locations, to be able to communicate directly with them if they've got contamination in their drop offs, particularly for our bag drop program. We allow them to donate their containers to charities through this app. So really, again, modernizing and trying to stay ahead of the curve to incent greater convenience and participation. And I won't go through all these, but we have learned a lot. We've done some things really well.

I think the the regulatory structure of of EPR in British Columbia is really solid as a results based regulation and then let industry implement. If we don't do our job then obviously there will be consequences. But I I do think there are a number of things that are really important moving forward to modernize many deposit return systems. We we have actually two PROs, producer responsibility organizations in BC and it's not efficient to do that. It doesn't help you invest in technology.

You want to have control over your collection network. One of the mistakes we made was, contracting with independent depot owners and if we had to go and start all over again, we would have made sure that we owned and operated those collection centers so that we can control the consumer experience and the technology. And I'll I'll let you go through some of the others. But thank you very much. A lot of information.

We would be more than happy to answer any questions.

Great. Thank you so much. I think that was really, really interesting. I have a lot of questions, but I'll go to my committee members first, I think. Rep Chen, Rep Purcell, any questions?

Does anyone online wanna jump in with a question? Okay. Well, just raise your hand. I have the Zoom open, so if anyone online has a question, just raise your hand. Let's see.

I wanna, I guess, start with Department of Health. Declining, so I'm wondering what what in your opinion accounts for that. And if you can come up to the podium because our mics are designed to pick up your voice from there.

Well, the decline since 2020, we have been attributing that to the effects of the pandemic. You know, we had some information that, when, the economy is down, consumers try to maximize their revenue streams. So, and that sort of matched with while the the, pandemic was working its way through through us. But then it continued to decline afterwards. And I don't know.

I mean, we're not maybe a 100% sure what that is.

Okay. Did did you wanna add any?

The line of HMOs Department are called solid and has a sweet branch. We also saw a deep decreasing trend on redemption centers. Big Island in particular, we saw some closures there. The county of Hawaii actually went out and did a RFP to at that time, and they did not receive bids, and so they have to close some of those centers. Those are the ones that we are also looking to in working with the county to resurrect.

So I think in part that's some of the contributing factors. And then I have this question. I know we talked about it prior, but in terms of convenience to consumer, I'm curious how much of the because I think what Susan mentioned, I I think was that some of these states percentages don't reflect the curbside recycling, but in fact, in Hawaii, the curbside recycling program, which only exists in, you know, kind of urban Honolulu, the is part of that redemption rate.

So what percentage of the that 52% or whatever we're at right now redemption rate is actually due to curbside recycling? I understand you don't have the exact numbers, but if you can estimate between, you know, x and x amount.

So that it would be interesting to know what percent of our customers who are paying 5¢or 6¢at the register are actually gonna get their 5 they're actually going to get their 5¢back as an individual versus the the curbside recycling program where they're basically donating it to the city and county of Honolulu?

Yeah. So what we've commented or explained to you as far as being able to break out the curbside numbers is is will take some doing because the reason being that, when Triple R, makes their claims to us, it, it comes in a combined combination of their commercial accounts along with the CD accounts. So

k. But can you can you take a guess at it? Is it 50%? Is it 30%? Is it somewhere between those two?

Is it more? Is it less? What's the total amount that comes from that lump sum amount that includes the other commercial? I mean, you must have some number you can provide.

No. We we did some preliminary research before this meeting, and we we don't have a good grasp on how much of it is commercial versus overall because of the way the numbers come in to us is not aggregated on one one request. So it it will take some time to Okay. To write the

we were just, like, understanding those statistics would be critical to being able to improve and operate a good program. I mean, if you're not even collecting the most fundamental data, which I asked for in advance, so there was time to try to seek it out. Like, I'm disappointed to not have a better understanding of that number if I'm being honest. Okay. Anyone else questions?

Go ahead. I have questions,

but it's actually for the return that folks. So, you know, I think there's some interest in moving towards an EPR based approach in Hawaii and using a pro producer funded nonprofit, but still maintaining strong public oversight. And I'm curious about, based on your experience, what responsibilities should the nonprofit control and what authority should remain with the state? And and for you folks, does that lie with the your Department of Health or some your analogous institution?

And and I'm I'm wondering, you know, we've seen different models, but for BC, what kinds of accountability requirements are written to allow and you went over some of them, and I I really appreciated the results based regulation.

Just thematically is, like, kind of the principle that you're kind of relying upon. But I'm wondering what that looks like in practice, if the state is is exercising oversight.

Yes. Absolutely. The Department of Environment and Parks in British Columbia has oversight of the recycling regulation. And the the regulation, you can find it on the website, is is quite quite simple and it's because it is set up as results based. And so if we meet all of the required results, we have to, for example, put a stewardship plan forward every five years.

We have to do public consultation on that plan, and the Ministry of the Environment approves the plan and then sends us off to do the work. Every year, we have to produce an annual report. They're also publicly available on our website if you're curious. And we have to report on very specific things in that annual report, and it has to be audited. Both the financial and the non financial results have to be audited as part of that report.

So there are a number of things that are specifically laid out and the the provincial government has has the the oversight that we meet those regulations. The beauty is that when the results are specified clearly and they're articulated clearly, the the brand owners know what their marching orders are and they also know the consequences if they don't produce the results. If rapid rate and the technology that's specified in the regulation right now is already, becoming obsolete.

So this is why we really like the results based regulation and if if if I I do think BC having looked at lots of programs around the world, I do think BC has got a really nice balance between setting out the prescriptive results but then letting industry go and implement as they see fit.

Just as a quick follow-up, so I'm imagining that you folks didn't start with the recover recovery rate written into law at 75%. And could you talk a little bit about that scaffolding or that ratcheting up?

Yeah. And I I think there's a recognition. And as as Susan mentioned in her presentation, when you introduce a new, either beverage type or or container type into the regulation, there's a recognition that it's gonna take some time to achieve that rate. So we introduced milk in 2022 in British Columbia and it did take a number of years for us to be able to reach that 75% rate.

We also have some containers that are more difficult to be returned and I'll just point out our juice pouches are not at a 75% recovery rate primarily because they're consumed out of the home And when they're finished, nobody wants to put them back into their knapsack or diaper bag because they will leak.

And so we we work to promote the return of juice pouches. However, we're not at seventy five percent rate, and there is a an understanding between the Ministry of Environment and Encore Pacific that, we're working on this.

Can I ask you a question? Yep. Go ahead.

So I'm curious about the extent to which or or ways in which this work, this EPR work, has changed manufacturing decisions on the part of producers. And you could give maybe give one or two examples.

Absolutely. I I mentioned that the container recycling fee for ceramics is $30 per per container. So imagine you're a manufacturer selling your your soda in a ceramic container, you're going to make a a material switch, rather quickly. Unfortunately, the the the producers that put alcohol high end alcohol in ceramics aren't quite as price sensitive. So we do have influence over the circular economy and and beverage container types.

We also have the ability to reject multi material packaging. So as we're getting more and more creative marketing and there's a a container on the market right now which is PET clear PET with an aluminum atop on the top. And it's very problematic because it either contaminates the PET with aluminum or the aluminum with PET. And so we can levy either higher CRFs or we can reject containers as part of our program and I think that that really influences producer decisions.

Thank you. What what's the penalty on the producer if your program rejects their container?

The penalty is you're not allowed to sell in the province of British Columbia. The regulation states that your container must be recyclable.

Got it. I have a question maybe for all three, but start with Department of Health. Can you, you know, return to we don't have return to retail essentially in the state, and I believe our law sort of mandates return to retail and then exempts them based on radius of an existing, you know, their proximity to an existing redemption center.

And I guess I mean, I'd be I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this because if we looked at amending that, I mean, we could potentially bring more options to the table, which wouldn't necessarily mean that redemption would end up happening in store, but it might bring bring, retailers to the table and helping find solutions. So I'm curious your thoughts on that.

And then for CRI and return it, I'm curious how much how integral do you think is return to retail and having some cooperation with retailers and the success of your programs? But I'll start with the the DOH.

I can say that the backdrop program is popular even here. I mean, in meetings with you, you really like the

Oh, wait. Do we do we have have do we have backdrop? We don't have backdrop here. Okay. You need the idea of it is Yes.

Sorry. Sorry. We talk about these things.

Yes. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So even on our side, just sort of internally, a lot of us do like the backdrop option. Under our current program, it would yeah.

I don't know. It takes a lot of doing, I think. I think it's easier on the on the EPR side of things because you can make that a requirement of the producers. But our under our current statute and and system and everything.

So going back to your question regarding retailers, what Sierra had mentioned was very

Can you start just yes. Speak up a little bit. You guys are both very

What Or

we're both

something. Well, something has mentioned with regards to retailers and the limitation limiting what they can accept from a customer. That was an interesting idea for for me. We can go back and take a look at the exemptions, and maybe that is something that can be considered to bring the retailers back to the table on that. Thank you.

So, yeah, I think that's something we could discuss as far as changes either to statutes or rules on the exemptions.

And my understanding is retailers also are very like, reverse vending machines were tried in state some decade or more ago, and they said, we don't like this. Doesn't work. We're not gonna do it. But I think there's been so many improvements in technology that it feels like maybe it's time to entertain that conversation again.

Yeah. I I think we can discuss that again, but the I think the two main things that were holdups is the the changing of the UPC code required continuous updates. And the other thing we've heard was the parts are hard to come by, so maintenance of it is is difficult. So if we can overcome those two issues, then maybe it's something that can be.

Alright. Thank you. And then I guess CRI and then return it. If you bet, do you have comments or thoughts on this aspect of it that Hawaii doesn't have return to retail and what your thoughts are on that or how we might yeah. If that is hindering us or how we might adjust it.

I'm happy to answer the question based on what other jurisdictions have done. So at the heart of your question is how to maintain a system where everybody has convenient access to recycling, so the convenience factor.

And the jurisdictions that we see that really struggle with this are the ones where there isn't any clear responsibility for a single party to be responsible for providing convenience where things can slip through the cracks and there's not enough enforcement, enforcement authority, or enforcement resources to make sure that somebody who's supposed to be providing convenience is. So, the it has been addressed in different places. In in Europe, they don't even have redemption centers.

They have return to retail, and it's just very commonplace for all of the shops that sell beverages to have reverse vending machines or manual take back, but everybody knows that they all have to do it. The style is really different in Canada and The United States, with a lot of places having redempt a mixture of redemption centers and return to retail.

But even in Connecticut where they had that, a mixture of both, they they had a terrible problem with redemption deserts, and they changed their law there to allow Bagdrop to require any big chain stores, like all the different drugstores, anybody who had at least 40 stores in the state and a certain size of store had to install reverse vending machines. That brought 300 new redemption locations to the state of Connecticut. And Bagdrop is now also really taking off in the state of Connecticut.

They also provided additional funding for redemption centers, especially in underserved areas in Connecticut. Now California is doing something really different. California has found that a lot of the, big retailers were not in compliance with the law, and California established a new thing in the law that requires a dealer cooperative.

And now all of the major retailers either have to provide redemption inside their stores or they have to be part of the dealer coop, and the dealer coop has to be providing redemption services outside the store in their convenience zone. And California has just authorized a million dollars a year for seven staff positions to do enforcement of the dealer coop and the retailers who are supposed to be responsible for it.

So that has that I've just described a bunch of different styles getting to this problem, but it seems like the solution is to actually have somebody who's responsible to to have it be really clear what their responsibilities are and to have the monitoring and enforcement to make sure that the responsible party actually provides the convenience. I'll stop there. Thank you.

Yeah. If if I were to to, you know, essentially echo what what Susan said here, I think that making a mandatory return to retail or a mandatory backdrop or a mandatory anything is not what we're looking for here. What we're looking for is that the responsible party is identified and has results that they have to achieve and if they don't achieve the results there is enforcement.

What that means is that responsible party is going to have to be innovative to meet accessibility targets, to meet recovery rates, hence my my three jar imagery because we knew we weren't gonna hit our 75% target until we started to fill all those little gaps but I don't think mandating in a regulation what has to happen is the way to go. It it really has to be left to the responsible party to figure out how best to do it. I

also just will make a quick comment about reverse vending machines. Depending on what materials are in your program, reverse vending machines at best can take two or three container types. So you end up having to have a whole lot of reverse vending machines. They're expensive. They may be a great solution for certain areas of of your your geography.

But again, I don't think we have to mandate their use, just mandate the results.

Alright, Perruso. Go ahead.

So we in Hawaii, we already have similar to BC, and this is a question for the return it folks, or also the CRI folks. We already have multiple independent operators who operate, from my understanding, on the basis of a contract with the Department of Health. And in order to kind of and you sounded I mean, what I heard was that there are some problems with, you know, alignment maybe or standardization when you have that many independent operators.

What would you do differently if you could redesign your initial implementation and and still support those independent operators, but in a way that is good for the system?

Well, I I don't think that the answer is to have independent operators. I think the answer is to have control over your collection system so that it can be as flexible as you need it to be to meet your your targets. If I had to design any system from scratch, I would if if I were going to have bricks and mortar depots, those would be owned and operated by the entity responsible for the the program.

The challenge is that you get really difficult values between a not for profit organization aiming to achieve high recovery rates and a for profit small business person. So you add that with the fact that you may not be able to install techno the same technology at every independently operated depot.

Again, you start to get into the nuts and bolts of what you can and can't do. So if I got to start over, it would be, completely control over that collection network to meet the requirements.

Can sorry. I'm gonna go ahead. We have a question from Chair Matayoshi online, if you wanna go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. I I'm a little hesitant about this return to the store policy. The reverse vending machines, can anyone weigh in on who purchases the vending machine and maintains these reverse vending machines and who collect collects the the materials from them after they're put in.

I can give you some information. I think, as I mentioned, you know the entity that's responsible for running the program typically pays for the infrastructure. So if it's a government run program then government will pay for the required infrastructure or contract with those who may organize the infrastructure. If it's industry, industry would pay and own and operate.

Let's face it. It all comes down to the consumer. So you want the most efficient and effective solution.

And vending machines in return to retail locations are popular in Europe because they have limited containers that are coming back through the system and so that makes it a lot easier. In British Columbia, we don't use them because they don't take two liter PET bottles, for example. They don't take juice boxes.

They don't take pouches. So they there are a challenge. There may be instances where you may want some vending machines. I don't think that needs to be part of a regulation. Set set the requirement.

And maybe Department of Health can weigh in on that too if there's kind of specifically to Hawaii at least how is that when they have tried out the reverse vending machines, like who has owned and operated them?

Yeah. So, in the earliest, like early years of the program, I don't remember exactly, which year, the legislature actually provided, some grant funds specifically for the, redemption centers to go out and purchase the machines. And so a number of CRC operators, did purchase machines and used them. It was mainly at their own sites. One recycler, created like mobile units out of old sort of delivery trucks where they had a bank of RVMs installed.

But after about two or three years, all the operators that were using this the RVMs, moved away from that. And that's just a combination of things that, I think have been mentioned already. One is updating of the UPC codes. And I think that's actually a big part of the RVM manufacturers. They treat that as a subscription service.

Right? So people have to keep on paying to get a little [inaudible] in. And then, I think there are just a lot of operational issues because, I don't know. When you mentioned RBMs, a lot of us just picture something that, you know, we walk up to check in our containers and you know, you get a slip of paper. But it takes time, to act for the machine to actually read the container.

So you couldn't throw more than one, you know, every few seconds. The machines fill up quickly, so they require, you know, attention there to, I should call it. So it's not exactly in a situation like an ATM situation. We don't have to have a person assigned to the machine. So I think it was just sort of the combination.

Yeah. What do you think of I mean, I do agree with what, Cindy is saying in that if we establish some kind of producer responsibility program, I'd rather have it be less prescriptive to set the goal and let, you know, the private organization figure out the most efficient way to run it. But I do wonder if the way our current statute is designed around the exemptions, if it would sort of disadvantage a producer responsibility organization from finding optimal solutions.

Because thinking about the land challenge that you mentioned and then looking at the example of the kind of shipping container, the unmanned shipping container in a parking lot solution where you would do a backdrop, and then that would just have someone come pick it up, you know, once a day or something like that.

You could see signing those at a retail location, right? in a park you know, across a couple parking spots, But retailers wouldn't prefer that. And if they have no obligation, they're not gonna agree to it even though they would not have to actually run the system.

They would just have to be willing to lease some of their space. So I guess that's why I part of why I asked about it because I think our law, yeah. Maybe it's just readdressing the convenience standards that we have in statute, you know, which, I guess, leads to a question. So I'm getting somewhere with this.

I mean, it sounds like the department is open to supporting and considering a producer responsibility transition for the deposit return system program. Do you wanna talk about that at all? Or

I can fill you in on our activities so far. We began looking at EPR as a real possibility for our current system to transition to with, HB 1928 from this past session. And we've continued research on that and identified, you know areas. Like today's input is great because some of those areas we've identified as things that, you know, that we need to address.

And yeah, we're just continuing research on that with the goal of, you know, putting together at least a solid outline of what issues will need to be addressed, you know, and switch to EPR.

Okay. Yeah. I see that Chair Matayoshi has another question, so please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanna the commerce part of it is concerning to me. If we take a couple of spaces for a I mean, I actually like the drop off bag idea. I think that has a lot of merit to it. But when we're talking about parking spaces for commercial enterprises, I mean, we already have limited parking, required numbers of parking spaces per square foot, and things like that.

I mean, our I just want us to be thinking about if you if we are going to try a bill like this or try a concept like this. I'd like everyone to be aware of what kind of repercussions that might cause. Are we going to exempt, certain parking requirements or force the exemption of certain parking requirements in order to accommodate these containers?

Are we going to be leasing parking space? Are we gonna force the lease of parking spaces at shopping centers? I mean, parking is incredibly valuable in Hawaii for comms, for it to have places for people to come and park to be able to patronize these stores.

I feel like we're being a little flippant on the effects to the businesses that these that, implementing these would cause to require every single location to have some kind of collection mechanism there. I mean, we've already gone over kind of the problems with the vending machines, and that's a fairly small footprint.

But if we're gonna start parking containers in parking lots, I am frankly concerned about the effect that that's gonna have on a lot of small businesses and then larger businesses too.

Yeah. I'll just I guess I'll answer. I think I mean, that was just an example. I don't think there is we're not, it's not a discussion about mandating it. It's about possible solutions and whether the convenient standards in our statute are appropriate or not currently, if that makes sense.

Yeah. No. That makes sense. I'm just giving you thoughts as we develop this bill.

No, I think that's valid. And of course, like, you know, somewhere on the neighbor island, it's probably a really different scenario than Urban Honolulu where parking is much more limited. But, yeah, definitely a good point. Question?

Onto the the fraud question, I know you said that you're shifting gears a little bit. You've done a lot in the past couple years to address fraud. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that activity? And I'm kind of curious, like, what was the biggest source of fraud?

How was that? What and how did you address it?

So the largest things we did to address fraud is it is kinda, it's combined. Right? Because we have the self audit requirement for the redemptions and, excuse me, distributors to audit themselves essentially every two years for the largest distributors. The other portion that we, worked on was on the redemption side of things. And the biggest thing the biggest issue was to eliminate self reporting, essentially, in the system.

So how our system is set up now from the beginning of the program to now is that we paid deposit requests from the Redemption Centers essentially with just reports that they would compile themselves as far as the number of containers or the weight of containers that they report. So what we've done to revise the system is to tie everything especially to the weight of material received by the end user, the end user recycler.

And those are all out of State as I mentioned before. But so what we did was we're gonna, we're gonna pay the deposits and half of the handling fees now on documentation from the operator, that shows a container of DBCs were dropped at the dock really essentially.

So that's, that's the pain, point now, But then, with understanding that if there's a different tonnage that reaches the reaches the end user recycling facility, that we're gonna make corrections on that deposit payment and then also adjustments in the second 50% of the handling fee that we pay out.

Okay. And so the, so the primary source of fraud then was, like the redemption from the Redemption Centers?

Well, I mean, that was part of the problem. Right? I mean, if it's self reporting, I mean, we have no way of telling, you know exactly. I mean, if a CRC operator was, you know, working the numbers, it'd be really difficult. I mean our accountants work very hard in trying to, sniff out any attempts at fraud to make sure that numbers from redemption to recycler, you know, as tight as possible.

Do you keep records sort of like, you know how many containers are sold into the state? You know what our average redemption rate is, and you know what the history of Redemption Center might be so that if you see unusual activity and you would flag it and go specifically what you see and what's going on.

Well, it's exactly one of the items that was recommended that the CRC our audits of CRCs look at. So there's several, but that was different.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. I guess, Cindy, if you have a comment, I'll go ahead and, I'll ask the question. If you had something else that you wanted to add, Cindy.

I see your hand up.

I just I wanted to add, that a fraud is something that is prevalent in every deposit return system in the world, and you must pay very particular attention to fraud, accepting accounts from redemption center sites that are independently owned or operated or even part of your system, they need to go through some sort of audit facility and this is where AI is coming in.

But there are multiple ways to defraud the system and we have fraud analysts on our payroll and they look at this, you know, every day, all day long. And it's just unfortunately, it's part of the system, so you need to address it in the system.

So some small, some like, marginal percentage of fraud is sort of part of what you would expect that it's hard to correct for every instance of it, I assume. Is it part of sort of part of. It's part of business.

It's hard to stay ahead of it, but every little instance turns into a big total. So you've got to have eyes on fraud all of the time.

Is that the responsibility of the pro then? Is that what's written into legislation?

Well, we have to be able to prove that the numbers that we're reporting are correct. So they're audited by the big audit companies, and we have to have the risk management protocols in place in order to demonstrate that the numbers that are being reported are accurate.

Let me just go through and see. I guess in for Hawaii, if we transition to some kind of EPR Program, I mean, I would say that, like getting that established is kind of the foundation of being able to move forward, and then it would end up being a iterative process. Like, we look at what the really robust system that BC has in place while they've been doing this since, what was it,1970s. And so we're not gonna get there overnight.

But in order if we, if we did transition to a producer responsibility program in the state, then what would happen with the balance in our deposit beverage container special fund? And what's our what flexibility legally is there to use or, you know, do different things with those funds and have you looked at that? Like, what would be the the mechanism for either transferring those over? And if they weren't transferred over, what would become of them?

So, yes, that's one of the things we know is part of the outline of any bill that would take us to towards an EPR Program. But the way we're looking like, we haven't defined that specifically yet, but we do know that a couple of priorities in the transition would be to the continuity of service to customers. Right? That they there's no gap in service between old and new.

And then also, like, as much as possible, I think would be to preserve the existing recycling centers and that's tied into the, you know, sort of that whole continuity kinda thing.

But, you know, it's possible that, we'd have to estimate, I guess, as best as possible, you know, taking what would be in that bill and recognize that, at least a portion, maybe a minority, majority of it would need to go to the pro in order to keep redemption services in place.

And then for if you're, if we're working on legislation for next year, and I know departments been looking at at has been working on that, does it include. I one of my takeaways, I think, from both CRI and Return It was the value of that public education piece and what a difference that can make. And would that be included as, you know, part of what would be required of a PRO or yeah. How can, how can we address that?

And then I think also this question of of data. I mean, there's gonna be even if we did that transition, it would be some years before we get there.

So I feel like that shouldn't be an excuse to not work to improve the program in the next, you know, in that transition period as well. And I feel like one of the parts that has fallen off definitely is that public education piece.

So it the public outreach and education is a big part of both. That's right. Would, I would think that it would be a big part of the pro requirements. And then as far as current, I think that we had it up on the slide that, yeah, we are considering get outreach program up and running because as you say, it has been a while since we've done sort of organized scope reaching education.

Question? Anyone online have more questions?

Yeah, I think we can wrap it up. I mean, to me, this was really interesting. And I think, I mean, I hope we can facilitate a connection.

I hope that it was interesting for you guys to see some of what's happening in other jurisdictions as well. And if anyone's watching on YouTube now or later for them also. And yeah. I mean, I think the takeaway also is that it takes time. We can't the changes won't happen overnight, but we've gotta set goals and work towards them.

And right now, I think the program is not functioning that well. I'm still really curious to get to this question of how much of our redemption rate is actually not individual customers getting their 5¢ back, but then donating it to City and County of Honolulu. Because I think that's gonna give us a much clearer picture of how convenience is really functioning for people. And I'd like to get to the bottom of that if we can figure out a way to do it.

And I think that's important feedback for the program also, right? To understand how well it's functioning.

I guess since our visitors took the time to tune in all the way from the Mainland and other countries, if you have any, you know, closing thoughts you want to add, I would like to give you that opportunity as well. I'll start, I guess, Susan, with you and then with Cindy or Mickey.

I just wanna say thank you for having me, and I stand by ready to help you as you go through the process of developing legislation next time. Any way that we can help in providing information on what other places are doing or any data, we're happy to do that.

Thank you.

And similarly from Encore Pacific, if you're ever visiting British Columbia, we'd be happy to provide you with a tour and any kind of information around our program and specifically what works and what doesn't work.

And we've had the we both had the chance to see it and it is impressive. Some exciting things that were even in this, like, where they're the sort of full depot, redemption centers are combined with e-waste pickup and other types of recycling. So all those are interesting. So thank you. Thanks for joining us, and thanks for that offer.

And then Department of Health, if anyone wants to say

Thank you. Thank you for that. This you know, we're always willing to work with the legislature on improving our program and we look forward to having further discussions on this. So thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Then we'll adjourn right on time. Thanks. Thanks everyone online for joining us as well.

Aloha.

Thank you.