STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2391

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 3099

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Agriculture and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 3099 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Establish a plastics recycling grant program to identify Hawaii-based alternatives for the sustainable recycling and reuse of plastic commodities;

(2) Require the Department of Health to set benchmarks to reach an eighty-five percent redemption rate for deposit beverage containers by 2023;

(3) Require the Department of Health to annually report to the Legislature on redemption rates, progress, and plans regarding the deposit beverage container program; and

(4) Appropriate funds to establish two positions for the glass advance disposal fee program.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Oahu County Committee on Legislative Priorities of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Glass Packaging Institute, Sierra Club of Hawaii, Container Recycling Institute, Patients Without Time, and six individuals. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Health.

Your Committees find that China had been importing the majority of the United States' plastic scrap until July 2017, when it announced that it would effectively ban imports of twenty-four kinds of scrap. Accordingly, pressure on domestic recycling programs has increased.

Despite this, your Committees find that the current redemption rate of the deposit beverage container program is at sixty-seven percent, near the all-time low of 66.9 percent. Your Committees find that efforts need to be made to increase the redemption rate of plastic beverage containers and ensure less plastic is being deposited in landfills and the ocean.

Your Committees received testimony indicating that Oregon experienced similar declines in beverage container redemption rates and consequently enacted a law to automatically increase the refund value from five cents to ten cents after two consecutive years of redemption rates below eighty percent. Your Committees find it to be a useful model to follow. Your Committees find that five cents is not a sufficient incentive for the public to recycle their plastic beverage containers, but that a ten cent refund value will incentivize consumer recycling if other measures prove ineffective. Your Committees find that an automatic conditional increase will allow this incentive to go into effect if and when needed.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Adding provisions modeled on Oregon law providing for an automatic conditional increase in the refund value from five cents to ten cents; and

(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Agriculture and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3099, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3099, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Agriculture and Environment,

________________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

________________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair