The Hawaii County Department of Environmental Management is proposing to assess a waste disposal fee.
“The most controversial so far is a “pay as you throw” plan that would phase in a per-bag fee of $2 to $2.50 for residential garbage. The program, to be phased in over three years, might be replaced with a line-item property tax increase in the face of public opposition.”
I’ve created a survey to gauge how people feel about this proposal here. This poll will be open until December 10, 2009.
Update: This an e-mail I sent to the Hawaii County Department of Environmental Management and the Hawaii County Council regarding this proposal :
Aloha,
I am thoroughly opposed to any proposals to assess a waste disposal fee.This will undoubtedly cause more people to throw their trash away illegally on the side of road instead of at the landfill or at the transfer station.
It is my strong belief the collection of this fee would cost more than the amount of revenue it would generate. There will be a need for a county employee to be at each transfer station to collect this fee. This employee will be facing huge theft risk due to the large amount of money that will be in his/her possession.
Thus, there needs to be a better way to address this budgetary issue. I would suggest a thorough audit of the Department of Environmental Management. The recent bulldozer-gate scandal is a perfect example that DEM needs to be audited before any new fees are assessed.
Aaron Stene
Kailua-Kona
November 30th, 2009 at 7:53 AM
If we are going to be serious about dealing with the financial woes of the county, a property tax increase is almost inevitable.
Half-measures such as a dumping fee won’t work, as you point out.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:12 PM
I never even thought about transfer stations being robbed, thanks for bringing it up.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:41 AM
While this may not be exactly the right way to do it, our wasteful mentality should no longer be subsidized. We should be paying $2 a bag for what little waste we generate AFTER mandatory recycling and strict regulation of non-recyclable retail packaging. The county is trying to take the easy way out, when the real problem is that we simply generate too much waste. But that’s difficult to enact, and requires personal sacrifice of all of us, and Americans will will not stand for that!