Posted on: Friday, January 24, 2003

Lingle proposes option to bottle bill

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer

Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday proposed revitalizing a community work day program that cleans up litter as an alternative to the "bottle bill" passed by the Legislature last year.

Lingle said the bottle bill, which will charge a 5-cent deposit on bottles and cans beginning in 2005, was aimed at reducing litter and the amount of rubbish going into landfills. She called it "a very expensive approach that really didn't yield very good results."

"This program will cost millions of dollars and it will only keep 2 percent of the waste stream out of the landfills and it will only take, at the most, 7 percent of the litter off of our streets and our beaches," she said.

Sierra Club Hawai'i chapter director Jeff Mikulina said it is frustrating to hear that Lingle wants to repeal the bottle bill.

"We really feel that the governor is out of touch with what the people want," Mikulina said. "We need that financial incentive to get people to pick it up, get their nickel back and get it out of the landfills and recycle that material."

Mikulina said that although he applauds volunteer efforts, the one-day cleanups are not enough.

Lingle discussed her health and environment proposals at Aloha Tower, where she was attending the commissioning of a ship by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Lingle also proposed extending the energy tax credit, which will cost the state treasury about $4 million a year.

"It's encouraged the use of solar energy in a very big way," she said.

Mikulina likes the governor's proposed extension of the energy tax credit. But he said he would like to see Lingle address the issue of the unregulated cruise-ship industry, which opens the possibility that ships could dump sewage and other pollutants into island waters.

Lingle said she is open to proposed regulation but did not include the idea in her administration's package of proposals.

Lingle said the community work day program involved 20,000 volunteers statewide and "took 75 percent of the litter off of the roadways and our beaches."

She proposed spending $300,000 to get the effort going as a public-private partnership to improve the community.

Lingle also said she wants to:

• Remove limits on the length of time people can receive state-financed mental-health care. The system currently limits how long some patients can receive treatment for certain disorders such bipolar disorder.

"We don't tell someone who has diabetes, 'Well, we'll treat you for a certain length of time,' " Lingle said.

• Provide grants to the counties to have them look at environmental alternatives that could work in their communities, such as curbside recycling or different rate structures for waste disposal.

• Move the Coastal Zone Management program from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

• Require government to show a preference for recycled products that are made in Hawai'i.