Economics make it harder for Hawai'i to recycle

• Where your stuff ends up
• Where to go for recycling services in Hawai'i

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Big Island company turns waste glass into sculptures.

We'll begin with the question Mike O'Brien's neighbors in Kapolei have been asking since they found out he was in the rubbish business: What ever happened to O'ahu's curbside recycling program?

In a word, money, or lack of it, is what killed the county-run pilot project O'ahu tried in Kane'ohe and Kailua a decade ago.

"It was popular and well-received," said Suzanne Jones, Honolulu's recycling coordinator, "but expensive." The county decided it cost too much to pick up a relatively small amount of recyclable items in the garbage collection service paid for through property taxes, so it concentrated on placing more recycling drop-off bins at schools and shopping centers instead.

O'Brien is the latest private businessman to try to prove that curbside recycling on O'ahu can work.

A former waste management executive in Florida, O'Brien runs the O'ahu district as regional vice president for Horizon Waste Services of Hawai'i. Horizon representatives have been going door to door in Kapolei, Makakilo and Mililani, offering to pick up bins from homeowners' curbs for $1 a week and haul off the items to be recycled.

Most of Horizon's brochures landed in people's trash cans. Of the 14,000 fliers that went out, fewer than 1,000 people responded.

O'Brien says that's enough subscribers for him to get started. Horizon is launching the service in May. If it works, Horizon plans to offer curbside recycling to more neighborhoods.

That's good news for Bryce Sprecher, even though Sprecher could be considered O'Brien's competitor.

Sprecher is an environmentalist who started a curbside recycling business, O'ahu Community Recycling, from the back of his truck two years ago because he believed in taking responsibility for cleaning up the neighborhood.

He started on the Windward side in Kailua and Kane'ohe, charging $12 a month to pick up recycle bins every other week. His business offers people mostly convenience. He collects items and takes recyclables to some of the island's 85 recycling drop-off centers, allowing money from the sale of the items to go back to the schools.

He also put trash bins at Lanikai beach access entrances and keeps offering to put recycle bins at community events if officials will let him. Some of his offers have been turned down.

"We're pretty much about 10 years behind the times, and the awareness isn't there," he said. "It should be the opposite way because we're on an island, and we should be recycling."

Sprecher says people slowly are catching on. He has 500 subscribers who stretch from Kane'ohe all the way around the Windward Coast to Kaimuki.

"By this time next year, we'll be over the whole island," he said. Sprecher plans to expand to the North Shore in May if enough people are interested.

Jones, O'ahu's recycling coordinator, is thrilled to see private companies picking up where the county left off. "I want to see as much recycling as possible," she said.

Bottle bill blues

But environmentalists such as Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i chapter, say it will take a mandate like the bottle bill to really boost recycling efforts.

Jones, as well as environmental groups, the state Health Department and each County Council, have all lined up in support of bottle bill legislation that would require a minimum refundable deposit on beer, soda and other beverage containers to raise the rate of recycling or reuse. Ten states have such laws.

Hawai'i's bill was introduced during the 2001 legislative session and made it to conference committee, where it has lingered ever since. If it passes out of conference committee, the bill would then be sent to the House and Senate floors for a final vote and then, if approved, to the governor's desk for signature.

While it has the support of many environmentalists who like to talk about the benefits of recycling the 800 million drink containers sold across the state each year, it also has critics — including the food and beverage industry.

Critics such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottlers argue that while they support recycling and litter control, deposits could increase the costs of doing business, could be a hassle to store owners and consumers, and do not address recycling of items other than beverage containers.

Even O'Brien, the leader of Horizon's push for curbside recycling, is not sold on the bottle bill as a way to increase recycling rates. The bottling industry says voluntary recycling or government-run curbside programs would be a better solution.

Jones says that argument dodges the issue and pushes the responsibility to the government rather than the bottling industry. She says the bottle bill and curbside recycling don't have to be an either-or debate. She says she would like to see both.

The advantage of the bottle bill, Jones says, is that it would increase the recycling rate and reduce litter because people would see the value of bottles left on roadsides. Besides, she says, the bottle bill is less expensive than curbside recycling.

Expensive proposition

While it's easy to get people to agree that recycling is a good idea, it's harder to figure out how to do it.

Each Neighbor Island handles the trash business a little differently. (See list that accompanies story.) Not every island has the capability to recycle glass and plastic, and those who handle the recycling may not find it worthwhile to ship heaps of newspapers to recycling plants.

Hawai'i is running out of landfill space, and the alternatives are expensive. On O'ahu alone, homeowners, businesses and industries generate about 1.5 million tons of waste a year. Most of it ends up at H-power, O'ahu's waste-to-energy plant. Operators also are looking at ways to recycle ash for road pavement. Items that can't be recycled and are too large to be burned go directly to landfill. The plant converts more than 2,000 tons of waste per day into 7 percent of O'ahu's electricity, powering more than 60,000 homes.

While the energy conversion is a form of recycling, Jones says, people need more options. "We can't keep filling up landfills in Hawai'i," she said.

No matter what happens with the bottle bill and the efforts of individual recyclers, those involved are having a hard time coming up with a solution that suits everyone.

So count on the trash talk sticking around.

Reach Tanya Bricking at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.

Where your stuff ends up

• Glass: Most of Hawai'i's glass is still being shipped to the West Coast, where it is turned into new glass containers. But more than ever, trashed glass is being used locally. Aloha Glass Recycling, a company on the Big Island, recycles waste glass into garden sculptures. Some waste glass also has been used to pave roads, sidewalks and parking lots in the form of a material called glasphalt. The Honolulu Zoo is a showcase of such products, with things like walkways and elephant sculptures made of recycled glass.
• Aluminum: Most of Hawai'i's aluminum is shipped to the Mainland and to Asia to be made into new products.
• Plastic: For the most part, Hawai'i's waste plastic is shipped to Asia to be made into containers or other products, including carpeting. Aloha Plastic Recycling, a company on Maui, is pushing for plastic to be used here for items that termites can't eat: plastic lumber. Plastic lumber is being made into picnic tables, park benches, mail box posts, trash containers, car stops and speed bumps. But plastic can be difficult to recycle, and places such as Recycle Hawai'i, on the Big Island, do not accept plastic for recycling.
• Paper: Just about all of the office paper, newspaper and cardboard collected in the Islands for recycling is shipped to Asia to be made into paper products ranging from stationary to tissue paper. Newsprint can even end up as a cereal box in its next life.
• Tires: All Hawai'i tires collected for recycling are either burned as fuel or shredded to become landscaping products. The Waipi'o soccer park, for example, is a place where crumbed rubber combined with compost forms the base of the athletic field.
• Yard waste: Each island turns yard waste back into landscaping and gardening products. O'ahu gives away free mulch at sites around the island.

Where to go for recycling services in Hawai'i

Community Recycling Centers

• Phone: 527-5335
• Web site: opala.org
• O'ahu has community recycling centers at 85 schools and shopping centers that serve as drop-off points for aluminum, glass, plastic, newspaper, cardboard, and white and colored office paper. Participating schools earn money from the sale of the items to recyclers. Since the program began in 1990, participating schools have earned $650,000. See the Web site for locations.

O'ahu Community Recycling

• Phone: 262-2724
• Web site: ocr2000.com
• This 2-year-old business has expanded from Kane'ohe around the Windward Coast to Kaimuki, offering residents and small businesses the convenience of curbside pickup of aluminum, glass, plastic, newspaper, cardboard, and white and colored office paper. For $12 a month, the company picks up recycle bins every other week and takes the items to Community Recycling Centers.

Horizon Waste Services of Hawai'i

• Phone: 682-0900
• Web site: horizon-hawaii.com
• This company is launching a pilot project in May that offers curbside recycling of aluminum, glass, plastic and newspaper for subscribers in Kapolei, Makakilo and Mililani. It costs $1 per week, plus a deposit on a container, for the service. Mike O'Brien, the company's region vice president, said Horizon has less than 1,000 subscribers so far but plans to expand if the pilot program works.

Recycling options on Neighbor islands

Each island has a drop-off program, but services differ widely.

The Big Island

• Phone: (808) 961-2676 or (808) 329-2886
• Web site: recyclehawaii.org
• See the Web site for a list of drop-off centers and commercial hauling services.

Kaua'i

• Phone: (808) 241-6891
• Web site: kauaigov.org
• Kaua'i has six recycling drop-off centers, and Recycle Kaua'i, (808) 332-9700, offers curbside recycling for a fee.
• The Kaua'i Resource Center holds a grand opening in Lihu'e on April 20, and the island's recycling office is recruiting artists to create educational displays for the center, which will serve as Kaua'i's recycling headquarters, offering everything from recycling bins to a hot glass shop for blowing or casting recycled glass into art. Photos, drawings and "trash" art will be featured in the grand opening exhibit. Call (808) 826-4581 to participate. The deadline is April 13.

Lana'i

• Phone: (808)565-6478
• Lana'i Waste Systems runs a private recycling program and has the island's sole drop-off center in Lana'i City.

Maui

• Phone: 808-270-7880
• Web site: www.co.maui.hi.us/departments/Public/recycle.htm
• Maui plans to eventually have a county-run curbside recycling program. For now, it has seven drop-off centers. Maui Recycling Service (mauirecycles.com or 808-244-0443) runs a curbside recycling service that costs $15 a month and covers most of the island.

Moloka'i

• Phone: (808) 553-3869
• The county has a contract with a private company that runs the island's only drop-off recycling center in Kaunakakai.