And with more redemption centers registering each week — including a planned mobile unit — it should be easier to return bottles and cans closer to home and get back their 5-cent deposits, said Genevieve Salmonson, director of the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

Retailers were allowed to start charging the fee in November, which meant that consumers saw the cost of a $6 case of soda rise by $1.20.

That price for a case already had gone up a penny a can a few weeks before, when most stores started charging a nonrefundable penny fee in October. That shows up on cash register receipts as a "HI container fee," to be used by the state to set up the new deposit operation.

Hilda "Joyce" Davis, who lives and works in Kaka'ako, said she and her husband buy a lot of soda. She said she is somewhat aware of the new law but she has not been checking her cash-register receipts to see if the deposit fee is being charged.

"I didn't pay close attention," Davis said, although she thinks that recycling the containers generally is a good idea.

"Some don't have the HI 5," Shi said. "After New Year's, I will change."

One of his customers is Barry Wong, a Hawai'i Kai resident who works at Pearl Harbor. Wong said he's noticed that some places raised the price of drinks already, even though not all containers are labeled.

At his workplace, the price rose for 20-ounce drinks, even those without the HI 5. "It was $1, now it's $1.25," he said.

Wong is open to the idea of recycling but is not certain how much a nickel deposit will encourage people to change old habits. "I think there's still going to be people throwing them away," he said.

In 2002, the Legislature passed the beverage container deposit proposal.

Retailers and other critics argued against the program, calling it an additional tax and suggesting that curbside recycling programs would do more to reduce the volume of containers going into local landfills.

The state estimates that 800 million beverage containers are sold each year statewide — about 67 million a month.

More recycling is good business for Terry Telfer, president of Reynolds Recycling in Hawai'i.

"In one year, we've gone from 17 employees to 37 employees," he said. His is one of the larger companies that have been state-certified as a redemption center.

Telfer sees more people becoming more aware of the new law and getting into the habit of recycling.

He also sees the program as great potential for schools and organizations to make money by collecting the containers. Currently, schools that fill a container with recyclables get about $1,400, he said, while under the deposit system, the same amount would get them $6,600, he said.

RRR Recycling Services, a division of Rolloffs Hawaii, also is gearing up with one recycling center on Sand Island, another planned at Campbell Industrial Park and a mobile unit that will go to various locations. The service is run by Dominic Henriques.

Henriques said the mobile unit can travel to schools and special events. "It's a Coke-style truck with roll-up doors on the side," he said, with six "reverse vending machines" and a scale inside.

He said the company plans to go to schools every two weeks to collect the containers as a school fund-raiser.

The Health Department, the lead agency on what is now known officially as the Hawai'i Deposit Beverage Container Program, has been fielding calls about the program since stores could begin charging the deposit in November.

The Hawaii Food Industry Association represents supermarkets, distributors and smaller stores statewide. Executive director Ed Thompson said many members believe the two-month transition from no labels to requiring that only labeled containers be sold was too short.

Thompson also said owners and managers worry that stores could face $10,000-a-day fines if they sell unlabeled containers beginning Jan. 1. But Salmonson said the state wants to work with retailers.