ISLAND VOICES
Bottle bill must be fine-tuned

By Ed Thompson and Carol Pregill

Hawai'i's retailers, like most kama'aina, feel strongly about protecting our environment.

Because this island paradise is our home, our companies embraced recycling many years ago. Today, we routinely recycle wooden pallets and cardboard packaging as part of our standard business practices, keeping mountains of trash out of Hawai'i's waste stream.

But we know that even more needs to be done. We support and promote better recycling programs.

We can help by educating consumers about recycling and promoting litter-prevention efforts — especially the kind of effective programs that target all recyclable materials, not just beverage containers, which account for less than 2 percent of the total waste stream and 7 percent of litter.

Presently, Hawai'i's retailers are struggling to implement the state's bottle bill, enacted in 2002. Under this law, on Jan. 1, 2005, consumers will have to pay a 5-cent deposit on most beverage containers. Soft-drink cans, water and juice bottles, beer bottles and cans, and coffee and tea containers will all be included. Also starting on Jan. 1, 2005, retailers will be required to be redemption centers that accept empty containers and refund the nickel deposits. Supermarkets, discount and drug stores and even convenience stores and okazuya will be handling millions of empty drink containers in their stores.

Such a massive undertaking will not be easy. The rules that dictate our responsibilities are only now being finalized, nearly two years after the law was passed. But they leave many critical questions unanswered. If we are to have everything in place on Jan. 1, we need to know right now exactly what it is we have to do.

It is not possible to transform our stores into redemption centers overnight. We must hire additional staff to count, sort and store dirty bottles and cans. Most importantly, we must develop the necessary procedures to manage the sanitation problems that will come with the inevitable invasion of rats, roaches and other vermin.

As residents, businesspeople and long-practicing recyclers, our members are eager to participate in improved recycling and litter-control programs that will be both more effective and less costly to the public than the bottle bill.

Our environment is worth it. Let's take the time to get it right.

Ed Thompson is executive director of the Hawaii Food Industry Association. Carol Pregill is executive director of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii.