Recycling still mired in debate
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Damage from the April 30 fire that scorched a Sand Island recycling yard will not stop the city's curbside recycling startup program in Mililani, but plans to expand residential recycling islandwide are still the subject of hot debate.
Long before the fire, Mayor Jeremy Harris' push to expand recycling had become a drawn-out struggle with the City Council amid the number-crunching and politics surrounding the fight over the city's annual budget.
Harris hopes to launch the islandwide program before he leaves office at the end of the year, but spending cuts proposed by the council could cripple it before it gets off the ground.
At the same time, commercial rubbish haulers are lobbying hard for a piece of the recycling action, and hope to kill Harris' proposal to increase the "tip fees" the city charges to dump waste.
Harris' budget assumes those fee hikes would raise $4 million, but council leaders oppose an increase and say the costs would be passed on to small businesses and condominium dwellers who pay for private rubbish collection.
Several council members say they're not convinced the administration has fully thought out the recycling plan and worry Harris is rushing to create a crowning achievement before he steps down.
"He's been in office for 10 years, so I don't see a reason to rush this through in a matter of months," said council chairman Donovan Dela Cruz. "We're for recycling, but it has to be done carefully and be deliberate and cost-effective."
Harris said that's certainly his goal.
"We absolutely need to do curbside recycling, and the City Council continues to throw roadblocks in our way," he said. "I think the community recognizes it's the right thing to do from an economic and an environmental standpoint. I think the public needs to express its environmental ethics to the council so we can get this project going."
The disagreements and maneuvering are frustrating to environmentalists, who say O'ahu should have had a good curbside recycling program for cans, bottles, paper and plastics long ago.
"I have yet to meet someone who says curbside recycling doesn't make sense," said Sierra Club Hawai'i president Jeff Mikulina. "It's time for Honolulu to join the 21st century and offer this service."
Residents also are frustrated.
"Why are they fighting about it? I think it would benefit everybody," said downtown resident Juan Sanchez. In Puerto Rico, his original home, curbside residential pickup is not yet the standard, but people seem much more conscious about reusing materials, he said.
"There's big money in it," Sanchez said. "It's big business, and people know it's important."
Terry Martin of Makaha said he was surprised there was no curbside recycling when he moved here last year from Seattle, where a program has long been in place.
"Here, contained on an island, it would seem like a no-brainer that you have to recycle," he said. "Some people are going to do it and some won't, but if a program was in place, maybe it would catch on."
The Harris administration has yet to unveil a comprehensive outline of how recycling would be phased in. Some council members also question whether all costs have been accounted for.
"We need to make decisions based on good, complete information, and that's all we're asking for," Dela Cruz said. "I really get disappointed when we have these questions and the mayor says we're trying to stall him. We're not."
The general plan is to have city workers collect recyclables and transfer them to a private firm that would process the material and market it. Island Recycling, which runs the yard that caught fire, was the low bidder on a city contract for that work.
Carroll Cox, president of EnviroWatch Inc., says Island Recycling shouldn't get the contract because its yard hasn't complied with city building codes and was cited by state health officials for allegedly polluting a canal and lacking a water discharge permit.
Island Recycling says it's working to clear the permit and citation issues. Top city officials have given no indication they will shut down the yard or limit its operations, despite inspection reports that say it does not have the proper land use permit.
The city pays Island Recycling $55 per ton of mixed recyclables collected in Mililani that it processes and ships out of state. The company offered to take $36.50 per ton if the city expands the program to all households on O'ahu. Another company offered to do the job for $68 per ton.
City environmental services director Frank Doyle said the entire recycling program would cost about $5 million per year, including the cost of collection carts and other equipment and hiring 23 more city workers.
There's an alternate plan: The city is accepting proposals from companies that would collect mixed recyclables from homes and process them.
Bidders must name their price, but an islandwide collection contract could be much more lucrative than the processing bids made earlier. At least eight companies, including commercial rubbish haulers, have expressed interest in competing for the contract or partnering on a bid.
Officials say a decision is likely by the end of the month, with details about how islandwide recycling would work soon after.
"In all fairness, if we were to get a proposal from the private sector that said they could put in place an effective program at a better price, we would have to rethink our direction and take a very close look at that," said city recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones.
In the meantime, the city budget is headed for a crucial vote May 24. The council's version of the spending plan would cut $549,252 from Harris' proposed $118.8 million budget for waste collection. That would eliminate 42 vacant jobs and stall the recycling program, Doyle said.
Councilman Rod Tam, who chairs the Public Works committee, said problems with the Mililani recycling program that began in November should serve as a warning.
Tam continuously has raised concerns about mix-ups in the 11,000-household program that resulted in recyclables contaminated by garbage. If a small test project can't run smoothly, he said, it's not clear a much bigger, more complicated program will.
But the Harris administration says isolated problems have been blown out of proportion, and that the islandwide program will be designed to eliminate them by using three separate carts for garbage, mixed recyclables and "green waste" such as lawn clippings.
Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
