Posted on: Wednesday, November 10, 2004

OUR HONOLULU
Recycling still alive and well

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

I was really impressed by Jan TenBruggencate's report in Monday's Advertiser that Waikiki hotels have saved 100 million gallons of water and $1.5 million in electric bills simply by asking guests to use bath towels twice instead of having them washed every day.

Then comes the news from Maui that part-time residents Willie Nelson, Neil Young and Woody Harrelson, entertainers, use biodiesel fuel in their cars to cut down on air pollution.

It makes you wonder if conservation is more glamorous than we think. I poked around and discovered that recycling is alive and well. We just don't hear much about it. Jim Banigan, general manager of Hawai'i Metal Recycling Co., thinks he knows one reason why.

"The problem some people have is that recycling is a dirty, dusty, greasy business," he said. "We're a shipping-container society. Everything comes in a neat little box you can throw away. The junk man was always considered seedy. It wasn't until the 1960s that recycling became respectable."

Here's the new image: A giant machine that makes junk cars disappear. Think back about the rusty old jalopies parked around O'ahu. Have you noticed that they've gradually gone away? It's not magic, it's recycling that has saved O'ahu from being drowned in junk cars.

It's done by a huge machine with a 4,000 horsepower motor called an auto shredder that can cut a car into little pieces in 30 seconds. The steel is compressed into bundles and shipped off to China where it's recycled into new steel.

Here's the benefit of converting old, junk steel into new: You save 74 percent in energy, 90 percent in natural resources and get an 86 percent reduction in air pollution, a 40 percent reduction in water use, a 76 percent reduction in water pollution and a 97 percent reduction in mining wastes.

Doing this provides work for 30 people in Our Honolulu and makes a profit for the company.

Now consider the alternative to recycling old cars. In 1999, 73,452 new motor vehicles were registered on O'ahu. So at least that many old cars wear out every year. If they had to be stacked up in junkyards and added to landfills, this island would sink under the weight of our worn-out automobiles.

How about the old refrigerators and air conditioners we throw away? You can thank a retired Navy man and his sons who started their business in a garage for saving you from being drowned in refrigerators and air conditioners.

Now they go to Refrigerant Recycling Inc. in Kapolei where the refrigerant (freon) is extracted, refined and resold. The metal goes to the shredder at Hawai'i Metal Recycling.

"We've got 21 employees," said Allen Evans, general manager of Refrigerant Recycling. "We're not getting rich but we make a decent living. It's something, when you go home, you feel good about."

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.