Posted on: Saturday, June 4, 2005

Container recycling tops 50%

Associated Press

The monthly recycling rate for beverage containers has surpassed the 50 percent mark for the second time since Hawai'i consumers began redeeming nickel deposits in January, the state Department of Health said yesterday.

Glass, plastic and metal beverage containers numbering 28.7 million were redeemed for deposits in May, while 6.5 million unlabeled or crushed containers were also brought in for recycling — totaling 35.3 million containers, the department said.

Officials estimate about 67 million beverage containers are used in the state each month, so the redemption rate for May was 52.7 percent.

The rate was 13.5 percent in January, 15.3 percent in February, 69.1 percent in March and 48.5 percent in April.

The overall redemption rate for the first five months of the year was 39.7 percent.

"We are pleased that these latest figures show increasing redemption rates," said Laurence K. Lau, deputy director of environmental health. "While many challenges still lie ahead, the Department of Health will continue to work with recyclers, retailers and the public to improve the program."

State Rep. Hermina Morita, who helped push the bottle bill through the Legislature, said the system has improved, diverting more beverage containers from the waste stream.

But Morita, D-14th (Kapa'a, Hanalei), said improvements are needed in the program because inadequate infrastructure isn't keeping up with the rate of redemptions.

Starting in January, consumers who paid a nickel deposit for each beverage container they purchased were able to get their money back by bringing empties to redemption centers.

The program got off to a shaky start, partly because of long waiting lines at the few redemption centers in business at the time.