Kokua Line
By June Watanabe
Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Kokua Line
We have religiously been recycling bottles, newspapers, aluminum cans and soft plastic milk cartons for years. But we heard recently that the only thing that actually was being recycled were the cans and that the rest was burned in the city's HPOWER plant. Is that true? What's the point of taking it to the recycling center? Recycling bin contents
really do get recycledNothing could be further from the truth, according to Suzanne Jones, the city's recycling coordinator.
Newspaper, cardboard, aluminum cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic soda and milk containers -- everything collected at community recycling bins set up at 60 sites throughout Oahu -- is being recycled, she said.
Aluminum cans are being shipped to the mainland and to Asia; most newspaper and cardboard go to Asia; some glass bottles and jars are shipped to California, to be made into new bottles and jars, while some are used here.
Crushed glass, for example, is used here in asphalt to pave roads and mixed in with cement, Jones said. There also is a company on the Big Island that recycles glass into glass garden sculptures.
In fact, two of its crushed glass elephants sit in the new Elephant Encounter Area at the Honolulu Zoo, Jones said. The walkway there is paved with "glasphalt," while plastic milk jugs have been transformed by a Maui company into picnic tables and park benches at the zoo.
On Oahu, almost all the community recycling centers are located at public schools. And all the money earned from the sale of recyclables -- minus operating expenses for the city in leasing and setting up the bins, maintaining them and hauling away items -- goes to the schools.
Since the community recycling program began in 1990, individual schools have shared in more than $500,000 collected from the sale of the recycled items, Jones said.
"Wherever people drop off materials, we weigh those bins and then credit (a particular school) for that amount of tonnage," she said.
Understandably, there is a waiting list among schools.
But, "We cannot provide every school that would like a recycling bin with one," Jones said. "We do try to make sure that every neighborhood has a bin and identify a school in each neighborhood that's willing to host a bin."
The plan is to expand the number of recycling centers to 100, with many of the new sites opening in shopping centers to make it more convenient to the public, Jones said.
However, the shopping centers and participating grocery stores will donate proceeds to neighborhood schools, she said.
Straub Clinic and Hospital's Business Services Department is giving away 30 IBM computers. However, they must be run off a mainframe or supercomputer. Call Robbie Mar at 522-4474, before 4:30 p.m. weekdays. Free Straub computers
To the man sitting in the front row at the Roosevelt/Pearl City volleyball playoffs. You kept hassling the referee by using bad language. What a classic example of poor sportsmanship for the children sitting all around you. -- Lori Auwe
To the woman who complained about beauty salon employees smoking in the restroom: Auwe
If the owner allows it, what business is it of yours? They are not required to provide restrooms to the public. If you find the aroma of smoke offensive, don't ask to use their restroom. -- A.S.
Need help with problems? Call Kokua Line at 525-8686,
fax 525-6711, or write to P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Email to kokualine@starbulletin.com
