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Kauai recyclers LIHUE >> The official blessing of the Kauai Resource Center -- Kauai County's first facility dedicated to recycling -- is scheduled for tomorrow.
settle into battle
Island Recycling is trying
to get a piece of the
Garden Isle's pieBy Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.comImmediately after the punch and cookies are served, a brawl over the island's recycling business will commence.
"We are coming to Kauai to compete for every recycling contract we can get," said Karen Shinmoto, business manager of Island Recycling, which has operated on Oahu for 20 years. Island Recycling is the contractor chosen by Kauai County to run its recycling center.
Garden Isle Disposal, which already has the lion's share of the recycling business on Kauai, is crying foul, claiming the county is subsidizing their new competitor. Garden Isle, however, chose not to bid on the county contract.
The situation is not without irony.
The Kauai Resource Center, built by the U.S. Department of Commerce for $2.2 million, has been vacant since it was completed two years ago. Numerous efforts by the county to find a contractor to operate the facility fell flat.
The federal government repeatedly told the county to either use the facility or pay back the $2.2 million, so Kauai kept pleading for bidders.
When the county finally found a contractor -- Island Recycling was the only bidder -- it started a war.
Garden Isle Disposal is by far the island's biggest trash hauler serving commercial accounts (the county picks up trash from individual homes). It offered recycling service to many of its larger commercial and government trash customers.
At the same time, Garden Isle receives $240,000 a year from Kauai County to operate recycling bins for residential users at six locations around the island. Businesses are prohibited from using the residential bins.
Garden Isle officials say they operate their recycling business at a slight loss and that all their profits come from their commercial customers.
Scott Kouchi, president of Garden Isle, said he chose not to bid on the county contract for commercial customers because he believes just about everything Kauai businesses are willing to recycle already is being collected.
But at the same time, Garden Isle is actively soliciting new recycling business from its existing commercial trash customers. In many cases it is offering free service.
What rankles Garden Isle is that Island Recycling is paying only $800 monthly rent on a brand-new facility. Included in the rent is a long list of equipment such as a baler, two forklifts, a frontloader and even a laptop computer.
The reply from Island Recycling: "They were invited to bid and they didn't."
Island Recycling said it believes there are many commercial customers who will recycle if they are offered pickup service. And they plan to provide trucks for collection.
And Island Recycling is confident it can compete with Garden Isle for its existing larger customers -- department stores and resorts -- and take some of them away. Island Recycling recently won the statewide recycling contract from Sears. The Sears store on Kauai had been a Garden Isle customer.
Island Recycling is limited in its contract with the Kauai Resources Center to commercial customers.
But it also plans to go after Garden Isle's $240,000 residential contract with the county, which expires this month.
"We think they've been overcharging because they're the only game in town. We can do the job a lot cheaper," said Shinmoto.
All of which brings a big grin from Allison Fraley, the county's recycling manager.
Fraley is something of a Cinderella story. With a college degree and experience in recycling programs in California, she was working as a waitress on Kauai when Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, desperately searching for a recycling expert, started chatting with her at a party.
The name of the game in recycling is diverting the maximum amount of material from the county landfill, which is bursting at the seams.
As far as Fraley is concerned, the more recyclers out there collecting material that will go to the mainland or Asia to be reused, the better.
"I invited Garden Isle to bid, and they didn't want to play," Fraley said. "I have high expectations Island Recycling can pull it off. They have an excellent track record."