Recycling fire
will not disrupt Mililani
pickups, official says
Mililani residents accustomed to curbside recycling will not miss a pickup, despite a four-alarm fire Friday at the city contractor providing the service.
Collection of aluminum, plastic, glass, newspaper and cardboard will be on schedule next week, Suzanne Jones, city recycling coordinator, said yesterday.
"Mililani residents should just keep recycling," Jones said.
Mililani was the city's pilot neighborhood to test curbside recycling and continues to receive the service while the City Council ponders taking the program islandwide.
It took firefighters 24 hours to extinguish burning materials at Island Recycling's yard on Sand Island Parkway. Firefighters responded to the fire, which started in the area of a tire-shredding machine, at 5 p.m. Friday.
No one was injured by the fire, and its cause remains under investigation, fire Capt. Kenison Tejada said yesterday. Island Recycling President Jim Nutter has said the fire began when a piece of metal got into a tire shredder.
Nutter said yesterday that he is certain the company will be ready to receive Mililani recyclables Tuesday. He also said the company will install a backup pump on its 5,000-gallon water tank. Employees were unable to use that water for firefighting Friday because the main pump was incapacitated by the fire.
About half of the burned recyclables, including tires, have been taken to the city's Waimanalo Gulch Landfill, and the rest should be cleared out by Saturday, Nutter said.
Though the company's main baler was destroyed in the fire, it will have a backup machine operational by today, Nutter said. The baler compresses recyclable products for more efficient shipment to buyers.
Though many of Island Recycling's commercial clients held back on shipments this week until fire damage was cleared, "we're already taking products," Nutter said.
Nutter said he has not fully assessed the damage from the fire, but that it will exceed $600,000 -- the value of two tire shredders, one baler and a small bulldozer destroyed in the fire. He does not plan to try and estimate the value of the burned recyclables.
Nutter also said yesterday the company has been informed by the city Department of Planning & Permitting that it will not be required to have a city zoning clearance and conditional use permit to continue operations, a reversal of the department's previous stance. That claim could not be confirmed with the city yesterday.
Nutter expects to have building permits for three remaining un-permitted structures "by the end of next week."
The company faces thousands of dollars in fines for building code violations on 11 structures.
He said the company will pay back rent and electricity bills to its landlord, the state Department of Transportation's Harbors Division, when it receives them. A Transportation spokesman said yesterday the bills will total $102,000.