---

Redemption plan
needs redeeming

We're only a few days into this bottle recycling scheme, and I'm already chucking the containers into the rubbish can, surrendering my 5 cents per container to the Gods of Recycling. My only other choice is to restrict myself to liquids not subject to the 5-cent pseudo tax: milk, wine and hard booze. But I suspect that as soon as I become accustomed to Meadow Gold Margaritas and Johnny Walker Smoothies for breakfast, the Gods of Recycling would slap a 5-cent fine on those containers, too.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the cause of recycling or that I'm not public-spirited. Just yesterday, I took to the dump a load of junk -- including a piece of rotted plywood one of my less public-spirited neighbors has had on display at the end of our street for a month.

It's just that at this stage of my life, I'm not going to get in my truck and drive three miles to save 30 cents. And not too many other people are going to do it, either.

My time might not be precious, but it's worth more than 30 cents, which is what you get back on a six-pack of beer or soda.

Here's another reason why the redemption program is not going to work: Say you live in Kaneohe. You get off work at 5 and dutifully go to the only redemption center in the area, at the Kaneohe Bay Shopping Center, to turn in your empties for the good of the planet. You can't do it. Because the redemption center closes at 5 p.m.

So say you race from work during your lunch hour to do your heroic bit of recycling to save the earth and get back your 30 cents. It won't happen. Because the place is closed at lunch time. In fact, of the 20 redemption sites listed in the "It's good for you. It's good for the aina" newspaper advertisement, 12 of them are closed from noon to 1 p.m. And most of them don't open until 9 a.m., when most people are already at work, and they all close at 5 p.m., just when people are getting off work.

Add to this the fact that they won't accept cans that are smooshed or crushed or dirty, and you've basically got a recycling program designed to cause the most trouble for the most people.

The roads of that glimmering world of Political Correctness are paved with good intentions but riddled with potholes of impracticality.

Look, people want to do the right thing. They know that when you live on a little island, you can't just throw everything into the trash can and hope it will magically disappear. But why do the do-gooders always have to make everything so hard? A little old lady recently wrote the Star-Bulletin's "Kokua Line" asking if she's expected to lug all of her empty containers on the bus to the nearest redemption center.

"Do we just have to dispose of our bottles because we can't get them redeemed?" she asked.

The answer, Granny, is, unless you want to hobble down to the bus stop with a garbage bag of empty cans over your shoulder, take a long bus ride to the redemption center, wait for the place to open (it's lunch time), turn in your containers, hobble back on the bus and go home ... the answer is yes. Or else get used to Skim Milk Manhattans.

The way to handle the recycling issue is to take the Save the Earth Sentimentalists out of the program and put in the Make a Buck Business People. If recycling bottles and cans is really good for the state, then make it profitable. Let the small-business community devise a plan whereby good profit, not good intentions, is the main motivator.

If there were a dollar deposit on each can, you can bet Granny would be hustling down to the redemption center pronto, walker or no walker. And so would I. But granny and I also wouldn't have to travel three miles to get there. Entrepreneurs would have private redemption outlets on every corner and in every store.

It wouldn't make any difference to me that I'm paying a buck per Bud deposit. Because I'd be getting it back. And if half that deposit went into the pockets of private business people, the redemption business would be a growth industry, our roads and landfills would be devoid of beverage containers, the PC crowd could worry about doing the dishes instead of saving the planet and my doctor would be happy that I wasn't downing Lani Moo Mai Tais for breakfast.