LUCY PEMONI / STAR-BULLETIN Yvette Guerrero throws a bag of recycled plastics onto a large pile during a busy afternoon yesterday at the bulk weighing center in Keolu Shopping Center in Enchanted Lake.

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Bottle bill
change unlikely

Only one measure among 16
to alter or repeal the recycling
program is alive in the Legislature

The Legislature appears unlikely this year to significantly change or repeal the state's new "bottle bill," which mandates a refundable deposit on most beverage containers to encourage recycling.

City offers recycling carts to groups The city of Honolulu will lend 96-gallon recycling containers to schools, condominiums, apartments or nonprofit organizations that want to collect bottles and cans for redemption. For information on use of the carts, contact the city recycling staff at 692-5410 or visit www.opala.org.

Among 16 bills that proposed changes in the law or sought to repeal it, only one stayed alive through a legislative deadline Friday.

"Who wants to discuss repeal when it's barely six weeks in place?" asked Rep. Mina Morita, who as chairwoman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee did not hear most of the bills.

"There are a whole bunch of different components: wholesale, retail, customer participation, redemption centers and recycling companies. There are a lot of moving parts to this," Morita (D, Kauai) said yesterday. "Considering that's the case, I think it's working."

The law requires a 5-cent deposit and 1-cent handling fee on beverages purchased in Hawaii. Retailers started collecting the deposit on labeled containers Nov. 1 and turning the money over to the state.

The one bill still alive, HB 1015, would exempt cruise ships and airlines from having to pay the fees on beverages purchased in Hawaii, since they may be disposed of out-of-state.

One of the bills that appears dead this session was introduced by Rep. Ken Hiraki (D, Kakaako-Iwilei).

HB 1497 would have ended the 5-cent deposit on beverage containers and directed the 1-cent handling fee, plus any unredeemed deposits, to counties to use for recycling programs of their choice.

Hiraki said he was concerned that Honolulu's planned curbside recycling program would compete with the state's beverage container collection. It also would have given other counties money to get recycling programs started, he said.

Star-Bulletin Legislature Database Star-Bulletin Legislature Guide (PDF, 1.9 MB) State Legislature: Bills & Hawaii Revised Statutes

Carol Pregill, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, said she believes having a bottle bill and curbside recycling is a "double tax," since people who put beverage containers out for curbside collection don't get their deposits back.

But city recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones said having both curbside recycling and the bottle bill is not a "double tax" on Honolulu residents. The city will use money it gets from redeeming beverage containers collected at curbside to help pay the cost of its curbside program.

About 108 million labeled cans and bottles have been sold since stores began collecting the deposit and fee, but state records show only 6.6 million have been redeemed for the 5-cent deposit.

That leaves more than 101 million beverage containers in the state's stores, refrigerators and trash cans, with a redemption value of more than $5 million.

That's far from the 80 percent return rate proponents hope for a year from now. But things are still gearing up, Morita said.

Getting a nickel back for an empty started Jan. 1, but the state has paid out just $330,000 to the private recycling companies that are running redemption centers.

Those numbers are incomplete, since only 31 of 50 centers statewide had filed for reimbursement as of Feb. 10. Under the law, redemption centers refund deposits directly to consumers, then apply for payment from the state Department of Health.

"It will take some time before we can get an accurate picture from the numbers alone," said state Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo. "In about six months, we may have a better reading."

The top complaint from consumers is that there aren't enough redemption centers and they're open for too few hours.

"Redemption is not accessible enough by location or hours of operation, and for the most part we're blaming grocery stores," said Jeff Mikulina, executive director of the state Sierra Club chapter.

But merchants' spokeswoman Pregill said there are good reasons for stores not to become redemption centers.

"You certainly don't want the store you buy food from to be a garbage collector," Pregill said.

Hawaii's high real estate prices also make it costly for retailers to use space for bottle redemption, she said.

No retail stores have decided to take back empties, although a few are letting recycling companies set up mobile redemption centers on their parking lots several times a week.

Rolloffs Hawaii has built three mobile redemption centers, which use reverse vending machines and a weigh station to provide redemptions. The company visits Times Markets in McCully and Kahala and on South Beretania Street twice a week each, and have stints at other non-store locations.

The company with the most redemption centers in the state, Reynolds Recycling Inc., has doubled its number of employees and collection routes since Jan. 1, President Terry Tefler said. Sites that used to see 30 customers a day are now dealing with hundreds, he said.

Ed Thompson, legislative liaison for the Hawaii Food Industry Association, said his grocery store members are waiting until July 1 to decide whether to offer redemption. By that deadline, the state can require stores in urban areas that don't have a redemption center within 2 miles to become one.

Minor changes to state administrative rules for the container deposit law are scheduled to be made public in the next two weeks, with hearings to be held in March, said Linda Smith, Gov. Linda Lingle's policy advisor.

Should the new rules not be approved by the March 31 deadline, existing rules put in place by the legislature will continue to govern, Smith said.

According to Smith, the proposed changes would: