Mayor Proposes Closure of County Recycling Centers
MauiNow.com      March 25, 2013

According to Maui Now, Mayor Arakawa will close the County recycling centers to save $750,000 in the 2014 budget and because he says the County shouldn’t be competing with private recyclers.

Sherri Pell, Manager of Aloha Recycling, located at 75 Amala Place in Kahului wrote an opposition letter pointing out reasons why the county facilities should remain open.

According to Pell, the county sites represent the largest portion of Maui’s recycling, with more than 2123 tons of non HI-5 recyclables processed at county sites (excluding Olowalu) in 2012.

“To say that private business could do this does not include all the facts,” said Pell in the letter, which also noted a lack of private facilities Upcountry.

“To eliminate centers completely in Haiku and Makawao would be to deny recycling to tens of thousands of Maui residents. In Kihei, the existing private companies would not be able to handle the flow of materials,” said Pell.

“We feel that the county recycling sites should stay operating as is until the start-up of waste-to-energy, or the end of the five year contract, whichever is first. This would enable Maui residences to continue their recycling and divert hundreds of tons from our landfill,” said Pell.