Open Letter from HanaHou Recycling

Aloha Hualalai Members and Homeowners,

Thank you for helping keep Kona green! Over the last year, Hualalai continued to be a one of our top recycling communities, with high participation and recyclable volume rates. Hualalai has 128 residences participating in curbside recycling, resulting in an average of 14 cubic yards of material recycled weekly. All this material is being resold, rather than dumped into our island landfill, and a net savings from avoiding additional garbage bins and service costs should be recognized.

In other news, due to changes in global recycling markets, the demand for contaminated and lowest value materials, often plastics, “co-mingled” or “mixed” materials, has fallen. As a result, few processors are buying these materials right now. The county of Hawaii, private recyclers and haulers statewide have put holds on accepting these items. This is occurring nationwide, with most mainland recyclers placing similar holds on material last year.

The good news is that most (85-90% of volume/weight) residential recyclables are still accepted, and future markets for low-value materials will rebound. New investments are being made in southeast Asia, and domestically for infrastructure to support processing. In the meantime, we continue to work through our hauling costs doubling again this year, and dealing with some of the largest changes to recycling in 30 years.

How does this affect Hualalai curbside recycling?

In short, very little. Service fees will remain flat, as we are working very hard to keep your curbside recycling economical and sustainable. However, we will place a strict hold on accepting any contaminated materials, and certain “mixed” or “co-mingled” materials. We will continue to take most recyclables:

1. All cardboard products, & paper packing materials
2. Boxboard, paperboard, brown bags, brown paper goods (This includes cereal boxes, beer boxes, etc.)
3. Shredded Paper (bagged only)
4. All Glass
5. Aluminum cans and products
6. Hi5 beverage containers – Plastic, aluminum and glass bottles and cans

Not Accepted  – Contaminated material of any kind – with food, greenwaste, or biowaste.

Also not accepted:

1. Electronics, batteries, and hazardous waste.
2. Plastics – All plastic products, foams and styrofoams (Hi5 plastic beverage bottles still accepted).
   
3. White/Processed Paper – Like magazines, newspaper, junkmail, office paper, etc. (all brown paper products still accepted).
   
4. Steel food and pet cans.

We recognize that there will be a transition, and commit to work with you to help educate and promote the importance of recycling. We will have an updated “How to Recycle” page on www.HanaHouRecycling.com, and will forward link shortly. Mahalos your business, and for helping keep Kona green! Please let us know if you have questions.

Much Aloha,

Nick & Sarah Riznyk

FYI – This is a pretty good WSJ article regarding the changes in the recycling industry – https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-recycling-companies-face-upheaval-from-china-scrap-ban-1533231057