The recycling bin at Kaaawa School was one of the casualties of the Carlisle administration’s recent cutback of this public service.
As a result, we either have to drive our recycling to one of two remaining bins in Kaneohe, or just put it out in our regular trash.
So late yesterday afternoon, we packed up the car and took a load of recycling to drop off at Heeia Elementary School on the way to dinner with friends.
Here’s what we found at just before 6 p.m. on Saturday. The section of the bin for cardboard and paper was 120% full, with additional boxes piled up alongside the bin. The section for bottles and cans was about 75% full, and you had to reach up and toss your stuff over the top of the pile. Some people had already just started leaving bottles on the ground in front of the bin.
This tells me several things. People want to recycle. They want to do their part. And these recycling bins are being heavily used, although you can see the argument brewing that they should be completely removed because the few remaining bins are not adequate and are becoming eyesores. It’s just like the city’s self-serving perspective on those dirty public restrooms, which the city says are just too heavily used, rather than admitting they lack sufficient capacity to match the demand.
Anyway, what has the mayor done for me lately? Cut back the buses and piled up the recycling. I hope the next mayor does a better job.
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You might chat with Kualoa Ranch. With all their visitor activities, restaurant, weddings etc., I imagine they produce a lot of recyclable materials and may already have a program set up. Perhaps they would consider putting a recycle center on the ranch to help out the community and benefit the environment too. Just a thought….
Why does Ian have to do that when city workers are paid to do a job?
City workers are NOT paid to do this job. These bins are now privately operated. Yes, the transition is gonna take some time — with fewer bins, it’s not clear just how fast they will fill — but the switch is channeling money that used to be spent on the bins (many, including the one in Kaaawa were NOT self-supporting) can be migrated to automated pickup for the remaining 20,000 Oahu households over the next 12-18 months.
IAN,
How many residents are willing to pay higher taxes to receive better/more city services?
Are residents trying to have it both ways?
Or, as you imply, the problem with city services comes down to a “leadership void?”
This blog often refers to the good ‘ole days of Frank Fasi when things got done. True enough. I’m on board.
But haven’t bargaining rights changed a great deal since the days of Fasi for City workers?
In other words, Fasi may have gotten away with ordering City employees around like private-sector workers when he was mayor, but I have a strong hunch those days are long over. Government workers, both City and State, are better protected than ever.
You want the park bathrooms kept clean?
No problem, but it’s going to cost overtime and then some.
The way I see it, the biggest challenge facing any city these days is revenue. So whether it’s Ben, Peter or Kirk as Mayor, if people want better city services, it will take more money.
I’m curious to know what you and others have to say.
We had to wait an hour & a half for a bus from Waimanalo to Kailua yesterday… that has to stop. I hope the new mayor-to-be is reading your blog.
Mayor Peter Carlisle will lose this election because he was stupid to let Mufi Hannemann’s cabinet remain.
Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka and Department of Planning and Permitting David Tanoue are kapakahi managers.
Why?
To make Mayor Carlisle look bad . . . to make way for Mufi’s crony Kirk Caldwell.
I’m waiting for Ben Cayetano to get into City Hall and kick ass.
Michael in Waikiki –
Perhaps if all C&C workers actually worked their jobs instead of babysitting them, they wouldn’t need overtime & higher pay? We’ve all seen the snail’s pace in which some of these folks do their jobs – a pace I’d hardly call ‘working’. If they were “working” in the same lackadaisical manner for a private company, they’d be drawing unemployment by now.
Why don’t you put out your mixed recyclables in the blue bin which is picked up every two weeks?
Even if you put everything in the gray bin, it gets sorted out before the remaining STUFF is sent to H-Power.
There are full-bore recycling events here on O`ahu every week throughout the year except immediately following Christmas.
As for that person who is running for Mayor who opposes the mass transit system – he is not going to deal with any of these issues. In addition to being opposed to supporting renewable energy and dealing with climate change, he doesn’t care about anything except supporting fossil fuel companies.
As for the white bins which were placed in school parking lots – perhaps they should be kept in rural areas.
However, I regularly saw people crawl into bins from Hawaii Kai to Pearl City to pull out the stuff they could sell to recycling companies. About the only materials left in many of the bins were newspapers and magazines.
Not everyone on Oahu has their trash picked up in city bins. Our area in Kaaawa does not get picked up by those automated trucks.
So we don’t have the blue bin, and no longer have the community bins.
-Ian
cwd — some communities don’t have curbside recycyling. I know Tantalus doesn’t.
Anyway, we used to drop paper off at the recycling bin at Kaimuki High School frequently and it was ALWAYS full. That’s in an urban location where people have other easy access options. But it was well used. I was pretty shocked when ‘they’ decided to remove those bins — it was an easy, convenient way to bulk recycle.
“As for that person who is running for Mayor who opposes the mass transit system – he is not going to deal with any of these issues. ”
The person who IS the mayor isn’t dealing with them, and the person who WAS the mayor didn’t deal with them either. All they care about is feathering their political nests with the money from rail-affiliated entities.
https://twitter.com/PeterCarlisle/
Peter Carlisle ?@PeterCarlisle
FACT: As #HNLMayor I have paved 464 miles of city roads. 38% more than Kirk during same amount of time, and over 110K potholes. #HNLinMotion
I really get tired of this constant trashing of public workers. In my experience, the vast majority take pride in their work and do a good job, often way beyond the call.
Hahahaha, that box hanging upside-down outside the full window is mine. At the time there was nothing on the ground and I didn’t want to be the first. And, BTW, I don’t use my curb-side blue bin because these community recycle locations provide fundraising revenue for the schools, though our bin at Kahalu’u School was absent that day.