February 1999

The Partnership for the Environment is one of the most effective public-private partnerships in Hawaii. Hawaii’s environment is precious to all of us, and the members of the Partnership have demonstrated year after year their commitment to reduce waste, increase recycling and help keep Hawaii paradise. The value of the Partnership is the partners themselves—local business leaders willing to offer their time and expertise to help other island businesses through the challenges of setting up recycling programs.  My thanks to Hawaii’s business community for its support in recycling.  Business and government working together can indeed make a difference.
—Mayor Jeremy Harris

About the Partnership
The Partnership for the Environment is a coalition of businesses coordinated by the City & County of Honolulu to support recycling, waste reduction and purchasing recycled-content products. The Partnership offers resources, guides, technical assistance, a speakers bureau and peer consulting and publicly recognizes businesses for their efforts. The Partnership‘s growing coalition of peer consultants is willing to share its expertise to assist other businesses in developing intelligent recycling programs. For more information and to become a partner, call the City‘s Recycling Office at 527-5335.

SOME OF HAWAII’S TOP BUSINESS 
LEADERS ”TALK TRASH“
Local experts from business and government are available to speak to your company or organization on a variety of fascinating trash topics. The Partnership now has an official ”Talkin‘ Trash” Speakers Bureau.
Lance Gilliland, former Manager for the Grand Wailea Resort, Hotel and Spa on Maui, has been willing to travel the islands to speak on the benefits of recycling. The Grand Wailea “closes the loop” on a number of materials they recycle. They use recycled crushed glass in their water filtration system. Yard trimmings are mulched and composted onsite and used back on their lush grounds. Cooking oil is processed off-site into biodiesel fuel and returned to the hotel for use in their bobcat and transport bus. The vehicles run well; the only comment has been that they smell like french fries.

Michael Drace, owner of Young Laundry & Dry Cleaning, tells the story of how he worked his way through the challenges of recycling wire hangers. The short version—His neighbor told him he should recycle them. He said it couldn’t be done. Today, he annually reuses 400,000 hangers and recycles 3 tons more of unusable hangers, along with 2 tons of plastic wrap and 12 tons of cardboard, which saves him $25,000.

Richard Anzai, Facility Business Manager for Ogden-Honolulu Resource Recovery Venture, gives a more effective talk when you come to his place for a tour. Ogden is the operator for the H-POWER waste-to-energy facility in Campbell Industrial Park. He’ll show you how H-POWER works in partnership with recycling by reducing the volume of waste for landfill by 90%, by extracting metals for recycling both before and after incineration, and by leading the country in recycling the ash. The first “ash-phalt” roadway in Hawaii was paved by Grace Pacific at the H-POWER plant.

Tom Jones, General Manager of Kyotaru Restaurants and Columbia Inn, was recognized by the Partnership for his service as the “Outstanding Speaker” in 1998. In his presentations he shares personal stories of dumpster diving and provides clear tonnage data on materials recycled and waste reduction. The results include an annual savings of $15,000 for his restaurants.
Upcoming events:
Hawaii Advanced Building Technology Program professional training workshops. Intensive full-day workshops for architects and builders focused on improving the energy and resource-efficiency of Hawaii's homes and communities. Featured speakers will be nationally-recognized building-efficiency experts Steve Loken and Joel Schurke.
Schedule of workshops: Hilo-February 18, Kona-February 19, Maui-February 20, Honolulu-February 26, Kauai-February 27. For registration and information, contact Alan Ewell at 945-3853 or ewell@aloha.net