The state is scrambling to find a solution to growing piles of recyclable paper at most of the major Hawai'i government buildings on O'ahu.

On June 15, Island Recycling stopped picking up office paper, newspaper and other paper goods from about 22 state offices, ending a service that it had provided free of charge for about the past five years. The company cited rising costs tied to fuel and shipping.

Officials said it could be six months before a contract is awarded under the state procurement system and emergency measures may have to be taken.

The bags of paper waste have been piling up in the kitchen area of the Office of the Public Defender in Iwilei.

"The bottom line is if it starts piling up too much, we can't store it anymore and we'll just throw it away," public defender Jack Tonaki said.

"Frankly, I never paid much attention to it; they've just been coming by for years. I mean, I never questioned where (the recyclers) came from. There were those blue bins, there was a number to call if the bins got filled and the guy would come and take it away."

Island Recycling President James Nutter said yesterday that he informed state officials in October that his company would no longer provide free services and suggested initiating a procurement process to secure a contractor.

"It was a simple purchase contract in which we purchased the paper at different locations but the value was very negligible," Nutter said. "And when the cost of doing business increased — fuel and shipping and manpower costs went up — we no longer could do that."

The state asked the company to continue servicing its sites while a request for proposals was drafted, and Nutter said his company complied — until about three weeks ago.

"It just got to the point where we just couldn't do it anymore, we were just losing too much money," he said.

Deputy Health Director Lawrence Lau confirmed that his agency was first notified in October of Island Recycling's plan to end its contract with the state. Health officials are drafting language for a request for proposals, or RFPs, to solicit bids from recyclers for a contract that would take care of the paper waste at about a dozen state buildings managed by the Department of Health.

"There's not a definite timetable but RFPs traditionally have taken a number of months because we have to get the attorney general's approval, then we have to issue it, and then there's a waiting period for the proponents to submit, and then they have to be evaluated and ranked, an offer has to be made, and then whoever is the best proposer, we'd still need to execute a contract with them," Lau said.

"It could be six months."

SEVERAL OPTIONS

State Comptroller Russ Saito said that the Department of Accounting and General Services, which is in charge of a majority of other state buildings outside of Department of Education and University of Hawai'i buildings, is following the lead of the Health Department and will use the same language in its RFP.

A city ordinance requires any building with 20,000 square feet of office space to recycle its paper waste. Tonaki said if that's the case, he might reconsider throwing away the paper.

"Wow, that puts us in a dilemma then," he said.

Lau, however, said he's not sure that the city ordinance applies to state buildings.

Nonetheless, Saito said, "I don't think we want paper piling up for six months. That's creating another solid-waste problem. Something's got to be done before it gets to that stage."

Temporary plans likely will be put in place until a contract is awarded, state officials said.

Saito said a number of scenarios are being considered, including hiring a hauler to transport paper waste to a recycling vendor.

"If the paper goods start piling up, the most feasible option in my mind is just to haul it away to a recycler," he said. That option may require a separate arrangement with a recycler.

"That's not your typical recycling contract," he said, adding that such an arrangement would serve as a stopgap until the RFP process yields a contract.

CITY'S CONTRACT

Island Recycling, in recent years, has had a contract with the city in which the city paid the company to service recycling bins at 17 locations. The company gave the city money back based on the amount of paper hauled away.

But the company told the city that arrangement also would need to end because of financial considerations. The city then went out to bid for that contract and on Wednesday Island Recycling was selected as the lowest bid, among two bidders, said city procurement specialist Gary Nishioka.

Nishioka said the contract calls for Island Recycling to be paid $13,276.50 for six months, retroactive to July 1, to pick up paper waste from six Dumpsters and 140 other bins across the island.

The contract is a temporary one, he said, to give the city more time to issue a more formal bid request for a contract of a year or two.

Nutter said the state generates about the same or slightly more waste primarily because of the heavy load coming out of the state Capitol and the court buildings. Even then, he said, the amount of money required to hire a recycler is not a large sum.

"We're talking about a couple thousand dollars a month," Nutter said. "As a recycling company, I really hate to see things getting thrown away that should be recycled. I'm disappointed that it's come down to this.

"Realistically, we don't care who does this service, we just think the service should be done."

Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club of Hawai'i, said he was disappointed that the state delayed in seeking a recycling vendor.

"Obviously, it's a ridiculous situation given the landfill crunch that we have on this island, in particular, and elsewhere, too," he said. "Recycling office paper, and high-quality paper like that, is one of the easier things to recycle."

Mikulina said the state should be a role model for energy efficiency and conservation for businesses and families.

"It's sort of tough to be asking the public to pitch in if the government is pitching out," he said.

Said the Health Department's Lau: "We favor recycling and we're going to do what we can to promote it being done by others. We just have to explore all the options."

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.