Residents of Hawaii Kai retirement community have started their own "Going Green" recycling program, which began through discussions between the Mauka Residents' Council and Activity Committee.

The project has been in the works since September 2007 and was initiated by Mrs. Bobbie Roberts, who worked with a local high school that already has a newspaper recycling program in place. Mrs. Bobbie Roberts received approval to use the newspaper recycle drop-off bins located at the local high school to recycle the newspapers collected at Hawaii Kai. The money earned from the high school's newspaper recycling program helps fund activities for the school.

In the beginning there were three resident volunteers for this program, Mrs. Roberts, her husband, Chuck Roberts, and Eleanor Tamura, who would collected newspapers from nine laundry rooms weekly and transported them in private cars.

Today, the program has grown to expand to the other Hawaii Kai building, "Makai," and with this expansion came the devolvement of two different teams committed to the Hawaii Kai "Going Green" newspaper recycling program. The first team, headed up by Mrs. Karen Sisler, oversees the "Mauka" building, the building where the recycling program originated for Hawaii Kai. Her team consists of seven members; including Bea McLaughin, Richard Sisler, Frank Soyejima (chairman), Bob Barker, Jerry Glass, Don Beck and Young Man Kwon, collectively known as "Team Mauka."

Twice weekly they collect, bundle, and place the papers in a designated storage area. The second team, headed up by Betty Brauker, oversees the "Makai" building and consists of eight members; including Stanley Ikehara, Patsy Uchimura, Chiyoko Ishimaru, Yaeko Beall, Frank Endo, Pearl Masami Takeuchi and Paul Akuna, collectively known as "Team Makai." This team is designated to either bundle or transport the newspapers.

Hawaii Kai is recycling newspaper weighing approximately 500 pounds per week, a ton per month, or 12 tons per year. Hawaii Kai is very proud of their effort to help save our environment, especially the trees!

For more information please call Hawaii Kai at 808-395-9599.