junk cars and scooters

[birdmove]

So, what can residents do with junk cars, scooters, motorcycles etc? Anyone take them for parting out?

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[Chunkster]

The last I heard, which was just a few days ago, no one was taking dead cars for free. The county has apparently stopped its removal program, and the junkyards are now charging to accept them. I was quoted $350 by Ken's in Hilo to accept a minivan, and there is supposed to be a place in Shipman Industrial Area that does it for a fee, too. I haven't personally contacted the place in Shipman, though. If anyone knows anything different, especially if it's cheaper, please post. I really need to get rid of this carcass of a car. (Bad pun intended.)

[jrw]

I am glad you not like lot of pigs who strip all the numbers off the car haul it out to a public road in the dead of night and it sits for a couple weeks and then county has it towed. Their has to be a better way to get rid of the junk.

jrw

[randomq]

We live so far from everywhere, yet it's still cheaper to ship in steel from the 3rd world than recycle it ourselves. Seems crazy.

Do the economics just not work out for any durable goods to be manufactured in Hawaii?

[birdmove]

Worked at a truck repair shop in south Seattle for 24 years. It was really quite amazing the amount of stuff we were able to recycle. Scrap metal went to one of a number of huge yards in Seattle. Aluminum, brass, steel, etc were taken to different areas. They actually were paying for these scrap metals. Of course cardboard and glass were recycled. I found someone that sold waste oil furnaces, and we ordered a couple of those, one for the main shop and one for the body shop. Since we worked of freight hauling trucks and trailers, our bay doors were very high. We bought a used metal spray paint booth big enough to put a 60 foot freight trailer inside for painting. These building needed heat, and the waste oil furnaces provided it. We had a thousand gallon main waste oil holding tank and used a bunch of 55 gallon drums to store up the waste oil in summer to get us through the winter later on. We found a gent that had a mobile system set up in a camper shell on a pickup. He would come around a few times every year and pump our coolant storage tank, from draining the coolant from these huge trucks. He would run it through a machine which purified it, added ethylene glychol to it, and the end product would be a 50-50 mix of coolant in gallon containers ready to sell anti freeze water mix.
Too bad we don't have a car smasher here where we could take these old abandoned or non usable old cars, smash them flat, and send them to some place where they recycle them. Seattle, maybe Portland, LA,etc.But then, every time we go to the dump with our flattened cardboard, I see that all too many people here can't be troubled with even flattening their cardboard. Don't know where they ship these comtainers full of cardboard to, but the ones I see could hold 10-20 times more if the stuff was flattened.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[kalakoa]

Do the economics just not work out for any durable goods to be manufactured in Hawaii?

By the time you get through planning, permitting, environmental impact, NIMBY lawsuits, Native Hawaiian sovereignty, employer obligations, finding competent workers who actually show up ... there's no money left to do whatever you were trying to do.

It's really shameful considering how easy it is to recycle some materials (plastic, glass, paper).

[Chunkster]

Meanwhile . . . does anybody know of any legal, inexpensive ways to dispose of a vehicle?

[birdmove]

I asked my neighbor, as one of their scooters was totaled after dark when the ladies brother smashed into a wild pig. But, he just said the insurance company totaled it and they took the munched scooter. The brother is doing well after a lot of healing.

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[Iju]

For car, have you considered donating to a non-profit organization?

I just donated my non-running Honda Civic two weeks ago to the Kidney Foundation of Hawaii. And it was very easy to do. You just fill the form on line and they contact you the following day. After a few questions on the phone, they ask you to mail the signed title to their office. They call after they have the title and have the towing company come towing the car two days later. My car was towed away within a week. Here is the link:
https://kidneyhi.org/donate-cars?island=hawaii

Edited grammar.

[Chunkster]

Thanks, Iju!

Edited to add: I won't be able to report on how my donation went because a friend called at the last minute and took the van off my hands for parts.