Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell has vetoed a bill that would have provided a $600,000 annual subsidy to recycling companies. The vast majority — $530,000 — would have gone to Schnitzer Steel Industries, an Oregon-based company that reported $1.9 billion in revenue last year.
“The city’s taxpayers should not be subsidizing large corporations that don’t need a subsidy, such as this one,” Caldwell wrote in a letter to Council members Thursday.
According to its company website, Schnitzer Steel is “one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of recycled ferrous metal products in the United States.” The company has two scrap metal recycling locations in Hawaii on Oahu and Maui.