The images of 1985 are still fresh in Terry Telfer’s mind — of deplaning on Oahu, finding the nearest beach to begin training for the upcoming Honolulu Marathon, and promptly being overwhelmed by a slew of visual eyesores. This wasn’t the Hawaii of spotless white beaches and pristine waters that he had grown accustomed to over the years — first, as a frequent visitor, and now as one of the Island’s newest residents.

Instead, this beach had butts. Lots of them. And we’re not talking about the human kind here.

“People just kept dropping their cigarettes everywhere,” Telfer explains. “It was an appalling thing to see.”

Of course, the smokers weren’t the only culprits. The guilty included those dumping soda cans, beer bottles and newspapers everywhere but in the nearest trashcan. “People would be reading their papers, lose a section and just watch it blow into the ocean, unwilling to do anything about it,” he continues. “They just kept sitting there on their butts (OK, now we’re talking about the human kind), and I would end up running after their trash.”

Two decades later, Telfer is still an ardent environmentalist. But he doesn’t chase after people’s rubbish much anymore because, well, he doesn’t have to. Instead, he expends his energy in more efficient ways — like getting local residents to bring their trash to him.

As president of Reynolds Recycling Inc., Telfer operates Hawaii’s largest aluminum recycler. With 24 redemption centers on Oahu, Kauai and Maui, the company comfortably handles upwards of 100 million beverage containers annually, paying cash not only for all things aluminum (foil and scrap materials included), but for plastic beverage containers, copper, brass, glass bottles and jars as well. Since opening shop in Hawaii back in 1981, Reynolds has paid out over $60 million to residents for their recycling efforts.

Yet despite the company’s successes, its dedicated leader admits that converting the masses to the benefits of recycling is still a work in progress.

“If you ask people if they believe in recycling, just about everybody will raise their hands,” says Telfer, who plans on increasing the number of company redemption centers by seven before the end of next month.

“But the truth of the matter is, only about 28 percent of Hawaii’s residents recycle.”

And why is that?

“Oh, it’s for a variety of reasons,” he says, sighing. “But this is much more than simply educating people on the subject. After all, even a kindergartner knows that recycling is important. What we really need is a behavior change. And I think that’s precisely what the ‘bottle bill’ will do for Hawaii.”

The Hawaii Deposit Beverage Container Program (more commonly known as the “bottle bill” before it became law in 2002) is an incentive-based plan that provides a 5-cent refund on most glass, aluminum and plastic beverage containers. Residents with properly marked containers that are clean and uncrushed, can return their cans and bottles to various redemption centers, including those operated by Reynolds, beginning this weekend and receive their money back.

Hawaii is just the 11th state to adopt such a program into law.

“Why am I so excited about the ‘bottle bill’?” Telfer asks. “Because statistics show that in the past, the other 10 deposit states have recycled more than the other 40 states combined. In fact, anywhere from 80 to 95 percent of beverage containers get recycled in deposit states. And we’re counting on Hawaii being within that same range a year from now.”

That, of course, would be music to environmentalists’ ears, given the fact that local residents consume the contents of over 800 million beverage containers each year.

“That’s a huge number of cans and bottles,” admits Telfer, a resident of Mililani. “And that’s precisely why it’s important for people to see the value that recycled containers have. For example, in recycling just one aluminum beverage container, we would save an energy equivalent of one-half cup of gasoline.”

For the geology-impaired, here’s the “crust” of the matter:

In order to get to the silver-white metallic element known as aluminum, found in a claylike rock known as bauxite in the earth’s crust, it needs to be mined and melted into the liquid metal. It’s a process that, needless to say, takes a considerable amount of energy and money.

“But if you recycle,” Telfer says, “well, then you’ve already got aluminum. You don’t have to mine it, you don’t have to melt it, you don’t have to ship it. Basically, you don’t have to convert new bauxite into aluminum because, once again, you already have it. You just throw the old aluminum into a vat and melt it down again. Aluminum never loses its properties.”

Meaning, it lasts forever?

Telfer chuckles. “That’s the beauty of it.”

But the beauty doesn’t end there. For example, while the Honolulu City Council struggles for solutions on landfill issues, Telfer believes that residents can at the very least cut the trash problem simply by committing to recycling.

“Landfills fill up by volume, not by weight,” he explains. “Because Hawaii uses a lot of beverage containers, and because these beverage containers have a lot of air in them, they take up huge amounts of landfill space. Recycling these containers will not only save our landfill space, but once again, save on the materials needed to mine these items.

“Truly, recycling is the best use of these containers.”

The middle child of Gene and Shirley Telfer, Terry Telfer grew up in Decatur, Ill., the soybean capital of the world. Much of his youth was spent on either his father’s or grandfather’s farms, playing a mean game of marbles and, maybe more importantly, learning the value of hard work. It’s a lesson that holds true today: Telfer claims to have not missed a single day of work in his 17 years at Reynolds.

“My parents always showed me a good work ethic,” he states proudly. “Rain or shine, I’m always going to be on the job.”

At age 16, he made his way off the farm and into town, where he found employment at Jewel Foods, one of the largest grocery chains in the nation. There he would remain for the next 14 years — working his way up from bag boy to store manager. In that time, he would purchase his first home (“I was just 19 when I bought a two-bedroom bungalow.”) and enroll at Milikin University (“I went there to become a doctor and left there with a greater interest in business.”)

Upon turning 30, however, Telfer decided he needed not only a change in lifestyle, but of scenery as well. Hawaii, which he had visited off and on for over a decade, seemed like the logical destination.

“I first came to the Islands with my grandmother following high school graduation,” he remembers. It was love at first sight. “Every time I would get on the plane to go back to Decatur, I would feel like I was leaving my real home. And so when it came time to choose between Illinois and Hawaii, it wasn’t really that difficult. I always felt that I was supposed to be around water.”

Living off his personal savings, Telfer turned into a self-described “beach bum,” preferring to spend every waking hour on some beach pursuing his interest in marathon running. He began training for the Honolulu Marathon immediately — and his efforts paid off. In his first competition, he completed the 26.2-mile run in just over four hours, which placed him in the top 25 percent for those in his age group. He followed that up by competing in the Great Aloha Run and placing in the top three percent in his age group.

Two years later, however, his funds had just about dried up. In desperate need of a job, Telfer responded to a newspaper ad by Reynolds Metals Corp., which was looking for a field supervisor to manage its recycling centers.

“I applied and was hired,” he says. “For me, it was a chance to make a difference.”

Telfer often speaks fondly of his company and the rich history of its previous parent, Reynolds Metals. Many people associate Reynolds Metals solely with its aluminum foil, Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil.

“But what a lot of people don’t realize is that Reynolds Metals also created the ice cream Eskimo Pie and invented the aluminum can,” Telfer states proudly.

In 1969, the company began a nationwide network of recycling centers, with the intent of paying consumers for their beverage containers. Unfortunately, a steady increase in business costs began to render Reynolds Metals unprofitable, and by 1997 the company’s stockholders decided to sell off portions of its business — namely, its can, recycling and smelting divisions. The Norwegian company TOMRA, which specializes in reverse vending machines, wound up purchasing every Reynolds Metals’ recycling center west of the Mississippi.

Less than five years later, however, TOMRA too wanted out of the business. And so it charged Telfer with the task of finding a buyer. If he failed, TOMRA would shut down operations.

With the very survival of the company placed squarely on his shoulders, Telfer mobilized quickly.

“Fortunately, I knew (local businessman) Clyde Kaneshiro of Honolulu Recovery Systems, and approached him with the idea of buying us out. And thankfully, he came to our rescue.

“Today, we are a locally owned company,” adds Telfer, who was promoted to president in April 2002. “We have 32 employees and we’re looking to double our work force in the coming days.” (Call 487-2802 for more information on job requirements. Applications may be picked up at the company’s Halawa processing plant located at 99-1160 Iwaena St.)

The expansion efforts have to do with the company’s plan to rent retail space at various shopping centers on Oahu, and furnish these depot centers with reverse vending machines. The first such depot center is scheduled to open next month at Enchanted Lake Shopping Center in Kailua.

The hope, Telfer explains, is that by keeping these depot centers open until the late hours of the evening, a greater number of residents will be encouraged to recycle. And with that will come the behavior change Telfer has long sought for, ever since he first landed in the Islands two decades ago and began running after people’s trash.

“Hopefully in the coming months,” Telfer says, “we’re going to hear more and more people saying, ‘You know what? This recycling thing really isn’t that hard.’”