If the average school bus weighs 12 tons, how many would it take to match the amount of recyclable material that has gone to landfills since Honolulu trashed a proposed curbside recycling program in October?

Nine. And that is far, far too many, according to Got Curbside, a new Web site launched yesterday by Sierra Club's Hawai'i Chapter.

The site has tickers that count up the number of pounds of recyclables going into landfills since Oct. 18, the day Mayor Mufi Hannemann declared the program indefinitely suspended, and down the number of seconds left before Waimanalo Gulch landfill is filled and forced to close.

It was launched as a means of "encouraging" Hannemann to implement an islandwide curbside recycling program, said Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's state chapter and the site's designer.

"We've been campaigning and collecting signatures," Mikulina said. "But we wanted a place where people could have one-stop shopping. And we wanted to show people that this isn't an issue that disappeared in October. With every day that goes by, there are more recyclables going into the landfill."

Bill Brennan, Hannemann's press secretary, said yesterday that Hannemann had not yet seen the site and had no comment. Brennan said he had taken a look.

"Cute," he said. "In a sort of juvenile way, with all its counters and tickers and things. But it is terribly misleading, and there is not a lot of truth in it."

Brennan took offense to the fact that the site says Hannemann "cancelled" the curbside program.

"There was nothing taking place before that date," he said. "The Harris administration never had a program in place to cancel."

The Harris administration ran a pilot curbside recycling program in Mililani, and about 50,000 blue recycling bins were distributed to homeowners across the island in anticipation of the islandwide program's start. But labor issues with United Public Workers halted the program and a conflict between bidders on the recycling contract promised further strife.

Ten months after taking office, Hannemann declared the plan unworkable. He promised the city would take responsibility for the 50,000 blue bins.

Brennan said that promise had not been forgotten.

"We came up with a program for those blue bins," he said. "We'll use them for green waste. We're launching the program in March."

Brennan said curbside recycling costs money — in some cities, he said about $300 per household per year.

"Which, coincidentally," he said, "is the amount the mayor is trying to refund to them from their taxes. Sierra Club is trying to take it right out of their pockets."

Brennan said studies show that separating out green waste from the trash would provide the most impact on the city's trash disposal system, and the bottle law will keep some of the glass out and residents can take the rest to recycling centers at schools.

Mikulina said he appreciated the green waste program and the comment about his site's cuteness, but wasn't impressed by the rest of what Brennan said.

Curbside programs routinely result in higher rates of recycling, he said, and some cities have reported saving money by reducing the trash pickup days due to their recycling programs, he said.

"Ten thousand cities nationwide have curbside recycling," he said. "Do we know something they don't?"

The Waimanalo Gulch landfill is scheduled to close in May 2008. No location for a new landfill has been identified.

The Got Curbside Web site provides footnotes and links to support its figures, and compares Honolulu, the largest U.S. city without curbside recycling, to other parts of the country. It has a page for teachers, and it allows visitors to e-mail the mayor, print out petitions, donate to Sierra Club and find out where and when to attend meetings.

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.