Mulching program runs out of cash
By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — A county-financed program that turns green waste into mulch halted operations about three months ago, resulting in a 40-foot-tall pile of rotting yard clippings at a site near the Hilo airport.
Hawai'i County solid-waste engineer Larry Capellas said the contractor that runs the program, Big Island Recycling, halted mulching operations at both its Hilo and Kona sites after exhausting the $300,000 it receives from the county annually.
Hilo's growing pile of green waste caused officials to open a new site about a quarter-mile away in the Kanoelehua Industrial Area where residents can dump their yard trimmings.
With the county's new fiscal year just under way, and a new $300,000 allocation for the program contained in the budget, Capellas hopes the mulching operations in Kona and Hilo will start up again soon. Even then, he said, it could take months to grind the stockpile of green waste into mulch that is given away free to the public.
The green waste program was started 2 1/2 years ago. At peak operation, the grinders in Hilo can gobble up to 100 tons of leaves, branches and lawn trimmings per hour.
The sheer volume of waste is why the contractor ran out of money earlier than anticipated, said Capellas, who fears that the same thing will happen before the end of the new fiscal year.
"It may be a victim of its own success," said Barbara Bell, who was just named to the newly created county post of environmental management director. She will start work Aug. 1.
Bell said she was withholding additional comment while she remains executive director of Recycle Hawai'i.
The green waste problem is part of a larger waste management issue for the Big Island, which faces the 2004 shutdown of the Hilo landfill.
The landfill receives about 190 tons of waste daily, and "we are almost out of room," according to Capellas.
The West Hawai'i landfill at Pu'uwa'awa'a receives 300 tons of waste daily — much of it from the construction industry there.
