honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 4, 2003

ISLAND VOICES
A closer look at city recycling

Suzanne Jones is recycling coordinator for the City & County of Honolulu.

The mayor's announcement of a new, sweeping plan to reschedule refuse collection and add curbside recycling services has produced both anticipation and questions.

Letters to the editor have addressed everything from whether the design of the new system is truly workable; whether markets are available for the collected recyclables; and whether burning the paper at H-POWER would be better than recycling it to why we still need a beverage container deposit if we've got curbside collection. And some of the letters just said thank you, it's about time.

The city has produced a 32-page guide to "Taking Care of Garbage," which will be inserted into this Sunday's Honolulu Advertiser. It provides information on how to use city services and programs, how effective our recycling and waste management strategies have been thus far, and some insight into our plans for the future.

The guide cannot offer details on the mayor's new proposal as yet, but gives perspective to the larger questions of how we manage 1.6 million tons of waste annually and how recycling has grown over the past decade.

The mayor has proposed an intelligent plan, though we are still open to modifications and fine-tuning from the City Council and from public input, as long as we meet the ultimate goal of encouraging everyone to reduce waste and recycle more.

Sufficient recycling markets are available to handle the increased recovery. In fact, local recycling companies have indicated that higher volumes of paper, plastic, glass and metals would contribute to improved efficiencies and better economics.

Although newspaper is combustible and could be processed by H-POWER, generating electricity for the island, recycling paper offers a cost-efficient option, and we need to divert more material from disposal. H-POWER is currently operating above its design capacity, processing at a rate of more than 600,000 tons of waste annually and, at times, having to divert solid waste to landfill when it can't handle a particularly heavy day or must accomplish necessary maintenance.

The new curbside recycling system should be a welcome convenience for those living in the 160,000 single-family homes, but it cannot do the entire job of increasing island recycling rates. The beverage container deposit system, scheduled for implementation in 2005, will go a long way to complement the curbside service. There are approximately 150,000 apartment units that would be unaffected by the curbside system.

Further, curbside would do nothing to promote collection in commercial and office buildings, our entire visitor industry, military bases or all the beverages consumed at our parks, beaches and sports events, and would have no impact on litter reduction. The beverage container deposit system is expected to recover over 80 percent, amounting to 50,000 tons of containers annually statewide, 33,000 tons for O'ahu alone. Curbside is projected to capture approximately 22,000 tons at 50 percent recovery. More information is posted on our Web site at www.opala.org. As plans evolve, we will continually update the Web site information. Questions, suggestions and concerns can be called in to our recycling office at 692-5410.