Posted on: Tuesday, March 4, 2003

EDITORIAL
New recycling plan a good step forward

There is considerable logic behind Mayor Jeremy Harris' plan to impose a recycling ethic on O'ahu households through major changes to the city's system of garbage collection.

The devil in this plan, as in so many others, will be in the details. Will households understand, use and accept the new system? Will the higher costs of recycling be offset by environmental or other measurable savings?

Will apartment and condominium dwellers, who largely have their trash picked up by commercial refuse companies, become part of the program?

These are all questions that must be sorted out as the city moves forward on this ambitious but needed plan.

Harris points out that today large amounts of recyclable materials — glass, paper and green waste — end up in the refuse stream with the rest of our garbage.

That means costly separating of these materials at H-Power before the garbage is burned or potentially recyclable materials ending up in landfills.

That last is particularly wasteful since we are running out of landfill space even for the stuff that cannot be handled in any other manner.

Previous experiments with individual household recycling programs have faltered in part because the cost-benefit ratio was hard to justify. And it's true that recycling — particularly of products for which there is little or no market — is not in and of itself a profit-maker.

But that analysis focused almost solely on the cost of collecting the materials against the recycled value. The analysis must go deeper. What is the value to taxpayers of avoided costs, including the sorting and landfill expenses?

What is the long-term economic value of becoming a far more sustainable economy, in which we use and reuse materials?

Harris' plan will generate controversy and will demand considerable attention and refinement by the City Council. But it is a good idea and should move forward.