Posted on: Friday, December 3, 2004

Let's all clean up our act

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

In this go-around, the City Council ended up doing the right thing after handling the matter all wrong.

Myriad postponements, unkept promises and 11th-hour red herrings brought into question the professionalism and seriousness with which the deciding body was handling the matter.

But while Waimanalo Gulch might represent the lesser of all evils, it is still evil.

Clearly, we're not done with this. Sadly, after years of debate and study, the whole stinking mess is right back where it started.

We can't keep going around like this, nothing changed, nothing learned, the mauna of trash getting taller.

We cannot continue to generate trash at the current, or God forbid, higher rate and expect the Leeward Coast to just deal with it. Innovative ideas and hard choices have to come together to create viable (that is, not Koko Crater) alternatives.

Of course, nobody wants to deal with trash. Politicians don't like that responsibility. It hurts their popularity. Businesses want what's cost-effective. Households want to throw stuff away and never see it again. Nobody wants to store trash on their property, be it barrels of crushed pass-o-guava drink cans alongside the garage or a landfill up the street.

All of us will have to commit to making life changes, many of which will not at all be convenient. After all, convenience is what generated that pile of garbage in the first place.

It is not at all fair for the Leeward Coast to have to bear the burden of the convenience of the rest of the island. Too much of the dark side of urban infrastructure is headquartered on the west side. This has to change.

There are many things that should change out there.

The hard truth is that the city's landfill isn't the only blight on what should be O'ahu's loveliest sunshine coast.

How about the myriad "part-time, casual" dumpsites that crop up like tumors on the back roads of the valley? How about abandoned cars and the left-behind plate lunch containers and the human waste at Leeward beach parks? Can't blame the tourists for that. Can't blame Harris' promises or the capricious ideas of the City Council members or some evil conspiracy fueled by business interests. That trash is all about the people who live there.

So blame the politicians for lack of vision and courage, blame the scientists for the lack of ideas, blame the wealthy for easy living that makes it harder for the poor and middle class.

But if you're flicking cigarette butts out the car window, leaving your styrofoam containers at the beach park, throwing stuff away instead of recycling and putting your old appliances out to pasture in grassy cul de sacs, raise your hand and take your share of the blame, too.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.