Posted on: Monday, December 6, 2004

EDITORIAL
What will it take to close landfill?

Mayor-elect Mufi Hannemann has set a worthy goal for his new administration: to try to close the Waimanalo Gulch landfill by 2008, as Mayor Jeremy Harris had earlier agreed.

The City Council did the right thing in voting to extend the life of the landfill beyond 2008, because Hannemann's goal, while desirable and obtainable, has many hurdles to overcome.

Every one of those impediments can be eliminated if O'ahu residents have the will and the mindset to do it. So far, we haven't shown much inclination to go out of our way to get there.

In a commentary on Friday's editorial page, Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i Chapter, detailed what must be done to reduce O'ahu's waste stream to the point where closing the landfill might become viable.

It's a tall order.

First, we have to stop griping about the new bottle bill and make up our minds to make it work. We have to stop dragging our feet on recycling — Mikulina says Honolulu is the largest municipality in the United States that lacks a substantial curbside recycling program — and make it work.

But that's just a start. With curbside recycling and the bottle law in place, we'll be diverting 40 percent of our waste stream. That's nowhere close to closing the landfill.

We can add another boiler to H-Power, start experimenting with plasma arc technology and even try Mike Gabbard's idea of shipping certain trash to the Mainland, if it's financially feasible.

That still won't be enough. Composting, recycling cardboard and office paper and a concept called "pay as you throw," if instituted, will bring us close.

Finally, part of the solution to dealing with our trash includes trying to create less of it in the first place. "We are a society of throwaway plate-lunch trays, cheap disposable plastic goods, double-bagging and shrink-wrapped and overpacked everything," says Mikulina. We have to change our very culture.

If Hannemann can get us to do all of that by 2008, our hat is off to him.

If we continue to drag our feet, however, we won't be closing Waimanalo Gulch in 2008. Instead, we'll have to start looking for the next landfill site.