TEENS URGE MORE PRIORITY ON RECYCLING

HAWAI'I MUST FACE ITS MOST PRESSING PROBLEM

Our island home, one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in the world, lacks an important tool that is critical to preserving its picturesque beauty.

Hawai'i, a name synonymous with paradise, must find a way to confront one of its most pressing problems — our mounting trash crisis. The answer is a curbside recycling program.

The people of Hawai'i do not lack the will to recycle, and it is conventional wisdom that such a program is both a necessity and a moral responsibility.

Why? Forty percent of the 1.75 million tons of trash that O'ahu produces annually is recyclable. The city has allocated funds and purchased tens of thousands of curbside recycling bins.

The only obstacles that stand between our island paradise and the successful implementation of this essential program are selfish bickering and petty concerns.

Why the parties involved cannot simply cooperate for the betterment of our waste-management programs and for our island's beauty is a mystery that is yet to be resolved.

Therefore, I stand shoulder to shoulder with countless other concerned citizens who realize that some things are more important than self-interest and rivalry and who demand an end to this senseless impasse.

IT'S OUR DUTY TO RECYCLE AND KEEP ISLES GREEN

Wouldn't it be nice to one day look around and see recycle-ready refuse around the neighborhood, and not trash just waiting to dump itself on our land?

The advantages to going to curbside recycling are unique to this state — it's not the only one with land problems, but we have an environment found nowhere else.

It's not only our duty as inhabitants, but it's also our duty to our wallets.

By creating the ability to go green from the comfort of our homes, we save on commutes, with all those potholes and accidents, and the gas it would take to shuttle us around the island. That saves not only money but time and carbon dioxide emissions.

We won't need another landfill if there's a drastic reduction in the amount of waste, another advantage of expanding the curbside recycling program beyond green waste.

We need to keep Hawai'i green, after all.

CURBSIDE RECYCLING IS OUR MORAL IMPERATIVE

Curbside recycling should be put into place statewide as soon as possible.

Curbside recycling has run into many legal roadblocks, but policymakers need to get past those obstacles and aggressively pursue it.

Recycling is a moral imperative for everyone, and it is needed for many environmental reasons. Chiefly, we are quickly running out of landfill space for our waste, and curbside recycling would greatly reduce that pressing problem.

Why is the current policy of installing recycling centers at public schools, parks, etc., not as effective as curbside recycling? The answer is unfortunate but simple: convenience.

Most people would prefer to throw their recyclables away if the alternative is storing them for a while, loading them into their car trunks, driving to the nearest recycling center and dumping them there. However, if all people had to do was throw their recyclables into a separate bin and put it out on the curb, I'd expect that many more would recycle.

While some may put up with the inconvenience of taking their recyclables to a center for moral and environmental reasons, many don't have the will to commit to it and choose the easier path of dumping it with the rest of their trash.

Our policymakers need to be the ones with the willpower and finally install curbside recycling.

HAWAI'I RUNNING OUT OF ROOM FOR ITS TRASH

There are many reasons why recycling should be considered more important than it is now. But, the primary reason is that Hawai'i is only so big.

Hawai'i is running out of places to put the trash, and the landfills continuously fill up.

Recycling would allow for more room for the trash that cannot be recycled, and could possibly reduce the need for shipping trash out of the state.

All of the money potentially slated for shipping trash to landfills on the West Coast could be better used to fix other problems in the state.

Recycling will not work if people can't get to the recycling centers, which is why curbside recycling should be seriously considered. Not only would that make recycling a reality for Hawai'i, but everyone will be able to do it since they won't have to leave home to recycle. All they would need are three bins: one each for glass, plastic and paper.

There are many reasons to recycle. But with this primary reason presented before you, why wouldn't you want to recycle?

CURBSIDE RECYCLING SHOULD BE A PRIORITY

Curbside recycling: possible here in Hawai'i? Mayor Mufi Hannemann seemed to think so, but since mass transit happened, it seems like it was put on the back burner.

Should transportation be a bigger priority than recycling? Well, the debate must be over which solution would have a greater and more effective impact on our society now.

I guess people just don't understand the great impact that participation in a curbside recycling program could have.

For more than 20 years, curbside recycling has been practiced on the Mainland. The main priority for the implementation was to reduce the amount of trash at Mainland refuse centers.

The difference between there and here is that they have more space than we do. Already, Waimanalo Refuse Center is over its capacity.

Thus, recycling should be an even bigger priority in Hawai'i, yet it's not.

There have been attempts to increase the recycling rate here, such as the HI-5¢ program, but to really lower our trash output, more recycling has to be promoted.

If taxpayers wish to keep Hawai'i a "paradise," or wish not to send our tax dollars outside of state, then it would be to their advantage to support curbside recycling here in Hawai'i.

MANY CITIES HAVE CURBSIDE RECYCLING

I'm no environmentalist, but with O'ahu's landfills reaching the breaking point, I'm a little concerned about the availability of curbside recycling.

Yes, some people find it worthwhile to take their recyclables to a community bin, but what about those who don't want to bother because it's too out of the way?

Ever since 2003, curbside recycling has been proposed, then postponed due to many hindrances, such as resistance by the United Public Workers union and legal challenges from the companies vying for authorization to operate the program. Now, to deal with O'ahu's landfill problem, there is a proposal to send solid refuse to the Mainland.

Why is O'ahu having so many problems with this curbside recycling program when thousands of others have been established across America? It clearly seems the best route to take to reduce the amount of solid garbage since recyclables supposedly make up 30-40 percent of it.

Maybe we will eventually have to send our solid refuse to the Mainland anyway, but with the long-awaited implementation of a curbside recycling program, at least that could be put off for a few more years.

CONVENIENCE WILL RAISE RECYCLING PARTICIPATION

I strongly believe that Hawai'i should have curbside recycling.

I understand that the city initiated this process of recycling by delivering blue bins to various areas. This project was stopped and the bins are now used for green-waste collection.

Even though green waste is important, it is only 18 percent of our waste. We need to alternate weeks so that both green waste and common recyclables are addressed.

In my family, we recycle our aluminum cans and newspapers, but it takes time and effort to take these materials to a designated area.

Besides, there is a lack of recycling dropoff centers.

Hawai'i is limiting the people who can recycle and the number of items that can be recycled. Having the convenience of curbside recycling will increase dramatically the amount of recycling from each person.

Another reason that curbside recycling is so important to Hawai'i is that our island needs to learn how to be self-sufficient.

We need to learn not to depend on the Mainland and other countries for all of our products.

By enforcing curbside recycling, there would be a greater input of recyclable materials that can be processed and manufactured into recyclable products. These items can then be purchased at lower costs and our dependence on their shipments from other resources will be lessened.

RECYCLE OUR 'OPALA, TAKE CARE OF OUR 'AINA

With breathtaking beaches, clean air and sparkling water, Hawai'i must focus seriously on taking care of the land by improving its recycling efforts.

Hawai'i residents throw out more 'opala than Mainland folks, while recycling much less than Mainland cities of comparable size.

Though Hawai'i should be praised for the HI-5¢ program in allowing residents to redeem their glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans for 5 cents, the amount of solid waste, mixed with other recyclables in landfills, continues to grow.

Many residents still are not motivated to recycle because redemption centers are few or inconveniently located.

The City Council must make efforts to revitalize and implement curbside recycling, a program currently existing successfully in more than 10,000 cities on the Mainland.

In the past two years, Mayor Mufi Hannemann has made efforts to begin curbside recycling by spending $3 million to purchase 50,000 recycling bins for homeowners, but the project has been put on hold. Citizens are baffled as to why!

Required curbside recycling, which is accessible, convenient and enforced, will force Hawai'i residents to separate recyclables, such as paper and plastic, from solid waste and save the landfills from filling too soon.

Hawai'i's people must preserve their 'aina. Curbside recycling has helped 10,000 cities across the Mainland.

Who is to say it won't help Hawai'i, too?

A TRIP TO CURB SHOULD BE A TRIP TO RECYCLING

More Americans recycle than vote. Does this mean that households care more about a plastic bottle rather than who slaps the HI-5¢ redemption price onto its label?

An increase in environmental awareness has propelled the recycling industry, and many states have already joined the curbside trend.

In California, the recycling program has been more than efficient, so why hasn't Hawai'i further promoted recycling by introducing curbside reprocessing? What happened to the blue trash bins that were supposed to be distributed to households?

In California, the average cost of curbside recycling per household equates to a little over $2 a month, which is a small price to pay to preserve the environment. The rate is cheaper than the gallons of gas used to drive to a redemption center, and the incentives recovered from recycling may not cover the cost of gas used.

People who work during the day and commute when the moon is out find it cumbersome to visit a center unless it is located on the way home. If Hawai'i were to begin curbside recycling, households would see more of an incentive to collect reusable materials because a walk to the front yard is a trip to a recycling center.

Trash bins for recycling should be distributed islandwide; more people would recycle and maybe more would even vote.

THINK IT THROUGH, THEN CREATE A CURBSIDE PLAN

I believe that curbside recycling is a wonderful idea if it's planned out correctly.

You don't want a plan to be just thrown together without it being thoroughly thought out. Since Hawai'i is such a small state, curbside recycling or recycling in general is most effective.

If all of the state would recycle, we wouldn't have to worry about where the next landfill will go. If we recycled a considerable amount of trash, it wouldn't be a part of the landfill.

Another thing that Hawai'i wouldn't have to worry about if there was curbside recycling would be spending so much money on shipping our trash to other states, because if we did that it would just be another state's problem.

Hawai'i should really look into and thoroughly construct a plan for curbside recycling.