The federal Environmental Protection Agency grant will establish a model for renewable resource management on the island. This grant upgrades a solid waste transfer station into a community recycling center to divert resources from traditional solid waste disposal.

The EPA said Hawai'i Island has achieved a 69 percentrecycling rate for beverage containers, the highest in the state.

It is expected to develop innovative solutions for collecting, reusing, and recycling products. There will also be educational outreach. "The management of solid waste is especially critical to an island state such as Hawai'i," said Steven Barhite, acting director of the waste

management division for the EPA's Pacific Southwest region.

"This new grant will build on the success of previous efforts and extend current programs—playing an essential role in reducing the amount of solid waste that goes to the landfills on Hawai'i Island."

The goals of the project are to:

i stimulate on-island reuse, composting, and recycling;

i create jobs and income for island residents;

i comply with the state's waste management goals;

i reduce the county's overall solid waste management costs; and

i create partnerships with businesses to increase the amount of

recovered materials.

The new grant builds on ongoing efforts to improve reuse and recycling in West Hawai'i and at Kea'au in East Hawaii.

Those centers have recycled or mulched nearly 1,300 tons of resources and made possible the reuse of 122 tons of resources, officials said.

And they said the effort has conserved over 28,000 million BTUs of energy – the equivalent of removing 415 cars from the road each year or not using 226,000 gallons of gasoline each year.

Both locations recycle aluminum, office paper, magazines, plastics, cardboard, mixed paper, inkjet and toner cartridges, newspaper, plastics and glass.