Finally, it begins: The great leap into a new phase of islandwide environmental protection, a phase all the more welcome because it hinges on public participation.

That is the strength of the soon-to-launch city curbside recycling pilot program, part of a new 10-year action plan promoting better stewardship of O'ahu's resources.

Many people are already intensely aware of how they've added individually to the problems of a wasteful society, particularly on an island community that can't afford to continue down that path. Recycling represents a way they become part of the solution.

Surely that's one reason a City Charter amendment requiring a curbside recycling program to be implemented passed by such a wide margin in last year's elections. And now it's the duty of city officials to give the project a strong foundation for expansion beyond the communities of the one-year pilot phase, Hawai'i Kai and Mililani.

It's encouraging, in fact, to see recycling discussed within the context of the new environmental plan, because that seems to anchor it to a broader commitment. If Honolulu wants to reach the stated goal by becoming a model of sustainability, then working collectively to reduce overall waste through recycling is a step in the right direction.

The Hannemann administration calls its initiative the "21st Century Ahupua'a Plan," neatly applying the Hawaiian term for self-sustaining land divisions to its new approach.

The Hawaiians were known for wisely managing resources within these land sections, an achievement that assumes action is guided by shared environmental values.

Developing such an ethic is a byproduct of a curbside recycling program, enabling citizens to act in the common interest. It brings conservation down to the household level, raising awareness of waste and methods for reducing it.

As the island continues to grow, O'ahu will need every means at its disposal (pun intended) to live within limits. This means garbage-to-energy conversion, recycling, curbing packaging waste, shipping trash off-island — all of it.

Critics of curbside recycling point out that the costs of shipping materials elsewhere cancel out any proceeds, but economics can't be the only calculation. Treading lightly on the Earth is not something to be left as a matter for the trash haulers alone.

Adopting a conservation ethic can be everyone's duty. In an island state, it must be.