What do do with the trash from Hawaii? (Honolulu: houses, to buy)

[HankDfrmSD]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Awhile back, mid-nineties or so, they did some sort of rubbish-to-energy thing, although I forget the details at the moment. They've started recycling to some extent but not very thoroughly and even if it is recycled it still has to be barged away to somewhere else and that's usually too expensive.

For those not from Oahu, and even for those from Oahu with a somewhat shorter data-base than mine, here's a little history on Oahu "trash":

"Way back when" the trash was picked up manually.

One driver on the truck, and two riding on "steps" at the back corners of the truck and running behind the truck as it barely stopped at each house (tell you why later).

And you didn't call them "trash men" - they were "rubbish men" - sounded more refined.

The workers were really friendly, and it was fun to interact with them on trash day, but you were careful to make their job easy, by not making the green-waste bundles too big, etc.

We left them full cases of beer, next to the rubbish, at Christmas. Driving down your street on the last trash day before Christmas, the place looked like a beer warehouse!

Workers were fully Unionized, and man, was that Union powerful.

The Union contract was set up so that each truck had a certain area to cover, and when that truck was finished with that area, the crew could go home. They moved pretty fast, and they started as early as they could, to move up the "pau hana" time as much as possible. So early that residents complained they were revving up their trucks in the neighborhood before dawn. They weren't allowed to start before 6 AM.

Then came automation, and the transition to one-man trucks, and things got bad. The Union objected to the whole idea, and dragged its feet for years. At first, the only pickup that was automated was trash, and recyclables were contracted out separately, while green waste was still picked up the old way. (That system REALLY cut down on landfill use, in my opinion – there’s a green-waste facility in Kailua which I use, and it’s GREAT! It all gets ground up, and sold or given away in different grades of fine-ness, so the need for "potting soil" by nurseries and backyard propagators (I am one) goes way down - which reduces those barges coming from the mainland)

The early recyclable system was a nightmare, designed by a bureaucrat. The system was designed to make money for the government, so the return of the HI-5 cans was a nightmare. You couldn’t crush the cans, and turn them in by weight – each can had to be put into a machine by hand, which “read” the can to make sure it was “authorized”, and that took an age. For a serious beer drinker like me, that was a problem!
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpppppppppppppp!!!! !!

Eventually, common sense prevailed, and you could crush the cans, dump them in a barrel, and have them weighed.

Even more eventually, the city of Honolulu finally went to fully automated pick-up of trash twice a week in a gray can, and green waste and recyclables in green and blue cans on alternate weeks. Most of the trash goes to an incinerator called H-Power, that generates electricity for the island.

It took a while, but we got there.

Hank

[HankDfrmSD]

Originally Posted by HankDfrmSD

It took a while, but we got there.

One more thing:

Waaaaaay back when, there was a landfill in Kailua.

In those days (about 15-20 years ago) you could go to "the dump" in your pickup truck, and dump your stuff, look around, and see if there was some "good stuff" that someone had discarded.

Sometimes, you came home with more than you brought. I remember one time I was scavenging for plastic pots for my "propagating", and my wife saw a couple on a pile nearby. When I climbed up the pile, I found that each pot had a Raphis Palm in it, about four feet high, and a little wilted. Obviously, the owner had decided said wilted palms were dead, not wilted. One of them (the palm, not the owner) still sits on my lanai, regularly watered by my drip system.

My point:

The old "dump" was on one side of H-3 as it runs through a gulch. On the other side of H-3 is the Ameron Rock Quarry, which is almost dug out.

When that quarry is fully dug out, it is a perfect place for a new landfill. The green-waste facility is in one little corner of that area.

I'm sure all my NIMBY neighbors in Kailua will line up to applaud this (More likely nail me into the town stocks).

Hank

[ronnieramone]

Actually, the volcano/trash idea is not the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It has serious flaws, to be sure, but it's not really any dumber then digging a hole in the earth and burying garbage in it! You can burn trash to generate energy, and while it should never happen at an unstable volcano site, burning trash is far better than burying it in almost every circumstance. Exceptions to burning trash would be dealing with certain chemical compounds that produce noxious gases when burned. Burying garbage, though, is especially foolish in Hawaii where land is in short supply and the economy depends primarily on tourism. In fact, the idea of having landfills in Hawaii is monumentally stupid. Hawaiian think-tanks need to solve that trash problem quick.

[ohmanon]

Well yes, the volcano is a natural wonder but so are the Native Hawaiians, along with the Leeward Coast and Waimanalo on Oahu.

Volcanoes aren't exactly politically correct and I doubt if they'll ever go 'green' as they spew tons of their own pollution but I still think it was an interesting question. And from that article, if I had to live next to a landfill, I'd consider that a pretty hefty social faux pas too.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Originally Posted by PacificFlights

No matter what twist is put on it, it is a STUPID idea. Hawaii volcanos are a natural wonder and a naturel event. I don't care if it was wondering or suggestion or just a thought, it showes how ignorant people are to their natural resources. What do you think would happen if someone posted using the grand canyon as a landfill. or Yellowstone as a toxix waste dump because of the corrosive nature of the area? How much trash can be disposed of inside Carlsbad caverns? Just because people on the mainland are destroying their land by dumping waste wherever, does not mean hawaiii needs to play that game.

Hawaii trash propblem is it is a water locked island out int he Pacific. There is just so much land to make landfills and Hawaii has no land they want to use for landfills. Unlike the mainland that has turned many midwest rural farms into mega landfills. Kansas, Texas. and Nebraska have all become landfill industry to collect money from states who's landfills are filled. Anywhere there is open land away from people the mainland builds landfills.

Hawaii nees to follow the lead of other pacific island nations and tax the packaging which is most of the trash. Items in minimual packaging isn't taxed, but a plastic bag inside a cardboard box inside a clear plastic sleev wrapped in cellophane, tax that puppy to pay for waste deisposal.

But I will not change the stance that just wondering or just seeing lava as some heat source to burn garabage is stupid as stupid comes.

You should not mistake a brainstorming question for stupidity. You must have an open mind to deal with the mess, pun intended.

The question remains, what is Hawaii going to do with her trash if the mainland does not want it, and Hawaii cannot dispose of it? In case you missed the point, Hawaii entered into a contract to export the trash to the mainland and to 'destroy it' than to destroy Hawaii, as you so elequently noted:

"Just because people on the mainland are destroying their land by dumping waste wherever, does not mean hawaiii needs to play that game."

A little hypocrisy there, no?

[hothulamaui]

curb side recycling would be wonderful. on the mainland you have a bin for paper, cans, plastic and bottles. it is picked up every week or so, here you have to drive your stuff to a center. more people would recycle if it was easier. it always amazed me that hawaii was so late getting into recycling and we still are not where we should be.

[Calico Salsa]

Gotta credit HookTheBrotherUp for handling such passionate responses so well, and sticking to the concept instead of reacting.

Maui still combines green waste and rubbish in the same cans, and in the same landfill. One can personally haul green waste to the dump, but seems like the individual costs of gasoline (high) and the inclination to do so (low) makes this a rarity.

Recycleables are another - not yet there - kind of situation. Maui County reps explained they don't have the budget to deal with everything, which is why the recycle collection is limited to, for example, plastics in bottle shape only. The same #1 plastic in another form, like clamshell containers, is not allowed. The people who are at the recycle stations are usually only there for a short duration; I'm told people quit after a short while because it's hot and dirty and pays low.

I dream of the kind of recycling available in San Francisco, where they have conveyor belts and people who pick out nearly everything - paper, cardboard, metal, glass, plastic until only a small percentage of real garbage remains. Then that gets composted.

Our Maui dump also no longer lets you pick up anything that someone else is dumping. You can be there with your truck, shoveling out whatever, and if the fellow next to you has a piece of furniture you want, they stop you from taking it! Very strange. I suppose someone's lawsuit killed that; I heard that people tried to sue for getting injured at the dump while wandering around.

We have used Maui Freecycle to get rid of some things that other people can use, instead of dumping them. You can Google Freecycle and find one in your area.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

What about a nuclear incinerator? These are used successfuly in other countries; the 10K+ degree temps will vaporize just about anything, including any toxic gases. The side benefit would be electricity generation for Oahu; I am guessing electricity is costly there.

One plant is all that is needed as nuclear plants put out megawatts of power. Unfortunately, I don't think power can be sent to the other islands, but the other islands can ship their trash to Oahu.

'Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone, if people get over the fear of nuclear power, which BTW, is very abundant in Hawaii anyway given the nuclear powered ships, subs and arsenal of the military.

[AlohaHuey]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

I read this article today; it discusses the problem Hawaii has with finding a place for her trash. Is it true no other place can be found for a landfill? How about dumping bales into one of the volcanoes? Not a romantic idea, and weird of course, but it would solve the problem... and it is "natural", yes? May as well put that lava to good use. It does not present a pretty image, but if you add the word "Green" to it, it will be accepted by most.

Other cities on the mainland do somewhat the same thing, but it is expensive, and requires lots of electricity, another problem for Hawaii; those cities use high energy plasma to vaporize the trash.

The toxic gas that accompanies erupting lava (which can be fatal, hence the term "toxic") pretty much dooms that ill-conceived idea.

[AlohaHuey]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

What about a nuclear incinerator? These are used successfuly in other countries; the 10K+ degree temps will vaporize just about anything, including any toxic gases. The side benefit would be electricity generation for Oahu; I am guessing electricity is costly there.

One plant is all that is needed as nuclear plants put out megawatts of power. Unfortunately, I don't think power can be sent to the other islands, but the other islands can ship their trash to Oahu.

'Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone, if people get over the fear of nuclear power, which BTW, is very abundant in Hawaii anyway given the nuclear powered ships, subs and arsenal of the military.

With nuclear, you also have NUCLEAR WASTE. Now, instead of waste, you have radioactive waste.

No improvement there.