Suddenly, U.S. cities — which had benefited from an easy way to make recycling pencil out, given that for decades, China had been happy to buy up 40-50 percent of the recyclable materials — now had to come up with other solutions.
While the islands face a particular problem given the added factor of shipping costs, Oahu is not alone: Philadelphia, for example, has begun sending half of its recyclables to the incinerator.
The alternative contemplated by the City and County of Honolulu is a variant of that, though in milder form. Noting the falling values of recyclable glass, aluminum and paper now being collected in the city’s curbside recycling program, the city auditor in 2017 proposed redirecting much of it.
The waste, recyclable or otherwise, could go to the garbage-to-energy plant, H-POWER, to reduce the volume of what otherwise is bound for the landfill, according to the audit. The numbers are hard to dispute. From a high in 2011 when the sales value of the collected materials topped $2.5 million annually, it has dropped by more than half — and continues to fall.
Regardless, the notion of abandoning the curbside recycling effort quickly drew opposition from environmental groups, including the Sierra Club. Jodi Malinoski, policy advocate for the Hawaii chapter, said the organization does not want to see the city continually feeding its garbage to the plant, even if harvesting energy from it is a partial offset.
“It seems like we have to keep the fire going,” she said. “It’s time to cut that out.”
Rather than curbing the recycling, Malinoski said environmentalists favor finding a way to cut costs by reducing waste overall and by manufacturing a product with recyclable materials on-island rather than shipping it elsewhere.
There may be a point at which the city and the environmental groups can meet in the middle, said the city’s environmental services chief, and that discussion is likely to happen over the next several months.
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WHAT’S SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE BINS?
>> Green bins contain the green waste. That’s largely yard clippings: grass and tree and hedge trimmings. But it also can include plain vegetable and fruit waste unmixed with other ingredients.
>> Blue bins contain the recyclables, which can all be mixed together. Paper products are limited to newspaper, corrugated cardboard and white or colored office paper. Paper should exclude glossy paper or inserts, clips, envelopes and sticky labels. Glass bottles and jars, aluminum cans, metal food cans and plastic containers of types 1 and 2 (look for the triangle with a 1 or 2 inside, usually embossed on the bottom of the container).
>> Gray bins contain the regular trash — everything else suitable for general disposal, excluding anything hazardous. These are items such as plastic bags, Styrofoam, junk mail, magazines, cereal boxes and other chipboard, food cans and plastic containers other than those coded No. 1 or No. 2.
>> Green bins contain the green waste. That’s largely yard clippings: grass and tree and hedge trimmings. But it also can include plain vegetable and fruit waste unmixed with other ingredients.
>> Blue bins contain the recyclables, which can all be mixed together. Paper products are limited to newspaper, corrugated cardboard and white or colored office paper. Paper should exclude glossy paper or inserts, clips, envelopes and sticky labels. Glass bottles and jars, aluminum cans, metal food cans and plastic containers of types 1 and 2 (look for the triangle with a 1 or 2 inside, usually embossed on the bottom of the container).
>> Gray bins contain the regular trash — everything else suitable for general disposal, excluding anything hazardous. These are items such as plastic bags, Styrofoam, junk mail, magazines, cereal boxes and other chipboard, food cans and plastic containers other than those coded No. 1 or No. 2.
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WHO GETS IT, AND WHERE DOES IT GO?
>> Green waste goes to Hawaiian Earth Recycling in Wahiawa, which processes it into mulch and soil amendments such as compost.
>> Mixed recyclables are screened, separated and packed for shipping at the RRR Recycling plant at Campbell Industrial Park. According to its website: Corrugated cardboard and newspaper are sent largely to Asia to be remade into more cardboard, brown paper bags, more newspaper, wrapping paper and molded packaging. Aluminum cans are shipped to the mainland to be reprocessed into new aluminum cans and other products; glass bottles may be crushed and used as construction backfill locally, but much of it is shipped to the mainland to be melted into new glass products; plastics are shipped to the mainland or Asia to be remanufactured.
>> Trash largely goes to H-POWER to be burned for the heat that drives electrical generators; what can’t be incinerated goes to the landfill.
>> Green waste goes to Hawaiian Earth Recycling in Wahiawa, which processes it into mulch and soil amendments such as compost.
>> Mixed recyclables are screened, separated and packed for shipping at the RRR Recycling plant at Campbell Industrial Park. According to its website: Corrugated cardboard and newspaper are sent largely to Asia to be remade into more cardboard, brown paper bags, more newspaper, wrapping paper and molded packaging. Aluminum cans are shipped to the mainland to be reprocessed into new aluminum cans and other products; glass bottles may be crushed and used as construction backfill locally, but much of it is shipped to the mainland to be melted into new glass products; plastics are shipped to the mainland or Asia to be remanufactured.
>> Trash largely goes to H-POWER to be burned for the heat that drives electrical generators; what can’t be incinerated goes to the landfill.
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