12-27-2007, 06:50 AM
The State of Hawaii and it's counties are 20 plus years behind the curve on waste management issues. I do not predict that we, as a state, will catch up and pass the pack in the 2-3 years left on our East Side landfill.
An unlined landfill with 100+ inches of rain a year is a mess in and of itself.
Something short and mid term needs to be done to address this mess until the population here can be entrusted with something like aggressive recycling programs. I trust the citizens with recycling less than I trust the county with an incinerator. Push recycling hard here and what will happen is the trash will get tossed in the bushes and surf.
I just read where there was serious flooding in Samoa (I believe it was Samoa) where the local hospital was heavily damaged. The cause of the flood was the accumulation of trash in the river. The trash and garbage was of sufficient quantity to dam the river. Damn. I know that's extreme but don't think it, or something like it, can't happen here. Aggressive recycling is not passive. It is active, needs to be universal and is labor intensive. People are lazy.
I respect the ideal of aggressive recycling and reduced consumption but I also think it is fantasy to think it can be applied effectively, much less successfully, here in the next decade.
West Hawaii landfill, barging, incinerating, remanufacturing, etc. all have more immediate potential, In my humble opinion, than massive recycling at this moment in time.
Barging, derided by some, is actually what happens to recycled materials here anyway. It gets baled and barged to somewhere else. Too bad it also requires burning more oil to move those trash filled containers thousands of miles away. I prefer to look for Hawaii solving it's own problems rather then shipping them elsewhere.
Opponents of incinerating, like James, have shrugged off the H-Power operation on Oahu and I think that does not serve the issue or argument well. H-Power is there and has been for years. It is not a theory. There is a history there that could, and should, be examined and understood. I find it incredible that the citizens of Oahu would have zero concerns about health and safety. Yet there is no call to remove H-Power. The phrase An Inconvenient Truth comes to mind. I also see an allegory in 100,000 +/- little incinerators called internal combustion engines. I will agree though that the costs I have heard sound way too high and Jacobson may be quite correct about getting fleeced on the price tag for the WTE proposal.
I cannot condemn WTE as a potential solution until I know more.
An unlined landfill with 100+ inches of rain a year is a mess in and of itself.
Something short and mid term needs to be done to address this mess until the population here can be entrusted with something like aggressive recycling programs. I trust the citizens with recycling less than I trust the county with an incinerator. Push recycling hard here and what will happen is the trash will get tossed in the bushes and surf.
I just read where there was serious flooding in Samoa (I believe it was Samoa) where the local hospital was heavily damaged. The cause of the flood was the accumulation of trash in the river. The trash and garbage was of sufficient quantity to dam the river. Damn. I know that's extreme but don't think it, or something like it, can't happen here. Aggressive recycling is not passive. It is active, needs to be universal and is labor intensive. People are lazy.
I respect the ideal of aggressive recycling and reduced consumption but I also think it is fantasy to think it can be applied effectively, much less successfully, here in the next decade.
West Hawaii landfill, barging, incinerating, remanufacturing, etc. all have more immediate potential, In my humble opinion, than massive recycling at this moment in time.
Barging, derided by some, is actually what happens to recycled materials here anyway. It gets baled and barged to somewhere else. Too bad it also requires burning more oil to move those trash filled containers thousands of miles away. I prefer to look for Hawaii solving it's own problems rather then shipping them elsewhere.
Opponents of incinerating, like James, have shrugged off the H-Power operation on Oahu and I think that does not serve the issue or argument well. H-Power is there and has been for years. It is not a theory. There is a history there that could, and should, be examined and understood. I find it incredible that the citizens of Oahu would have zero concerns about health and safety. Yet there is no call to remove H-Power. The phrase An Inconvenient Truth comes to mind. I also see an allegory in 100,000 +/- little incinerators called internal combustion engines. I will agree though that the costs I have heard sound way too high and Jacobson may be quite correct about getting fleeced on the price tag for the WTE proposal.
I cannot condemn WTE as a potential solution until I know more.
Assume the best and ask questions.
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Punaweb moderator