The Wheelabrator Decision

[Daniel]

For anyone interested,

We have rubbish pickup at our home, The rubbish company gives us two 95 gallon dumpsters. One we pay for, it holds rubbish, however we may down size because we really don't need a 95 gallon even with a business. The second dumpster is FREE and is for recycleables. IT IS WORTH EVERY DIME! Its so simple, you put paper, glass, cans and metal, and plastic in the recycle bin. No sorting! The other stuff, whatever it might be, mostly non-recycleable packageing material or dirty and hazardous stuff. You can keep your HI five if you want, and get your $ back. One thing I might suggest, Rinse your food containers before you put them in. I find hot water works best for milk products.

Here is the number:

Big island disposal service.
808-938-4495

It sure beats going to the transfer station!

Daniel R Diamond

[gtill]

Excellent Daniel, private enterprise, unrestricted or otherwise encumbered by Govt, or particularily UH schools of whatever from Oahu!

With todays further escalation in pricing by Matson (New Big Three), shipping or processing will overwhelm any possible profits to make recycling happen! If a ream of cardboard is worth more as fuel than shipped to a remote buyer, then burn it!

Under UH guidance, NELHA was built to provide electricity to Kona. As the pipes fouled, instead of cleaning them the Profs went into a series of grants to build aquaculture ventures. Many millions have been paid and companies built by investors money, only to go belly up leaving many millions lost to their investors.(including me).

State Economics as led by UH, is much like Cuba! Same principals, but with a little capitalism slipped in for dressing!

[JWFITZ]

How about a rigorous front end tax on every object shipped to Hawaii, that in a very real manner covers the cost of shipping the crap away? Not only does it solve that problem, it also improves the local economy as anything actually produced here gets a leg up, as it's a cost not borne locally.

[james weatherford]

Daniel,
The pick-up service sounds good! The recyclables would be going to an increasing number of local businesses that are buying locally and selling paper, plastic, and metal to recycling industries.

An alarming point you mentioned was putting "hazardous waste" into the non-recyclable bin.
Surely the company did not tell you that was OK?
Because, it is not OK to put that in the landfill -- although lots and lots of people do what you seem to be doing. Just because they are unaware. This is exactly what happens with incineration: hazardous materials (chemicals, batteries, electronics, aerosol cans, etc.) are not removed and when burned, toxins are emitted. The 'environmental protection technology' simply doesn't take care of it all 24/7 for 20+ years - especially when the operator makes money by degrading, rather than maintaining, the equipment (as repeatedly happens).

JWFITZ: Indeed, what is taking place increasingly around the world is that manufacturers are being required to either take care of their own waste generation or not market products and packaging that result in waste generation.



James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park

[Rob Tucker]

I've been expecting the day that manufacturers would be required to submit EIS reports on the products they manufacture. At this moment it is a capitalist assumption that if you can make a better mousetrap you can - and should! and wrap it snugly in plastic.

On that day when environmental concerns force a change of the better mousetrap theory and envionmental justifications are employed over profit then capitalism as we have known it all our lives will be replaced with something else. Many will not be happy about that.

Our island is a unique place where that change might just occur sooner rather than later.

[james weatherford]

Fundamental to a free market is choice.
Try choosing to buy something without a plastic wrapper.
As it happens, that plastic wrapper often has nothing to do with why the customer is buying the contents and nothing to do with the better sides of capitalism (innovation, distribution of rewards and costs, etc). The plastic wrapper is all about meeting the needs and conveniences of others in the supply chain before the customer. Without choice, the customer is stuck with a plastic wrapper paid for through the price of the product and by way of disposing of it. The unnecessary plastic is then either dumped in the bushes or ocean, or in the rubbish bin to be buried or burned -- all of which will cause further cost to the community in the form of pollution.

...pollution results when someone gets away with causing a cost and not paying for it...

My take on freedom -- enterprise and otherwise --is that everybody pays their own way, and everyone benefits from their own effort. A distant manufacturer dumping plastic wrappers and bags into our community does not meet up to that standard -- the cost of dealing with that plastic is not borne by the one that generates it and benefits from its existence.

btw: great site for pulling the head out of the hole and looking outat what the world is doing -

http://www.zwia.org/zwc.html


James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park

[Daniel]

James,

Sorry for the confusion, by hazardous items I meant things you shouldn't put in recycling bin due health concerns such as dirty diapers, bathroom waste, raw meat packages etc... Certainly not chemicals and such.

Aloha,

Daniel R Diamond

[JWFITZ]

Here's a place for good pirate environmentalism,

So, as you're filling out the credit card info for that new hot water heater, you ask, casually, "Where can I put the cardboard?"

"What?"

"The trash you wrap it in, I don't want that, and I don't want to take it home."

"We don't deal with that."

"You should, I mean, that crap is there for your benefit, not mine."

"I don't know what to tell you."

"Can I just leave it in the parking lot?"

"Of course not!"

"Oh, I don't want it then." And walk away.

Hah! Try this at Walmart.

And it's a fact, clean through. I nearly go pale when I see that single, organic, bell pepper, on a foam back shrink wrapped, for 4 dollars. I die when I see it purchased.

[gtill]

Better yet, wal mart could sell it to you cheaper, but unweapped, straight off the factory floor straight into a truck then to a ship to honolulu, transship to Hilo and trucked to your house, no extra baggage or pollution, and prepaid. Dropped off in your own garage, in it's own natural armor of paint and thin shetmetal. Less hassle for everyone involved! The same for computers, and all electronics. This would clear the dumps of plastic and cardboard, and provide innumerable jobs for repair people, and think of the benefits when we apply same to medical equipment and food supply, huge increase in medical resourses!

I do agree about the bellpepper wrap however, that's excessive!