The Green Machine

[Frank]

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/27433...ng-machine


Does the Big Island have one of these? if not, Why not?...only $4 mil?

[leilaniguy]

Because it involves using an incinerator, which has been voted down more than once here. People hear the word incinerator and all they think of(illogically) is smoke. We probably have enough Albizia alone to generate electricity for years.

[kalakoa]

People hear the word incinerator and all they think of(illogically) is smoke.

More illogically: burning/smoke is just fine when it's HELCO (or a joint).

[pahoated]

That is the waste-to-energy plant that Uncle Billy is promoting. It is on a much larger scale but it is replacing a whole dump. There will be sorting and reusing there.

Since this is no doubt going to come up, Hawaii doesn't recycle a single thing, much less 100%. All Hawaii does is collect, sort, and package for shipping. Look around. There are no iron or aluminum or copper smelters, no paper pulp mills, no plastics or glass plants. No recycling happens in Hawaii, the actual recycling processes happen in southeast Asia, Indo-china and China. Everything that is collected here is packaged in a form to tightly fit containers. These containers came in full of imported products and are empty for the way back, so recyclable scrap, nicely presorted can be shipped at discount rates back to areas where people are happy to earn $1 per hour. This is why Hawaii workers at recycling can get $10 minimum wage, the collected material has to pay Young Brothers to get back over to Honolulu, Honolulu truck drivers are paid to unload the containers from Young Brothers then truck it over to the international area of Honolulu, gets shipped thousands of miles, paid to unload there, drive it to the various actual recycling factories and plants, while still making a profit for the foreign buyer of Hawaii's recyclables.

"Mahalo nui Pele, 'ae noho ia moku 'aina" - kakahiaka oli

[terracore]

Hawaii does recycle some things. According to Maui Brewing, their beer cans are made from aluminum recycled on Oahu. Also, here is a short list of other items: http://www.opala.org/solid_waste/archive...guide.html

[Frank]

tha point is...with a mere $4 mill investment the Big Island acquires a seat at the world wide table of "recycle to energy", not to mention relief for our landfill. I'm of the opinion that burning the end product on our Island is not a priority but trash processing for end use is a killer first step in prudent management of our trash.

After all, forests are harvested in the Pacific Northwest and shipped to the far east for processing then shipped back to the USA for use in construction. how you figga?