hunterbishop.com

Next mayor? Surely you jest Dante blew out.Bernard died before he found the demand on his desk. Lorraine moved no where closer and Steve talked a lot. Only success I have seen has been by attorney Bobbie Jean,who has made a huge dent in the metal junk pile, peeled back green waste to current dumping. We have both ignored and begged for time. Nothing has happened. Feds are broke because of Iraqi war. I think we are doing a silly dance for no good cause.

Hello Hunter,
You have a strong arguement and it does seen strange that our County is not milking all of this money. I personally support Harry because his intentions for the people are good and ethical. Let's hope that the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board won't cut the budget anymore. In regards to the curbside pick-up; this is part of my campaign platform for Panaewa. We are likely to start this pilot project if I am elected. Also, I am commited to tackle our garbage problem with the help of strong public support. For now, I am waiting for the Sierra Club's endorsement in August.
Jet Heng
OIF Veteran
Candidate County Council District 4

When we got super sized stores shipping in consumables by the container load causing people to buy and throw away faster, then maybe its easier to just burn the stuff that is being replaced by new consumables. Limiting the amount of consumables being shipped in to me is the first thing to work on.

How many families have you seen at events aound town at the recycling center w/bookoo can for recycling? That's cause they basically do it for a living. How possibley difficult could it be to divide the county into sections (size depending on occupants) and provide cheap paint buckets (2) to each household. The section would be purchansed for a nominal fee each year by the collector and they would be responsible for collection.
I know such a simple solution keeping money for families and not big busines, just isn't bureacratic enough!

There are some notable heel-draggers in the county when it comes to any recycling efforts.

I have been trying to figure out why Leithead-Todd was put in charge of Environment. She has never shown any interest in it. Previously said her constituents didn't care about it either.

All rubbish should be separated out. Homeowners should compost all their kitchen wastes. Reusable things can be sold and the money spent on supporting community gardens to feed the poor. All greenwaste can be turned into biochar which increases soil fertility and reduces need for fertilizer. A biochar facility can generate biodiesel and power.We have an endless supply of greenwaste. The latest Farm Bill gives 50 million in grants for biochar projects.Wise communities would be jumping at this chance to fund biochar projects.

Whatever. What I want to know is, what kind of sense does it make for the county to spend good green money studying curbside recycling when we don't even have curbside trash pickup? This will turn out to be a waste of money. The study will find that curbside recycling is cost prohibitive in a county that can't even afford to collect ordinary unsorted refuse. Recycling is a good idea, but costs money because every ton has to be subsidized above and beyond what it would cost to landfill it. Add to that the cost of curbside collection, and the recycling subsidy increases. Makes no sense at all.

Da Dummies...

Your point makes perfect sense to me. I must be one dummie, too!

The Feds are broke because no one watched Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae give loan money to people who had no business getting a loan. The war was privatized without accountability, and the Air Force predominantly pisses away money like there is no tomorrow. Not that the other services don't make wasteful mistakes, but we are pikers by comparison. We failed to build refineries after the last gas crisis. We allow other countries to drill off our banks for our oil. We won't build solar arrays because of frogs in the desert. We fail to use available DARPA and DOE technology. I've waited for Harry and Nancy to make the big changes and just like the GOP they make excuses. We need leaders not Bank & Oil harlots. When you screw up in the military at least you don't get a golden parachute, you just get publicly disgraced and fired.

A few clarifications:
The $$ neglected by the County were (very commendably) gotten by HIEDB from US EPA.
Curbside recycling, in the absence of 'curbside trash' is actually a successfully done thing in lots of places. The people conducting this study have a very good record in the business of resource recovery through recycling and reuse.
The alleged 'subsidy' for recycling, when it exists -- and that is not always the case -- is at less cost than 'subsidizing' wasteing resources as trash. The global resource market for recycled materials (metals, paper, plastic) is white hot and will be that way for decades to come. Market demand is what is driving recycling. Hawaii County just needs to get our act together and take advantage of it.

About the Kim Administration:
It was once said of Richard Nixon, something to the effect that he was totally capable and totally corrupt.
It might be said of Harry Kim's experience with the County's 'wasteful' problem, that he has been totally inept and totally naive in thinking that he was really doing the right thing.

While I appreciate the kudos from Hugh Clark, any headway in recycling is due primarily to the Mayor Kim's support of the department, the work of its prior director, Barbara Bell, the staff of the Solid Waste Division, its recycling section, the efforts of HIEDB (thank you Paula Helfrich) and numerous private businesses and citizens. The Recycling Section, lead by Linda Peters, recently got a grant of a million dollars to support its efforts from the state DOH. HIEDB has worked to support recycling through its programs and EPA grants (thank you Senator Daniel Inouye).

As for curbside recycling, the reasons we will look at what it would cost and what it would entail to establish such a program are many. Several Council members have expressed interest in curbside recycling and the Council has adopted Zero Waste as a goal for the County. The most successful recycling programs in the country have curbside pick-up of trash, green waste and recyclables. In order to reach the goals that the Council has set, the County needs to determine if curbside pick-up should be part of the solution. We are the only county in Hawai`i that does not provide such service to its residents.

E keaauwahine -- `olelo ho`ahewa `oe (kala mai i a`u, hemahema i `olelo Hawai`i, so I hope I got this right).

"Alleged subsidy?" Are we or are we not shipping most of our non-green waste recyclables to the freaking Mainland? It is my understanding we pay someone to collect the recyclables from the containers at the transfer stations, sort and package them, ship them more than 2,000 miles and deliver them, and you want to argue that costs the same as dropping them in a hole in the ground? Get out.

I know it will be expensive to dig a new hole and line it per EPA standards, but I don't buy the argument that recycling breaks even, even if you include the cost of a new landfill. This is especially true with the rising cost of shipping and fuel, which suggest ("white hot" recycled commodities markets or not) we will be forced to increase our recycling subsidies in the years ahead.

This county has paid operators like Pahio for years to haul away our recyclables precisely because the money to be earned from the raw materials themselves does not equal the cost of moving them to the Mainland where they can be put to profitable use. If it did, people would haul our recyclables away for free. They don't. Curbside obviously will make recycling more expensive per pound for county taxpayers. How could it possibly be otherwise?

Sorry, Ms. Leihead-Todd, but spending $100K on a study to tell you that is dumb.

We pay to bury trash and pay more than it costs to recycle it
Isn't paying to bury trash subsidizing waste?

Da Dummies,
btw: if you're so knowledgeable about relative costs of lanfills and recycling and curbside pick up, how about helping the rest of us.
first thing we need to know is your name.
second, put some number$ to your assertions.

otherwise, your words are only, well, trash...

Folks,
If I get elected I'll look into the Sierra Club's 0 waste concept. However, it's only a concept. If we can't find a better way to solve this rubbish issue by Dec 2009 than I will try bring the Wheelabrator folks back to Hilo. It's all good that you bloggers want to help with this trash crisis but we are running out of time cuz the landfill will be full in less than 4 years. For those of you liked the landfill idea than you should be the truck drivers going up that steep pile of rubbish cuz trucks have fliped over before. Now, if you support the incinator project funded by Hawaii County bonds than please send a $100 contribution to Friends of Jet Heng PO BOX 7013 Hilo, HI 96270. At last, folks, I traveled to 22 countries, plenty of museums and urban planning exbihitions, and developed places like Germany and Beijing; they are still using and will continue to use incinaration. MAHALO.
Jet Heng
OIF Veteran
Candidate for County Council District 4

Jet,

Are you using Beijing as a positive example? Their idea of cleaning the air for the olympics is to shut down industry and send everyone out of the city.

Temper, temper, Mr. Weatherford. You can call my opinions trash if you like, but I'd be more interested in hearing you rebut the arguments, which you don't seem to be able to do.

I don't have specific dollar values for landfill vs.recycle, so you are fair to call me on that. Leihead-Todd surely does, and perhaps she will share that with us.

In the meantime,do YOU have dollar estimates that show recycling is cheaper, or even comparable to the cost of landfilling IN THIS COUNTY? Of course you don't. I know about the subsidies because I watched this county spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even millions of dollars by now, on recycling contracts over the years to get rid of the stuff. Apart from some plastic park benches and a failed project to mix glass into asphalt, I know of no uses in Hawaii for this stuff. Virtually all of it goes to the Mainland, and shipping costs are up, up, up. No controversy there.

I also know this county has avoided the subject of municipal refuse collection like the plague because the taxpayers here are understandably stingy. Harry Kim is under attack right now by people who say he grew government too much. Can you imagine if he hired enough county workers to collect rubbish for 175,000 people? The guy would have been impeached, no doubt.

I think you goofy tree huggers need to entertain the possibility that the economics of recycling in the middle of the Pacific might not be quite the bargain that they are in urban L.A. What makes sense there may make no sense here because of shipping costs and the lack of local industries that can use the recycled materials. And consider the obvious, that curbside pickup (although I have no curb) will make the economics even less attractive. Still with me, James?

If modest recycling programs in Hawaii can help slow the flow of trash into our landfills and use our resources more wisely, great. But, like the incinerator, the taxpayers' enthusiasm for the idea goes down as the price goes up.

While specific commodities cost more to recyle, overall, our average recycling cost per ton is about $65 (metals and green waste cost less while the 2-bin recycling costs more). This is in part because the cost of metal recycling has gone down and due to world demand we will be actually getting paid for our metal if prices stay high. This compares favorably with our cost to landfill since the combined cost to run our landfills and transfer stations significantly exceeds $65/ton.

And to the extent that we can extend the life of our landfills through the three Rs, we avoid or defer the costs of closure, post-closure and new construction of landfills or alternatives (mass burn, gasification, plasma, flash carbonization, bio-char, anaerobic digestion, aerobic digestion, bio-refining etc).

Decisions regarding solid waste management cannot be based solely on fiscal concerns. The Council and the SWAC will have to balance environmental and social concerns in addition to cost. Costs will include not only initial costs (planning, design, construction) but life-cycle costs too (operations, additional construction, repair and maintenance, closure/remediation, post-closure).

It’s important to clear up a misunderstanding about a posting that appeared on HunterBishop.com, Puna news blog on Sunday, July 20, 2008 “County’s lagging recycling plan buried”. The County enthusiastically welcomes the opportunity to utilize $100,000 from EPA Grant funds through HIEDB to conduct a Curbside Recycling Pilot Study to determine if it is a fit for our island. Other communities have increased recycling and waste diversion by implementing curbside recycling.

Regarding the comments made by the Hawaii Island Economic Board (HIEDB), that the county was to get $200,000, but the HIEDB cut that amount in half because the County has yet to spend an earlier $150,000 grant for a Hilo facility to sort garbage for maximum recycling.

That statement is only partially correct. The plan was for these unspent funds to be added to another grant of $350,000 through EPA-HIEDB. The total amount of $500,000 was to be spent for construction costs for the Hilo Recycling Center adjacent to the Hilo Landfill, Hilo Transfer Station and the future Hilo Reload Facility. Without prior notification to the County, HIEDB revised its scope of work for the EPA funds to use the funds to support a Construction & Demolition (C&D) Reuse Facility in Hilo, Laulima, operated by the Arc of Hilo. The County supports this use of funds and this type of C&D facility will help to increase reuse of building materials and reduce waste in our landfills. HIEDB will also be using a portion of the EPA funds for planning and cost for the Zero Waste Conference in West Hawaii from September 11-13 2008.

However, the reduced funds available for the County were not sufficient for the planned Hilo Recycling Center. To use any portion of EPA grant funds for construction use, the County is required to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which consists of an evaluation of the environmental effects of a federal undertaking including its alternatives. A substantial portion of the $150,000 would be spent on the NEPA process alone, leaving even less funds for the Recycling Center construction.

As a more fiscally responsible alternative, the County plans to use the $150,000 unspent funds to replicate the success of the Keaau Reuse Center at the Keaau Transfer Station (started with EPA funds in 2003). The County is in process of finalizing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to expand Reuse Centers to other County transfer stations with the support of the EPA grant funds.

Too often reusable items like baby furniture, clothing and household goods are needlessly dumped in our transfer stations. The County has seen dramatic increases in community recycling by offering the convenient 2-Bin Recycling and with the expansion of Reuse Centers as a convenient alternative; residents will be encouraged to donate their reusable items and other residents will be able to obtain these items at no cost or a very low cost.

This administration from the Mayor’s office, the Department of Environmental Management, the Solid Waste Division to the Recycling Section are fully committed to policies and practices to promote and encourage reduction of waste, reuse and recycling. In the past 12 months resolutions for Hawaii Recycles Day and Zero Waste have been passed as well as increased funding for recycling programs, recycling education and outreach. A new recycling office and new staff position in West Hawaii was been established. Can we do more? Of course! We hope the next administration will continue to support and encourage our efforts of towards responsible waste reduction and waste management.

Linda Peters,
County Recycling Coordinator

Da Dummies,

BJLT provided the numbers. For anyone who has kept up with what has been happening here, not to mention in the rest of the world, it is well known that cost/ton is less for recycling than for landfilling AND, as BJLT pointed out, the costs for a landfill go on and on after closure.

So, there are the numbers. What's your name?

Linda Peters, County Recycling Coordinator-wrote:

"In the past 12 months resolutions for Hawaii Recycles Day and Zero Waste have been passed as well as increased funding for recycling programs, recycling education and outreach. A new recycling office and new staff position in West Hawaii was been established. Can we do more? "

Yea.

RECYCLE