"If private haulers elected to ship all 400,000 tons of garbage off island that they now delivered to the city landfill or power plant, the city budget would see an annual loss of $28 million"
Star Bulletin
Star Bulletin
It would also cost more than $10 million to make a facility that prepares the garbage. So what would I do with an extra $28 million every year? We could put that money towards a curbside recycling program, or give rebates to people that have the least amount of trash going into landfills. Maybe we could give jobs to the homeless people that already pull recyclables fom trash cans around the state.
Of course the other option is to find more space on O'ahu to create another landfill. What never crosses these people mind is to take the waste out of the waste stream. Let's recycle the trash! We should decrease the amount of solid waste and increase waste reduction and recycling practices by the citizens of and businesses located in the city.
Composting, worm bins, recycling at least HI 5 products should take place in all businesses. Other cities can recycle newspaper, magazines, sorted mail and office paper, cardboard, paperboard, telephone books, loose paper, glass containers, plastic containers, steel cans, aluminum cans and scraps, reusable clothing and household items, without a problem. I see NO recycling containers in Waikiki. People are forced to throw away recyclable items. Of course we have concerned citizens that are willing to dig through the trash to recover this lost treasure. Too bad our politicians aren't forced to do this.
With the cost of shipping our trash to the mainland being almost 3 times the amount of running our landfills, this is not so much a moral issue as an economic issue. What will it take to get people to recycle? Most cities charge their residents if they don't recycle.
Of course the other option is to find more space on O'ahu to create another landfill. What never crosses these people mind is to take the waste out of the waste stream. Let's recycle the trash! We should decrease the amount of solid waste and increase waste reduction and recycling practices by the citizens of and businesses located in the city.
Composting, worm bins, recycling at least HI 5 products should take place in all businesses. Other cities can recycle newspaper, magazines, sorted mail and office paper, cardboard, paperboard, telephone books, loose paper, glass containers, plastic containers, steel cans, aluminum cans and scraps, reusable clothing and household items, without a problem. I see NO recycling containers in Waikiki. People are forced to throw away recyclable items. Of course we have concerned citizens that are willing to dig through the trash to recover this lost treasure. Too bad our politicians aren't forced to do this.
With the cost of shipping our trash to the mainland being almost 3 times the amount of running our landfills, this is not so much a moral issue as an economic issue. What will it take to get people to recycle? Most cities charge their residents if they don't recycle.
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