By JoAnn A. Yukimura
(Previously published in The Garden Island, January 27, 2024)
Kauaʻi has a solid waste crisis. According to county officials, the current landfill will fill up before a new one can be ready.
More than half of the stuff used or consumed by Kauaʻi residents and 30,000 daily visitors ends up in the Kekaha Landfill–about 260 tons per day.
Where will all this stuff go if the new landfill isnʻt ready?
Even if the new landfill were ready, landfilling as the main way of dealing with Kauaʻi’s waste is not a good long-term solution.
Landfilling perpetuates a linear process– extract natural resources-> manufacture product-> use-> throw away or burn. This linear process, together with a growing world population and an insatiable consumer appetite worldwide, is gobbling up more natural resources than our planet can sustainably provide (lumber, minerals, metals, fish, fowl and meat). The unprecedented extraction of raw materials destroys forests, habitats, plants and animal species, water resources, human settlements and farmlands–basically all the things that sustain life on Planet Earth.
Instead of relying on landfilling, we need to become a 5R Community–one that Reduces, Re-uses, Repairs, Recycles and Rots (Composts).
We reduce our waste when we shop with reusable bags or use our thermo flask instead of buying bottled water. We re-use, when we take unwanted clothes or household goods to thrift stores–and shop there, too! We extend the useful life of our shoes or bags when we repair them at places like the Shoe Repair Shop. We recycle when we redeem our Hi5 containers or drop off our cardboard, bottles and and other recyclables at the county’s recycling drop centers. We compost when we participate in the Countyʻs free compost bin program, take our yard waste to county transfer stations or subscribe to the services of Compost Kaua’i.
The County needs to provide the infrastructure and policies that encourage 5R activities, such as regional composting operations to keep organics (green waste, food waste, and sewage sludge) (currently 28% of landfill inputs) out of the landfill. We need alternative ways to handle construction and demolition materials (presently 24% of landfill inputs.)
A curbside recycling program would provide the infrastructure needed to reduce the recyclables going into the landfill, which currently make up 36% of landfill inputs.
Curbside Recycling works because it’s so easy. Residents will put their dry recyclables (paper, cardboard, glass, metals, and 1 and #2 plastics) into a blue cart, and every two weeks, county crews will pick up and haul the recyclables to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) instead of the landfill. There, the recyclables will be cleaned, sorted and baled for sale.
At the MRF, trash becomes commodity, and the process becomes circular. In place of raw materials, the bales of recycled aluminum cans, paper, cardboard, and plastic will be used to make new products such as new aluminum cans, recycled paper, or plastic products.
If the County obtains federal infrastructure monies to build the MRF, county consultants estimate that the cost of Curbside Recycling will be $5.00 per household per month (2022 dollars). This is far cheaper than the $50+ per household per month it presently costs the County to provide curbside trash pickup and landfill disposal.
The County presently subsidizes trash pickup heavily. It could easily shift part of the trash subsidy to fully cover recycling costs and charge a little more for trash service to avoid any increase in real property taxes.
There is no time to waste. We ask the Mayor and the County Council to make building a MRF and implementing curbside recycling a top priority immediately–as it should have been 20 years ago. Done back then, that action would have likely prevented today’s crisis.
Copyright © by JoAnn Yukimura
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JoAnn Yukimura is a member of Zero Waste Kauaʻi. She served as Kauai County mayor or councilmember for a total of 28 years between 1976 and 2018. As mayor, she initiated the position of Solid Waste Coordinator, which eventually led to the formation of the Solid Waste Division in Public Works. Her administration started the first recycling and composting pilot projects, fast-tracked the first lined landfill in the state after Hurricane ʻIniki, and developed Kauaʻi Countyʻs first integrated solid waste management plan.