Let the Circle Be Unbroken: Don’t Stop With Recycling
Environment Hawai`i would like to tell readers it is printed on recycled paper made of 100 percent post-consumer waste, unbleached and dioxin free. We’d like to – but we cannot. The truth is that paper stock such as that would need to be special ordered (a Swedish company is about the only source). That, frankly, is beyond our limited means.
We do print on paper that qualifies for the recycled designation under Environmental Protection Agency standards, recognizing that this designation is no assurance of environmental purity. Nonetheless, it is a choice we make – and a more expensive one, at that – because we feel it is important to show paper dealers that a market exists for recycled products. Also, we hope readers will take note of our recycled logo, and recognize that recycled paper need not entail any sacrifice in quality.
All this is a rather roundabout way of getting to the first point of this month’s “Grass Roots” column: Recycling is not the end point of environmentally responsible behavior; it is only the beginning.
If recycling is to be a long-term solution to problems of dealing with discarded goods, then the purchase of recycled products and the development of markets for goods made with recycled materials must received equal emphasis.
Not everyone is in a position to purchase recycled products, but readers should be aware of those opportunities that do exist. Many copy shops have an assortment of copier papers that includes recycled stock (including our printer, Postal Instant Press, in Kailua). Use it when it is available; ask for it to be ordered when it’s not.
Let’s Get Personal
Take charge of your trash. More than almost any other environmental problem, waste generation is something that you can do something about. Opportunities for reducing one’s personal output are plentiful and have been repeated ad nauseam in this Year of Earth Day. We assume readers are well acquainted with these approaches, and give them our blanket endorsement.
As for recycling, support it wherever and however you can. Bear in mind that the more economical recycling is, the better chance it will have of becoming institutionalized. To demand curbside pickup of recyclables as a condition of your own recycling of goods is absurd.
Use community drop-off centers. When they do not collect a class of perfectly usable recyclable goods (such as tin cans or aluminum foil), see what it would take to get them to. (A de-tinner in Seattle will pay $25 a ton – including shipping costs – for clean tin cans. Given the way tin content makes H-POWER’s metal scrap undesirable, one can only wonder why the City is not vigorously encouraging the recycling of tin cans.)
Avoid purchasing products that cannot be recycled easily. Avoid purchasing products period unless they are necessary.
Put H-POWER on a Diet
One of the gravest drawbacks to H-POWER is that for the duration of its lifetime, it will be an impediment to any large-scale recycling program. With City officials clinging to their dogma that H-POWER must be one part of a fully integrated approach to waste management, 20 years down the pike, Honolulu will be in no better position to wean itself of H-POWER than it is now.
If it were possible, Environment Hawai`i would urge a boycott of H-POWER. Environmentally and economically, it’s a bust. Short of a boycott, the best thing people can do is to feed it as little as possible. We will still have to pay for it, of course, but we will not be party to the sinful waste of resources that occurs when goods are incinerated. Moreover, we will be working toward developing approaches to waste management that will stand us in good stead when H-POWER’s lights go out.
Statewide Approaches
Last session, the Legislature did virtually nothing to deal with the many problems of solid waste. The State Department of Health is trying to put in place a foundation for legislative action next year, however, and is working on several proposals for bills that would give counties the help they need. (The Health Department has also established a citizens’ advisory task force on solid waste, whose chairwoman is the editor of Environment Hawai`i.)
Among the approaches the Legislature may want to consider (and readers may want to support) would be establishment of a state-wide recycling incentive fund. Honolulu’s incentive program for glass could serve as a model. That program (financed over its first 18 months with $900,000 in city funds and $300,000 in funds collected from a penny levy on glass containers brought onto the island) helps support the recycling of glass. Without it, Hawai`i Environmental Transfer would probably not be able to afford to ship glass to the Mainland. (Suzanne Jones, the City’s recycling coordinator, says the City is hopeful that a “glass-phalt” industry will soon be established on O`ahu. If that occurs, the need for the incentive program for glass might disappear.)
It is unlikely that so long as H-POWER is around, the City will ever develop similar incentive programs for combustibles, such as plastic and paper. The State should be urged to fill the void.
Correction
Last month’s column contained inaccurate information concerning the ongoing boundary review process of state land use classifications. The correct time frame for the boundary review is as follows: Public meetings will be held in 1991 on the information now being compiled. Final report and recommendations to the Land Use Commission should be ready by December 1991. For more information, call the Office of State Planning at 548-1710 (O`ahi).
Volume 1, Number 4 October 1990