Should the city send its recyclables to H-Power and can we create a composting facility?
Aloha O‘ahu Group supporters! We continue discussing waste issues at Honolulu Hale and 2018 started with a Public Works, Infrastructure, and Sustainability Committee hearing about our recycling program, H-power, and options for commercial composting.Resolution 17-311 recommends we send our recyclables to H-Power for incineration. Please see our written testimony in OPPOSITION below:
We also testified in SUPPORT for Resolution 17-340, at this hearing. This Resolution urges the city to develop commercial composting facilities able to process solid waste that is currently going to H-Power, including single-use disposable food containers. This measure resulted from ongoing discussion to ban EPS foam food containers and mandate compostable food containers for restaurants and other retailers. Resolution 17-340 was also deferred in the committee meeting, pending a site visit to Hawaii Earth Recycling, which is a facility that currently processes our curbside recycling green bins (garden and yard waste) and could potentially be upgraded to accept a wider variety of compostable materials (other food waste, newspaper and cardboard, compostable plastics, etc). The intention of deferring the Resolution was to incorporate additional information and findings from the site visit, and potentially a composting pilot project, into Resolution 17-340. Here is our testimony below:
After the hearing, we gave a statement to Hawaii News Now.Hawaii News Now video coverage: Plan to burn recyclables at Hpower placed on hold