Hawaiian Trash Haulers want to ship waste to U.S. Mainland
Some private trash haulers in Honolulu are looking to have waste barged to landfills in Washington State, to avoid having to pay the city the $92/ton tipping fee to use its H-Power WTE incinerator or landfill. They may pay $80/ton to have it landfilled in Washington instead.
The city is concerned about reductions in the flow of trash to the incinerator, which not only deals with waste locally but generates some 7% of the electricity on Oahu, very important in a state which burns fuel oil to make the majority of its electricity. With the barging proposal, even more fuel oil will be burnt - oil to ship the trash to the mainland and bury it in the Washington landfills. This shipping also produces carbon dioxide, the key greenhouse gas. Once in the landfill, it will produce fugitive methane emissions, another potent greenhouse gas.
If trash haulers need to make ends meet, they should be charging their customers a little bit more rather than sending boats full of trash across the ocean when that trash could be incinerated locally to produce energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of recyclables are probably also in that waste. If people have to pay a little bit more per bag to get their trash taken away, maybe they will be willing to reduce and recycle more. Americans truly are spoiled when it comes to trash disposal. We sometimes make it TOO easy to get rid of things. Cheap isn't always better.
Hopefully the city of Honolulu succeeds in blocking the export of garbage from Hawaii.
» Company Could Ship Trash To Mainland By Summer (KITV/Honolulu)
