Save Kauai brings together current information about Kauai and web-based tools that allow you to take action. If we want to affect the future of Kauai in a pono way we must organize and begin implementing solutions, not just fighting the problems.
Aloha 'Aina, Imua Kakou!
My trash nightmare
I am having a recurring nightmare: I wake up in a cold sweat, early in the morning, and hear a rumbling on the street outside. I run outside frantically only to watch the garbage truck pull away without picking up my trashcan. I look over and panic, wondering what I am going to do with this full can of garbage and nowhere to put it?
Sadly, this scenario may play itself out in January of next year, when our landfill, stuffed to the brim with Christmas and New Year’s trash, reaches maximum capacity. Imagine a world where there is nowhere to put your trash.
We are in a crisis and I want to know when and how the people in charge of this county are going to take some drastic action to avert such a disaster. If a doctor told you that your heart would explode in four months unless you had an operation to relieve pressure in a blocked blood vessel, wouldn’t you do everything you could to save your life?
Hundreds of cities and counties have come up with environmentally friendly, cost-effective solutions to this exact same problem. What are we doing now to divert waste from the existing landfill and find an appropriate place for a new one? The people of Kaua‘i must come together as an island to produce less trash in the first place through reducing, reusing, and recycling, and develop solutions other than the pipe dream of burning all our waste to create energy (a process that is much more complicated than some of the council and mayoral candidates seem to realize — a simple google search is enough to educate the average person on its pluses and minuses).
Zero Waste Kaua‘i seems to be the only group on this island that is actually doing anything to reduce our waste and they’re all working for free. What are the paid officials responsible for managing our county doing so that when I wake up the first week of 2009, I won’t have to worry about my garbage truck not picking up my trash?
April Capil
Kalaheo
The Updated Solid Waste Management Plan has been released
Please see attachment below.
With the Kekaha Landfill close to maximum capacity and few options for recycling, we are all well aware of the waste problem on Kaua’i. The draft upgrade for the county’s Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan was released on November 16th (see attachments above). Public comment will be accepted after a 60-day review process. Although the new plan includes recommendations that would bring Kaua’i to a 35% waste diversion rate within five years, a lot of concerns remain. The draft plan does not include essential “Maximum Reduce, Re-use and Recycle” facilities, such as a materials recovery facility. Instead, it recommends building an expensive and polluting Waste to Energy (WTE) Facility.
For more information about the problems with Waste to Energy Facilities and sustainable alternatives, see the attachments above. Zero Waste Kaua'i is a committed group of citizens that advocates for a "Max 3R's" (recycle, reduce, reuse) approach to our waste stream. Their current goals are: island-wide curbside recycling, including green waste to provide us with soil enriching compost; to turn our trash into a resource; to ban Styrofoam & plastic; and most importantly to be wiser consumers, insisting on cradle to cradle design. To learn more about ZWK's projects, visit http://zerowastekauai.org. Their meetings are posted on the Save Kaua'i Calendar.