From a common-sense viewpoint, it’s a no-brainer: the very first step in tackling the mounting problem of solid waste is simply stop producing so much of it. The next logical step is to salvage that part of what we toss that still has life, whether by reusing or recycling it. Landfilling and incineration are last-ditch choices.
Yet in recent months, county governments on O`ahu and the Big Island have attempted to sell the public on the notion that incineration is the moral equivalent of recycling and holds an edge over landfilling in the effort to curb greenhouse gas production.
Late last month, Hawai`i County officials were to open bids submitted by companies proposing to operate a waste-to-energy facility on the east side of the island, the area now served by the South Hilo sanitary landfill. Months earlier, customers at KTA stores began seeing small fliers stuffed into their bags of groceries, explaining “how `opala-to-electricity works” and stating that “modern waste-to-energy and mass incineration facilities are clean, efficient, and don’t pollute.”
Such facilities, the brochure went on to say, “provide electricity and/or heat in a clean, environmentally friendly way.”
In boldface type, the fliers announced, “No decision has yet been made.” Yet given the glowing colors in which the technology was described elsewhere in the fliers, the average reader might well wonder why the county had not already committed to the project. At the very least, he or she might question why anyone would oppose such a sensible idea.
The fliers were part of a $25,000 public-relations campaign that the county Department of Environmental Management (DEM) paid the firm of Hastings & Pleadwell to undertake. In doing so, the department was following the direction of the County Council, which in 2004 had adopted a resolution that “supports solid waste landfill diversion through waste reduction technology,” or WRT – a euphemism for incineration. The resolution instructed the administration of Mayor Harry Kim to “develop and implement a community process to inform and educate the community about various WRTs.”
The Hastings & Pleadwell contract, signed in September by Barbara Hastings, a former spokesperson for the state Department of Health, contains a list of tasks the company was to complete as part of “effective public outreach on the procurement of a waste reduction facility.”
The first task listed in the contract’s scope of services was preparation of a “white paper on the issues surrounding the path to a waste to energy” [sic]. Environment Hawai`i asked both the DEM and the consultant for a copy of the white paper; none was ever produced. Instead, the consultant provided a CD-ROM with downloads from a number of websites (most of them industry sponsored) and various notes and a power-point presentation prepared for the DEM.
Hastings & Pleadwell prepared “talking points” for DEM staff and coached them on what to say in presentations to the public. Among other things, the talking points stated, without citing references, that “waste-to-energy facilities tend to encourage better recycling practices” and “are considered an environmentally friendly method of reducing waste,” producing fewer greenhouse gases than landfills.
The firm organized two “community forums, one with the Hawai`i Island Chamber of Commerce (Hastings is its vice president) and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, another with the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce. (In the write-up of the meeting with the chambers, Hastings & Pleadwell report they served food on “washed ti leaves,” with “small oyster shells used as sauce serving spoons.” Beverages were in HI-5 deposit containers. Napkins, however, were paper – no mention of whether it was recycled.)
Although the grocery-checkout fliers state that no decision has been made by the county, in a “situation summary” prepared March 8 by Hastings & Pleadwell, the waste-to-energy option is clearly favored: “Waste-to-energy was chosen as the option to pursue because it is environmentally friendly, is sustainable, provides a renewable source of clean energy, has proven technology and makes economic sense.”
In any event, the idea that there had been no decision and that public opinion might matter was a non-starter from the earliest days of the contract. Notes from a conference call between Hastings & Pleadwell and Barbara Bell, then head of the DEM, last August, describe the objective of the outreach campaign:
“Our goal: provide accurate information and let public decide (or at least voice opinions).”
Says James Weatherford, one of the most articulate of the waste-to-energy opponents on the Big Island, “They’re pushing the idea that the train has left the station, and there’s no point in questioning it.”
The City and County of Honolulu held seven “community recycling meetings” in April and May. The advertised purpose was “to gather residents’ input and ideas for developing a sustainable recycling system.” In addition, the meetings would “serve as a venue for the city to present new data from comprehensive studies that analyze Honolulu’s solid waste stream and its programs,” according to a press statement from the city administration.
According to Jeff Mikulina, executive director of the Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter, the meetings did little more than offer city officials the chance to air a litany of excuses as to why Honolulu remains the only major city in the United States without curbside recycling. “Over 10,000 cities across the mainland enjoy curbside recycling convenience,” he said.
“It’s painfully obvious that the city is trying to push incineration over recycling,” said Isaac Moriwake, Sierra Club chapter chair. “Not only is that an affront to environmental sustainability, it’s an affront to the will of O`ahu voters,” who last November overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the City Charter requiring comprehensive curbside recycling. So far, the administration of Mayor Mufi Hannemann has proposed a small curbside pickup program, but at the meetings, city officials said no plans are on the table for expanding it islandwide.
“The topic of incineration took center stage while the curbside recycling plan was relegated to a supporting role,” Mikulina complained. He said leaders of his group were “surprised that the mayor and the city’s consultants seemed less interested in community input on the curbside recycling plan and more interested in discussing the need to expand incineration.”
At the Kapolei meeting, in response to a question about emissions of greenhouse gas released by recycling versus incineration, a representative of the city’s consultant, R.W. Beck, stated that burning garbage produced fewer greenhouse gas emissions than recycling the same materials, said Betty Gearan, chair of the club’s curbside recycling committee.
“The response belies both common sense and science,” she said.
It also flies in the face of information in a report that the same consultant, R.W. Beck, prepared for the city. The report, “Comparison of Select Materials and Energy Recycling Scenarios,” concludes, “If all impacts are considered, both on-island and off-island, a global life-cycle inventory analysis indicates that … materials recycling has energy and greenhouse gas benefits that are greater than … H-POWER.” Recycling holds about a 6-to-1 advantage over incineration when it comes to electricity saved and a 4-to-1 edge in greenhouse gas emissions, the report states.
The report nowhere refers to incineration, however. The preferred term, among consultants, at least, is now “energy recycling.” The narrative accompanying the consultant’s power-point presentation at the Honolulu community meetings explains, “when most of us think of recycling, we think of taking an old aluminum can and making it into a new aluminum can. This … is referred to as material recycling. On O`ahu, our waste-to-energy facility (H-POWER) also enables us to take garbage and convert it into energy, which is referred to as energy recycling.”
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 18, Number 1 – July 2007
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