No county in Hawai’i is even approaching the state goal of diverting from landfills 50 percent of all solid waste generated. Last year, Maui County and the City and County of Honolulu did the best, at 33 percent. Kaua’i was
No county in Hawai’i is even approaching the state goal of diverting from landfills 50 percent of all solid waste generated.
Last year, Maui County and the City and County of Honolulu did the best, at 33 percent. Kaua’i was next, at 22 percent, followed by Hawai’i County at 14 percent.
Kaua’i’s rate is improving, however, according to Troy Tanigawa, county solid-waste coordinator.
The 22-percent diversion rate for Kaua’i means that, of 95,915 tons of solid waste generated on the island last year, 21,217 tons of items like greenwaste, aluminum, glass, newspaper, cardboard and other recyclable items were kept out of Kekaha Landfill.
“Twenty-two percent of all waste generated on Kaua’i was recycled,” he said.
“It’s a few points higher than what we had in previous years, so it’s showing that we’re steadily increasing. We’ve been seeing Kaua’i Recycles quantities slowly increase,” Tanigawa said.
“With the start of the resource center, there have been gains in that area,” he added.
The Kaua’i figure could potentially be even higher if the county had programs available to recycle or reuse other items now going straight into the landfill, he added.
“There’s a fairly large portion of the waste that we don’t have any programs for right now,” including construction and demolition debris, treated lumber, food waste, and mixed waste, he said.
