LIHU‘E — A Kaua‘i Community College student is attempting to introduce a recycling program that would ship waste to the Mainland annually, with hopes that it would pay for itself over time. Britney Gurkin, a freshman biochemistry major with a goal
LIHU‘E — A Kaua‘i Community College student is attempting to introduce a recycling program that would ship waste to the Mainland annually, with hopes that it would pay for itself over time.
Britney Gurkin, a freshman biochemistry major with a goal of eventually pursuing a doctorate, has taken the lead in an effort to bring an innovative recycling program to Kaua‘i.
“I believe there is a lot that can be done and that can be used for good,” Gurkin said. “I just have to go through the process and get there.”
TerraCycle, Inc. is a Trenton, N.J.-based company founded in 2011 with a growing number of affiliate facilities around the Mainland and Europe. With the motto “Eliminating the Idea of Waste”, TerraCycle aims to target communities for specific recycling needs in order to re-use everything possible.
The nonprofit company recycles just about anything and they make products out of the waste. The profits go back into the company that continues to expand.
The Brigade program makes it possible for communities and nonprofit organizations to earn cash for their designated charities. They do it by collecting specific types of waste.
Crystal Wright, a TerraCycle customer service representative replied that Alaska and Hawai‘i are not currently eligible to participate in the TerraCycle Brigade programs.
“Our program is limited to the contiguous United States,” Wright said. “We are in the process of expanding globally, and we will certainly note the growing interest in participation outside our current region.”
The obvious barrier to Hawai‘i is the distance from the Mainland facilities. It is possible to ship the waste to the Los Angeles TerraCycle station on container ships.
Gurkin is working to present the idea to the Kaua‘i County Council, where she hopes they could partner with a shipping company to offset costs and make it a practical idea that could eventually pay for itself with recycling cash from TerraCycle.
“I would also like to discuss the Hawai‘i possibility and the challenges with TerraCycle,” Gurkin said.
Kaua‘i, with its limited space and especially sensitive environment, also faces erosion and a near capacity landfill, Gurkin said. She would like the council to consider the toxins that are harming all life.
“If we keep going down the road we’re going with just throwing the stuff on the beach and allowing it not to decompose then what are we leaving for our future generations?” she said.
Until recently, Gurkin, 28, of Wailua, was a stay-at-home mom in Colorado. She is raising two daughters, ages 9 and 4.
She has family on the island and decided the time was right to follow her academic and professional dreams.
In her Colorado community she said the TerraCycle program has succeeded in some areas and was not embraced in others. She said it really comes down to people understanding the options they have to protect their ecosystems.
“It would make it something certainly worth trying here,” she said.
There is one brigade for each type of trash in the recycling program with volunteers to separate the items. One brigade would be for toothpaste containers, another for various types of plastics.
Lost or discarded rubber flip-flops are a common item that winds up everywhere you look on the island, she said. People go through several pairs a year and they are not currently being recycled and wind up on the beach.
“These are things that you wouldn’t consider to be recyclable,” she said. “But there is a park in Denmark that is made completely out of recycled slippers, and opened in 2011.”
The idea of getting people to recycle cigarette butts instead of throwing them on the ground is a motivating factor for Gurkin, a smoker who said the chemicals harm the island.
Gurkin said it took just one woman, Libby McQuiston of San Rafael, Calif., to form a cigarette butt brigade in 2012. With 12 volunteers, she collected 230,000 cigarette butts in just three months.
“So, to take the cigarettes and instead of throwing them into a landfill where they seep toxins into the soil, why not ship them off and have them made into something else, like an ashtray, a playground or a park bench?” Gurkin said.
The TerraCycle drop off points could be place at current county recycling areas. It would help to expand the types of materials that can be recycled with an added emphasis for people to participate to keep the island clean, she said.
“I would definitely also have sites by the beaches for cigarette containers with the TerraCycle symbol to tell people that it goes off island,” Gurkin said.
Gurkin estimates that a the program would start with just one container ship per year to the Mainland. It would take a couple of years for the project to grow and then enough money coming back in to offset the shipping costs.
“It sounds like a lot of money but think of the space that we would be freeing up in the landfill,” she said. “It could grow island-wide or event just a few communities involved would make such a huge difference, I believe.”
The county could decide which brigade programs they wanted to adopt. Specific community groups or organizations could take on other brigades, she added. This way, an active, participating group could designate the charity they wanted to support, she said.
“I would like the island of Kaua‘i to be a brigade of itself and sign up for several different brigades, so that way we get it coming back into our community,” she said.
Find out more at terracycle.com or facebook.com/terracycle. Contact Gurkin at 755-5014.
