• Finding a solution in unobtainium • Power gone wrong at Moloa‘a festival • Take a deep breath, Kaua‘i Finding a solution in unobtainium While trying to solve plastic bag problems, our County Council has swerved into a new definition
• Finding a solution in unobtainium •
Power gone wrong at Moloa‘a festival •
Take a deep breath, Kaua‘i
Finding a solution in unobtainium
While trying to solve plastic bag problems, our County Council has swerved into a new definition of unobtanium (a term long used by engineers to describe a material they’d really like to use, but which just doesn’t exist). We hope they will back off to a more reasonable position.
Briefly, since many of us like and reuse plastic bags from grocery stores, the Council says it will be OK to use bio-plastic bags which are 100 percent biodegradable and contain no fossil fuels in their composition. Apparently 100 percent biodegradable bags are available but no one in the world makes them without using fossil fuels. Hence unobtainium.
So why not just back off on the requirement not to use fossil fuels during bag manufacturing? What is the beef? Sorry, reducing our dependence on foreign oil just won’t cut it. Not while our government won’t let Americans drill on American soil and in American waters, all the while sending gobs of our cash to the Brazilians so they can drill for oil in their waters. As for carbon footprints, they must be balanced against the promise that bio-bags will end long term pollution of our roadsides, fields, beaches, and oceans.
The specs on allowable paper bags are equally puzzling. First, there is no evidence that costs have been considered in writing a multilevel specification on paper bags. It says that no old growth fiber can be used. What is “old growth”? And who can possibly verify the content, particularly if 40 percent of the paper is made from post consumer recycled content? One would hope that there is an industry standard for recyclable paper bags which could be referenced as a requirement.
Full disclosure: my wife and I have had reusable cloth bags for many years. However, we prize plastic grocery bags and reuse them all. We use them to line wastebaskets and keep things neat until we can take the trash out to our large garbage can. We were glad when the markets shifted from “paper or plastic” to all plastic for several reasons. Paper leaks and just doesn’t cut it for kitchen trash. Plastic saved money for the stores. In their highly competitive business, when the stores save money, we save money. Finally, cockroaches are far more likely to hitch a ride to our house on paper than on plastic.
John Love, Kapa‘a
Power gone wrong at Moloa‘a festival
I am writing to express my deep disappointment in the actions of the police department last weekend in Moloa‘a.
I attended an event of music and entertainment with friends and family and the Kaua‘i Police Department made every effort to create a disaster.
Only by the grace of the organizer and the many people helping out was a disaster averted.
People peacefully departed at 10 p.m. and then were all stopped at roadblocks on either exit of the venue and were requested to present IDs. A friend of mine received a ticket for having a “dirty license plate.”
To me, this is only harassment, not “serving and protecting” the people of Kaua‘i. How many young people will learn to disrespect the very people they should trust — the police.
This was certainly a good example of power gone wrong.
Susan Liddle, Kapaa
Take a deep breath, Kaua‘i
We need a landfill somewhere on Kaua‘i.
Some doable proposals in siting a new landfill have surfaced, and those “in charge” will need to stop bickering on which plan is best and/or most affordable and come to an agreement based on what meets safe standards for folks and the environment.
If that’s going to cost “an arm and a leg,” by golly, we will have to pay for it, and that includes both residents and visitors to the island.
If it’s going to require paradigm shifts in the way we dispose of our trash, then we, the public will have to shift gears accordingly. Again, that includes everyone.
Let’s not place the responsibility of coming up with “a plan” on our public officials without having us play a vital role in the way we dispose of our rubbish from our households and in other ways we create our trash.
Many of our school campuses have adopted awareness and approaches in minimizing waste. The public-at-large may need to “go back to school” to learn a lesson or two about what is being done.
Perhaps, the Solid Waste Division should be coordinating trash-handling courses in each and every community. Or, maybe a “think-tank” approach can be incorporated throughout the island to come up with an array of ideas and programs to recycle, reuse, restore, reconstitute, redeem, and or reduce rubbish rewardingly.
How about that, folks?
Jose Bulatao Jr., Kekaha
