On O’ahu, 15% of residential rubbish is wasted food. This equates to about 46,000 tons of food thrown out by households! Consider taking a few simple steps to stop feeding the garbage. You’ll reduce your environmental footprint and save money! Check out our Food Waste Prevention Page for useful links, food waste facts and helpful mobile apps. Also on this webpage is the electronic version of our booklet “Food: Too Good To Waste“. This comprehensive booklet is tailored to O’ahu residents, and includes storage and preparation tips, recipes to re-vamp leftovers (including recipes by local chefs), donation options, organizational tools, and a printable shopping planner. About 204 million pounds of turkey meat gets tossed this time of year. Try out this Thanksgiving Dinner Portion Planner to decrease your chances of ending up with excessive leftovers. There are some food wastes that we just can’t eat. For inedible food scraps like egg shells or citrus peels, composting is a great option that reduces the volume of our waste stream and puts nutrients back into the soil. For a UH flyer on backyard composting, click here. www.savethefood.com

Learn the basics of backyard composting using resources from your yard and leftover food from your table! The City Department of Environmental Services has partnered with the Board of Water Supply and Friends of Halawa Xeriscape Garden for this beginner’s composting workshop.  Participants will learn tips on how to set up their own backyard composting system and utilize the finished compost.  Composting decreases the overall volume of our waste stream; much of which is yard and food waste.  Compost also enriches soil without the use of chemical fertilizers, reduces plant disease and pests, and retains moisture in your soil for a healthy lawn or garden.  Why throw away yard and food waste when you can learn to compost?  Registration required: call 748-5315 or email workshops@hbws.org.  Registration closes 2pm September 20, or when all spaces are filled.  Click here for details.

While the school environment does require certain amounts of folder paper, notebooks and pencils, it’s important to look at how we can reduce waste in all aspects of our lives.  The EPA provides resources to help educators and students learn about waste reduction as well helpful tips that families can follow right now to reduce their impact on the environment.  Younger students should check out the interactive games that introduce key ideas to reduce waste.  Older students can get ideas for science and service-learning projects.  Schools can find a guide filled with strategies for reducing waste in every aspect of operation.  Families can find tools for creating a zero-waste lunch plan.   By reducing waste, we are preserving natural resources, reducing the carbon footprint and preserving valuable landfill space.  Click here to visit the EPA’s resources.

There is still time to reserve a seat for the Tour de Trash: Recycling and Demolition Recycling on Thursday, August 22nd. As construction of roads, rail, housing, and buildings continue on Oahu, learn how some companies are transforming this material into new, usable forms. Tour and transportation are completely free. Call 768-3200 now to sign up.

 

Visit West Oahu Aggregate to see how they separate and recycle demolition material for a variety of different purposes. Dirt is recycled into quality topsoil, rocks are crushed into various sizes for wall building and ground cover, and concrete and asphalt are used for aggregate in their recycled, ready-mix concrete.

 

PVT Land Company operates Oahu’s only construction and demolition landfill. Up to 80% of the total debris processed at PVT is recycled or processed into feed stock.  Learn how the feed stock is converted into synthetic natural gas through their gasification process.  The natural gas that is generated creates enough energy to power about 12,000 homes. Other material like metals are recycled overseas and rock and concrete are mixed as aggregate into road pavement.

 

Island Demo offers building deconstruction services to salvage as much as possible from demolition projects for reuse and recycling. Take a tour around their inner-city transfer station, which serves as a convenient option for contractors who can be spared the delivery to the PVT themselves.

 

There is one more Tour de Trash event scheduled for 2019. We are currently adding to a waitlist for our Tour de Trash: Recyclers and Waste Processors on Saturday, September 21st.  Call 768-3200 to sign up.

Take advantage of FREE drop off events for reuse or recycling instead of trashing your items.  See opala.org for links to details about the organizations, full calendars, and specific event instructions.

Going Green events will accept computers, printers, scanners, auto batteries, usable clothing and household items, and HI-5 beverage containers (aluminum and plastic only) in order to raise funds for community programs.

Aloha Aina Recycling Drives accept electronics, scrap metal, household and auto batteries, used cooking oil, usable clothing, household items, furniture, appliances and home fixtures, and HI-5 beverage containers to help raise funds for the host schools.  Visit www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org for more information.

August:

17th: Going Green-Ka’ala Elementary

24th: Aloha Aina-Sunset Beach Elementary

September:

7th: Going Green-Maunalua Bay (Hawaii Kai)

14th: Aloha Aina-UH Lab School

21st: Aloha Aina-Ka’a’awa Elementary

Beginning June 3, 2019 and continuing through January 2020, residents in metro Honolulu (Foster Village to Hawaii Kai including Waikiki) will be transitioning from a regular monthly bulky collection to an appointment based bulky item collection system. Appointments for the pilot bulky item collection service begin on May 15^th. The current regular monthly collection for Honolulu areas will be suspended once the bulky item collection pilot begins on June 3^rd.

Bulky item collection appointments will allow single family homes to schedule their bulky collection individually. Multi-unit residential buildings must coordinate their bulky item collection appointment with the AOAOs, property managers and/or resident managers.

To schedule an appointment for the City’s bulky pilot program, please visit Opala.org. Residents unable to schedule an appointment online or for more information regarding the City’s bulky item collection program, please call 768-3200 and press option 0 for assistance.