Nation & World

<< Previous   of   Next >> Associated Press  (click to enlarge) Sunbather Brandie Williams throws garbage into a trash can on Waikiki Beach on Friday in Honolulu. Oahu is hoping to send its trash to the West Coast, possibly Washington.   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Do you have a news tip? newstips@heraldnet.com | 425.339.3400   Published: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Washington state may get Hawaii's next export: Tons of trash By Britt Yap Associated Press HONOLULU -- With sugar cane and pineapples fading, Hawaii's next big export to the U.S. mainland could be less sweet -- 100,000 tons of trash a year. In one of the most ambitious municipal disposal plans yet, Oahu, Hawaii's most populous island, is looking to send some of its garbage on a 2,600-mile voyage to the West Coast, and the trash just might end up in Washington state. With 900,000 residents and close to five times as many tourists each year, Oahu is running out of landfill space. And neighbors on other Hawaiian islands say they have enough garbage of their own, thank you very much. Some Oahu residents see the export of trash as running counter to the benevolent "aloha spirit." They point out that Hawaii restricts agricultural goods coming in or going out, with rigorous airport inspections, but now wants to put mountains of garbage on oceangoing barges. Several mainland municipalities, from New York City to Anchorage, Alaska, have been exporting trash for years, and the practice is on the rise. For all its natural beauty -- spectacular mountains, volcanic-sand beaches, and a delightful floral scent that rides on the gentle sea breezes -- Oahu produces an awful lot of garbage: 10 pounds per resident a day, compared with a national average of 4.5, according to Russell Nanod of Waste Management, the company that operates the sole municipal landfill. This may be because of the millions of tourists visiting each year, or because nearly everything from fresh vegetables to construction materials has to be shipped to the islands, requiring a lot of packaging that ultimately ends up in the trash. The most urban of the seven populated Hawaiian Islands, Oahu has dozens of high-rises, the military base at Pearl Harbor and Hawaii's biggest city, Honolulu. It generates nearly 1.8 million tons of trash per year, and about 500,000 tons of that is buried in the municipal landfill. At that rate, the 200-acre landfill will reach capacity within 15 years. The Honolulu City Council, which governs all of Oahu, wants to hire a company to haul some of it away. One bidder is proposing to take the trash across the Pacific, sail it up the Columbia River and deliver to the biggest landfill in Washington state. Joe Casalini, business development director for the Roosevelt Regional Landfill, which would receive Hawaii's trash under one of the proposals, said Washington state's sparsely populated and relatively arid Klickitat County has welcomed the dump, which is the major business in the area. It converts methane from its waste into electricity. Hawaiian Waste Systems of Seattle was by far the lowest bidder of three companies that want to ship the trash. The company bid $99 per ton, which would cost the city $9.9 million a year, plus $7.8 million in lost landfill dump fees. The planned 100,000 tons a year is only about 6 percent of the island's trash. "It's a Band-Aid on a bullet hole," said John Guinan of the Trash Man Hawaii, a garbage hauling company. "But we don't really have much of an alternative at this point." At the same time, he warned: "I guess it's a good idea until the barge tips over and we'll have a massive spill in the South Pacific."

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