{"id":302845,"date":"2025-11-20T08:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T08:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302845\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T08:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T08:32:08","slug":"additional-recycling-efforts-will-cost-honolulu-even-more-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302845\/","title":{"rendered":"Additional recycling efforts will cost Honolulu even more | Local"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (Island News) — Oahu residents have more ways to get rid of your waste. But additional recycling efforts also come with additional costs for the city.<\/p>\n

E-waste is the latest addition to allowable recyclables.<\/p>\n

So far, on average, Oahu residents drop off about 37 tons of e-waste a month, since the program started earlier this year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Oahu residents now have more options for recycling, but these efforts come with additional costs for the city. E-waste has been added to the list of recyclables, aiming to reduce the amount of rubbish being discarded. However, the city now faces expenses for shipping e-waste.<\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

But with the new program comes a new contract the city has to pay to ship e-waste away.<\/p>\n

“That is an affordable contract to take care of e-waste, because it does have value. Before that material was put in gray bins and burned,” said Roger Babcock, Director of Environmental Services.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the city was expecting to start up a food composting program this fall.<\/p>\n

“Come 2025, the city will take food waste and manufactured compostable material in the green cart,” said Henry Gabriel, Honolulu’s recycling program branch Chief, back in the summer of 2024.<\/p>\n

Now that pilot project, for six different Oahu communities, has been pushed back to the spring of 2026.<\/p>\n

“In order to make that happen, an upgraded composting facility needs to be constructed and that is still under construction,” Gabriel explained. “Food waste is different from green waste, it needs to be in an enclosed building as it can attract vectors.”<\/p>\n

Right now a lot of our food waste gets put in gray bins and sent to H-Power, which burns it and other garbage to make electricity.<\/p>\n

“We still receive abut 2,000 tons a day, maybe 2,400 tons a day in waste,”\u00a0Gabriel said.<\/p>\n

But over the course of a year, that adds up to less than the 800,000 ton minimum H-Power requires.<\/p>\n

Why that is important is the city has to pay Covanta, which runs H-Power, $12 for every ton below 800,000.<\/p>\n

In years past, the city was typically short by 42,000 tons, which would cost around $500,000.<\/p>\n

Last year the cost increased to $600,000, and with more programs reducing waste, the city will end up paying even more.<\/p>\n

That is on top of the $70 million the city already pays Covanta each year to burn our waste.<\/p>\n

But Babcock said the extra expense is worth the benefit, “The goal is always to recycle as much as possible as opposed to burning it. Having less to burn is a good thing, even if we have to pay for the cost of the facility.”<\/p>\n

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\n \"Hawaii's
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