In this era of economic belt tightening and heightened environmental awareness, a quick survey of our homes reveals many opportunities to reduce, reuse and recycle.
There are varying degrees of environmental responsibility and some people are better at it with their natural-fiber clothing and whole-grain sensibilities. But most of us are more focused on the greening of our wallets, dropping our HI-5s into the correct receptacle and teaching our children not to litter.
Fortunately, regular folks can show their concern for the planet simply by taking the smallest of measures in their homes.
For instance, we can eliminate the mass influx of plastic bags into our homes by purchasing reusable cloth shopping bags - and then actually remembering to bring them into the stores!
A $40 monthly pass on TheBus is quite persuasive for keeping the family vehicle parked at home as gasoline prices and downtown parking lot fees climb.
The Honolulu City and County Department of Environmental Services, which is running a pilot three-can container system for waste separation in Hawaii Kai and Mililani, is expanding the program so that more residents can divide and conquer their waste.
School and scouting fundraisers are always on notice for collecting HI-5 glass, plastic and aluminum containers, while recycling stations dot the Island for cash redemptions.
Influencing consumers' decisions when it comes to shopping for various products is the question of how to limit the amount of wasteful packaging that comes into the home. While it's nearly impossible to leave behind the hard-plastic and difficult-to-open packaging that surrounds high-tech gadgets, requesting that clothing hangers or shoe boxes remain at the store is one way to avoid bringing the bulk of it home. At the big-box stores, apples and gourmet salad greens are often packaged in plastic shells, which can be reused easily to store seasonal household decorations, children's trinkets, crayons and markers. But there is only so much room!
Luckily, there is a solution.
Participation in the three-can pilot recycling project in Hawaii Kai and Mililani has so much impressed Suzanne Jones, recycling coordinator for the City & County of Honolulu Department of Environmental Services, that her department will be extending it to additional neighborhoods. While residents determine what goes into the blue can - all recyclables - and what goes into the green can - unbagged green waste - and what goes into the gray can - everything else - Jones offers some tips on how to determine what is appropriate.
"We are using a single-stream system that makes it easy and convenient for households," Jones said. "It's been determined that these co-mingling system programs have much higher participation and recovery rates, which is our goal."
For the pilot program, residents in Hawaii Kai and Mililani deposit newspapers, all colors of glass bottles and jars, plastics, and corrugated cardboard into the same can. Twice a month, the blue can is collected by the familiar Department of Environmental Services yellow refuse trucks.
Drivers take their hauls to the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) contractor, RRR Recycling Services in Campbell Industrial Park. The recyclables are placed on a conveyor belt to a sort line where blowers and eddy currents help sort it. Employees manually pick out odd items while the rest move along an elevated transit line and fall into appropriate bins below. Each commodity is compacted, baled and loaded into trucks, taken to the docks and shipped off.
Jones said that feedback to her department is mostly regarding how to separate the recyclables. Because they are made of chip board, cereal, cookie and cracker boxes don't make the cut. Neither do water bottle tops or the plastic lids for mayonnaise and peanut butter jars.
"If it's a plastic bottle with a neck you can toss it in the blue bin," Jones said. "That includes soda bottles, milk jugs, laundry detergent bottles, shampoo and cream rinse bottles, even vitamin bottles.
The more experienced recycler can look for the triangle embossed in the plastic with either the number one or the number two in it. Those can go into the blue bin, too."
Family environmental goals that include the proper disposal of waste and keeping a home toxic free, should also include thoughtful consideration to the selection of cleaning products that will not harm family members and pets.
Fortunately, Hawaii is gaining ground with the variety of green grocers that provide alternative goods. Practicing what they preach, Faith and Kale Gibb, who own and operate Kale's Natural Foods in the Hawaii Kai Shopping Center, offer a variety of Earth-friendly products.
For many of us who welcome the alternatives that a local natural products store offers, it can be both an ethical and economic struggle to pass up the cheaply priced house-brand detergent at the big box store for the Seventh Generation or eCover Natural Cleaning products sold by the wholesome health-food store. The Gibbs say that such decisions have long-term positive effects and give consumers a bit of peace of mind.
"In terms of environmental economics, there really is no argument," said Kale Gibb. "The less toxic chemicals we put into our environment, the better off we all are. Our environment provides us with the food we eat and the air we breathe. It is imperative that we consider the long-term benefits of using green cleaning products for ourselves as well as all other life on Earth."
He adds that using toxic products throughout the home has a domino effect. Not only does it negatively affect the environment, it gets personal.
"The cost of toxic exposure may indeed be much greater in the long run than the costs incurred now to avoid it. At the personal level, the use of chemically laden conventional cleaning products leads to toxic buildups in one's body, which can lead to compromised health and costly medical bills," Gibb said. "Increases in health insurance reimbursements lead to increases in health insurance premiums for all. I am confident that it is cheaper to clean green now and avoid the effects of toxicity later."
HS
