Got Aloha for a Teacher?
In preparation for the final No Waste Challenge of limiting trash for one week to one bag I started creating a disposal checklikst to help me determine what I can divert from the landfill. Each time I'm about to toss something out, I hope to pause and consider 3 things: Can it be Reused, Repaired, Recycled or Turned into Something else?
Use washable, reusable plates, cups, utensils & napkins
Donate obsolete or unwanted items to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, Savers or other charity or non-profit organizations.
A list of items that are collected by national organizations
List of Donation Drop Off and Pick Up Services
List unwanted materials in HIMEX - Hawaii Materials Exchange, your waste material could be reused by another company.
Repair it
Creative Reuse, I started an album on facebook
Can it be Recycled?
The Short List of Common items
Blue Bins (Recyclables)
Green Bins- (Unbagged, Green Waste)
Grey Bins (General Waste)
Community Recycling Bins
For a more complete list of where to dispose what, please visit Opala.org
Aloha
Food
Waste
Comments posted prior to adopting Facebook comments.
Thank you for this list! I live in a condo with bins in the loading dock area for Plastic Bottles, Glass Bottles, Aluminum, and Paper. I already use them as much as I can. Somebody empties those bins daily, and collects enough money for them to make it worth doing as a commercial business; saves us the trouble of individually going to a Reynolds Recycling center--which we can do, if we want to get the bottle deposit back, for example. We also have a trash chute that leads to a compactor; that squeezed stuff gets picked up daily, and I was wondering where it goes. I have been trying to figure out what to put in the bins and what to put in the chute, and what--if anything--to take somewhere else (for example, the plastic bottle caps that can be dropped off at Goodwill--thanks B.E.A.C.H. for the pictures of which ones can and cannot). I was inspired by your list to find out, once and for all, if I need to sort out my NON-1 and 2 plastic items from the rubbish bag (single-use grocery type) I put in the chute, because I want to make sure those plastics are NOT being buried at Waimanalo Gulch landfill. If I interpret all the info from my research correctly, the bags I put in the chute get squeezed by our building's machine, then picked up and taken to H-Power, where the recoverable metals and some other things are sorted out, and what can be burned to generate electricity is reduced to ash that IS going into the landfill, which has a potential to generate unpleasant (if not toxic) leachate if allowed to get wet and leak out. So although everything in my chute-bound bag goes through H-Power, nonetheless, the more I can keep out of those bags, the better! All this inspires me to go for it with composting and container gardening on my lanai, so my future chute-bound bags will be even smaller and less NASTY!!!
Thanks Jonathan, I'm glad you found this helpful and it sounds like you've done some great research as well! I'm impressed that you're planning to go one step further with composting and container gardens! Have you heard of Bokashi/ Throw to Grow? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1185750395/throw-to-grow-a-new-trash-revolution
I saw a demonstration and was excited to finally see feasible possibilities for condo composting.
Hi Melissa, yes I heard of bokashi a long time ago (I'll tell you an embarassing/funny story some other time) and I went to the event at FreshCafe friday night--very cool and I followed up on the throw-to-grow website; got inspired even more by Jim DiCarlo's story in the video. I figure worms, bokashi, and container garden, maybe even aquaponics can all work together for me in the condo situation! Wish I could do chickens too!
Hey Jonathan and Melissa. Thanks for the kind words! Seeing comments like those definitely keep me going! Melissa, thanks for this informative and detailed post. The reality is that we do have the resources at our disposal to significantly reduce the waste that goes to the landfill. Especially when we stop and consider the 3 questions Melissa brought up: Can it be Reused, Repaired, Recycled or Turned into Something else? I believe that the greater concept being addressed by Melissa's efforts and the NO Waste Challenge is changing the way we think about waste. It's the idea that "waste" is no longer thought of as waste, but as a RESOURCE. In my experience, I've found that the more I consider this concept, the more ways I find to create a resource from what I'd normally just throw away. Food waste is a shining example of this. It is the single largest component of waste in our landfill, yet it is the least recycled...we only recycle less than 3%. There goes a HUGE opportunity to create a valuable resource...SOIL! I believe that finding a better way to turn food waste into a resource is extremely important to the health of our planet and has many positive implications for local communities. This has been the inspiration for the Bokashi Bucket and ultimately the Throw To Grow campaign. Thanks for supporting and spreading the word guys. Much appreciated.