It’s Easy Being Green
March brought our next adventure, Environmental Day. First thought that comes to mind… “I love the smell of raw sewage in the morning.” Yep, that’s right, we started at the Honoulului Wastewater Treatment Facility. And yes, I’m kidding about the smell. It was HORRIBLE, especially in certain areas we toured, though we got a tiny bit used to it by the end.
Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant Supervisor Robby Robinson talks to the Pacific Century Fellows about the treatment process.
But first, we had a really informative explanation of how the sewer system works for the island by the plant supervisor Robby Robinson. He was great at breaking down the engineering into easy to understand terms, except that he kept using food analogies. I am absolutely sure none of us look at a cup of hot chocolate quite the same anymore. Get the picture?
Did you know that this one plant handles the waste all the way from Red Hill up to Mililani and over to Ko Olina? He said it takes about 3 DAYS for the waste from Red Hill to work its way over to the plant. Crazy, huh?
We took a walking tour to see how it all works from primary treatment to secondary treatment and all the stuff in between. We saw the digester, where the leftover sludge material is sanitized before transfer to the landfill. Robby put on a glove and dug out a handful to show us what it looked like and commented that it was the biggest ‘okole we’d probably ever see. I thought that was pretty funny, considering! I wish I had a picture of the other fellows’ faces when he stuck the handful of stuff near them!
This is the first group observing the primary treatment process. Check out my face! I think that was post-corn recognition. It was not a pretty picture and it smelled. We were all trying not to fall in. Can you imagine?
What I do have is a picture of my face (thanks to Char!) when we were standing on the walkway over the Primary Treatment tank. This is where the hot chocolate analogy comes into play. The really bulky sludge stuff like rags and toys and things that get flushed down the drains of our storm drains and toilets sinks to the bottom and settles there to be drained out and sorted, while the water and lighter items floats to the top. Then the floaters are skimmed off the top and the water moves on down the line in the process. We went out in small groups to take a peek and I swear we saw floating corn bits. I guess what they say is true… ewww!
After everyone got a look we moved on to see the area where they sort through the bulky sludge material for items like money, jewelry, and other stuff. People call looking for their wedding rings that accidentally got flushed, along with other things. The most interesting call was for a set of dentures! None of us could imagine wanting to put anything in our mouths that had been through those pipes, but I guess he really needed them. Unfortunately for him, they were never found.
Then it was off to the biotowers that lead to the Secondary Treatment area. Robby pulled out another food analogy to describe the bio-digestion process, where he said bacteria that are like hamburgers float on top of the water waiting for their next meal. They gobble up the nasty stuff left in the primary treated water and fall to the bottom when they get full, making room for new bacteria to start chomping. Hungry yet?
We also got to look in the Secondary Treatment tank, where the water looks nearly fresh and clean. It was a dramatic difference from the Primary tank we saw earlier. The gray water that’s recovered goes into a separate pipe system so it can be reused for landscaping on golf courses and other non-potable areas. Since not all water goes through that process yet due to capacity and budget, the other primary treated water is let out of an offshore outfall. Apparently the fertilizer effect makes for really good fishing in the area. Who knew?
PCF tours H-POWER to check out Oahu's waste-to-energy process. Cool hard hats, right?
After checking out the liquid waste disposal process, we headed to H-POWER for a tour of the state’s only waste-to-energy facility. If you don’t know about waste-to-energy, it’s where they take truckloads of our trash, remove the metals and other non-combustibles, then shred and burn it to create energy to add into the island’s power grid. Pretty nifty, huh? The existing plant is operating at capacity and then some, so they’re looking at adding another burner to process more trash.
With the limited space on our island, it’s great that we can shrink our rubbish impact by turning it into renewable energy and then burying the resulting ash, instead of more trash at the landfill. That means our landfill has greater capacity for the future and we won’t have to continually build more until it’s absolutely needed. I think it’s important to disclose here that I work with the operator of several of Hawaii’s landfills, so I probably know a bit more about this stuff than most of the Fellows. But we’ll get to that a bit later…
Check out the City's Recycling information here.
Next up was a tasty non-hamburger lunch at Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park courtesy of fellow Fellow Jerry P. (yes, we actually ate after all that!) with Suzanne Jones, recycling coordinator for the City & County of Honolulu. If you’ve not met Suzanne, you’re missing out! This is one passionate lady who clearly loves her job. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her on a few projects, so I was excited to see her and hear what she had to say. She spoke about the successful start for the City’s Curbside Recycling program and where it will go from here. She also talked about how more people can become involved in living greener lives through plastics and metal recycling, as well as composting. We talked about the possible ban on plastic shopping bags and she gave us each a bag made from recycled materials to get us started on bringing our own when shopping.
We had a lively discussion on the value of Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) and if they were good for the environment because they contain a tiny bit of mercury. According to our local laws, you can throw household CFLs in the trash without penalty, but it’s better to recycle them if you can. Hawaiian Electric Co. offers coupons to help lower the cost of replacement, as well as links to places where you can get recycling packets here. If you were wondering if it’s worth it to switch, check this out – CFLs reduce the energy used to light your home by up to 75% when compared to equivalent, regular lightbulbs. They last up to 10 times longer than regular bulbs and they produce roughly 70% less heat. Best of all, you can save about $25+ a year with all of that! I’d say it’s worth the investment. Special mahalos go out to Carol Ai May and City Mill for donating packs of CFLs for all of the Fellows!
Check out the PCF crew and the massive pile of metal shavings collected at Schnitzer Steel that's waiting to be shipped off to the mainland for recycling.
With our stomachs full and our minds buzzing with all that we’d learned so far, we boarded the bus again to head to Schnitzer Steel to see its metal recycling operation. Rene Mansho and Jim Banigan greeted us with a lively talk about the many tons of metal they process and ship out to be recycled each month. We saw huge stacks of old cars, washers, dryers and even old ship parts. It was quite a sight to see an entire car lifted onto a conveyor belt, travel up and over the top and then come out as metal filings on the other end. The folks at Schnitzer put the metal filings into what becomes a huge pile in the back and then package them up for shipment to the metal recycling facility on the mainland to be processed.
One really cool initiative the company has started is to recycle old fishing nets. Instead of letting the old nets take up space in the landfill or wind up floating in the ocean causing harm to marine life, the nets are collected from bins placed near the harbors and then run through the shredder to chop it up into little pieces that are taken over to H-POWER to burn for electricity. Very cool!
Not my best shot, but here I am introducing Russell Nanod before we drove up to see the working face at Waimanalo Gulch Landfill.
Our last stop for the day was especially near and dear to me because we went to visit my client, Waste Management’s Community Affairs Manager Russell Nanod at Waimanalo Gulch Landfill. This is a shameless plug, but if you haven’t been to the landfill then you need to get out for a tour! Russ is the best at showing off all of the ins and outs of the site and how it fits into the overall solid waste management plan for the island.
Most folks think a landfill is a huge open pile of trash that’s stinky and gross like you see in the movies or on the news. I know I was surprised at my first visit when it turned out to be a small patch of trash called the working face that is continually compressed and covered with soil to keep the area as odor and litter free as possible. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was a quarry or construction site.
This is an example of the working face at Waimanalo Gulch Landfill. Tiny, no?
Russ explained that the current site is permitted to operate in its current footprint until May 2008 (it since got a permit extension through November 2009) while an environmental impact study is done for the expansion of the site to the back of the valley for an additional 15 or so years of life. Working together with H-POWER, curbside recycling, possible offshore shipping and with the public more aware and engaged in the 3 R’s – reduce, reuse and recycle – the landfill’s life could be extended further so that the majority of it will be for ash residue and non-recyclables. Since there are limited options for a new landfill at this time, it is important for everyone to do their part to keep the current one operational as long as possible.
The Fellows seemed to enjoy Russell’s lively narration and left carrying more reusable grocery bags and a deeper appreciation for the importance of a landfill. Anyone interested in a tour can contact Russ via the Waste Management website here. Okay, I’m done schilling for this post.
If you’ve made it this far, I give you credit! This was a long one. Hopefully somewhat entertaining… Just remember folks, it’s all about the 3 R’s — reduce, reuse and recycle!
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Tags: City Mill, H-POWER, Hawaii, Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park, Honouliuli Wastewater, Jim Banigan, keepinghawaiiclean.com, landfill, opala.org, Pacific Century Fellows, PCF, recycling, Rene Mansho, renewable energy, Russell Nanod, Schnitzer Steel, Suzanne Jones, Waimanalo Gulch, Waste Management, waste to energy, WTE
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