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A Great Success!!
Below is a description of what tour participants experienced.
Tour de Trash 2003 to be scheduled in November. Send
us your email if you wish to be added to the mailing
list.
Show
me the printed program of Tour de Trash 2002 
The
Honolulu Advertiser - Editorial regarding Tour de Trash
(October 24, 2002)
Our island's waste flows from our homes and businesses through
a complex network of pipes and collection trucks ending
at waste processing and recycling facilities. Your waste,
both garbage and sewage, solid and liquid, is processed
and reprocessed, recycled, reutilized, composted, incinerated
-- 1.6 million tons of garbage and 43 trillion gallons of
sewage annually.
Join us on Tour de Trash and get an up-close look at the
recycling and waste processing technology in operation on
Oahu and behind-the-scenes tours of island businesses that
have instituted the most successful recycling programs.
Participants can choose from two tours featuring recycling
in the workplace, three tours with stops at recycling facilities
and waste processors, and one tour showcasing recycled products
made here on the island. All tours depart from the Aloha
Tower Marketplace. Check-in begins at 9:15 a.m. at the Aloha
Tower's Diamond Head parking lots (Piers 5 & 6) near
the Navatek pavilion. Tours depart at 9:45 a.m. sharp and
return to the Aloha Tower by 5:00 p.m. All day parking is
available for $6 with validation from Kapono's.
After the tour, relax at Kapono's for an informal Pau Hana.
Come join us even you couldn't make the tour. Enjoy pupus,
drinks and live music by Henry Kapono from 5:30 to 8:00.
Kapono's is offering a 25% discount on all food items and
a 50% discount on select items. Tour de Trash participants
and friends will enjoy a complimentary drink to get you
started.
Attendees will receive a free tote bag and T-shirt made
of recycled material. The tote bags will be provided at
the start of tour for collecting information and samples.
The T-shirt will be available at Kapono's at the end of
the tour.
TOUR 1: WORKPLACE RECYCLING I
Visit Pepsi's state-of-the-art bottling facility in Halawa
for a peek at how the beverage company recycles in its plant
and office, reducing their waste by more than 65%, and take
a close look at Hawaii's first glasphalt pavement in their
parking lot, still wearing well after 10 years. Hickam Air
Force Base has its own materials recovery facility, which
processes all the recyclables collected from base operations
and housing. Back-of-the-house at the Hawaii Convention Center
is set up to support their commitment to recycle paper, plastic,
glass, metals and food waste generated from their facility.
Many of the companies bringing conventions to Honolulu now
demand that everything be recycled, and our convention center
is ready and willing to comply. The Hilton Hawaiian Village
has integrated recycling into every building and captures
more than 1,000 tons of material annually. The Sheraton estimates
that it has saved $100,000 per year in disposal costs by implementing
recycling in their five Oahu hotels, and they are the first
hotel to demonstrate the benefits of sorting waste collected
from their guest rooms - 50% is recyclable. Visit Island Recycling,
one of the island's multi-material recycling facilities. Lunch
at Gyotaku Japanese Restaurant after a behind-the-scenes tour
of their recycling operations, or select from a number of
fast food restaurants in the area.
TOUR 2: WORKPLACE RECYCLING II
See how elegant waste reduction can be at the Kahala Mandarin
Oriental as they provide reusable items for their guests in
place of disposables. Young Laundry & Dry Cleaning will
share how it worked through the challenges of recycling wire
hangers and also became the first Oahu company to use recycled
cooking oil to power their operations, saving about $1,000
per week in fuel costs. On the loading dock of the City's
Honolulu Municipal Building you'll see how the City has set
up office paper recycling systems for its administrative buildings.
Queen's Medical Center has been recycling for years and will
share some of the challenges for handling special medical
wastes. Then on to Hawaii Medical Vitrification, where they
will truly show you how the biohazardous waste from medical
facilities can be safely processed utilizing high-tech plasma
arc technology. Visit Honolulu Recovery Systems for a tour
of their multi-material recycling facility, including their
sorting line operation. The Hard Rock Café will show
you how their garbage bins were replaced with a comprehensive
recycling center for food waste, glass and cardboard, and
offer you a discount to lunch with them. You may also select
from a number of small restaurants located in the crossroads
by the convention center.
TOUR 3: RECYCLED PRODUCTS
Much of the recyclable materials we collect is shipped to
markets in Asia and on the Mainland, but there are a number
of recycled products being made right here in Hawaii. Intech
will show how they manufacture hydromulch used for erosion
control and seeding, cellulose insulation that acts as a natural
insecticide, and oil change boxes, all from recycled paper.
Young Laundry & Dry Cleaning is the first Oahu Company
to use an alternative fuel produced by Island Commodities
and made from recycled cooking oil, saving $1000 per week
in fuel costs. Visit Unitek Solvent Services and AES to see
how Oahu's old car tires are shredded and burned for fuel
to generate electricity or ground further into crumb rubber
for use in landscaping and playground surfacing. Hawaiian
Earth Products grinds green waste in their huge tub grinder
and then places it in long windrows for processing into their
"Menehune Magic" mulch and compost products. Visit
Grace Pacific for the big view on batching glasphalt paving
material and using recycled asphalt pavement. Honolulu Recovery
Systems is grinding glass to specifications for use as aggregate
in construction applications, including glasphalt for Grace
Pacific, pipe cushion and fill. Lunch at the Honolulu Zoo;
brown bag or dine at the Zoo concession stand, and take a
self-guided tour of the recycling products used around the
Zoo, including glasphalt walkways, recycled plastic fencing
and benches, and the infamous "Honolulu Zoo Poo,"
a compost product manufactured and packaged at the Zoo made
from animal manure and green waste.
TOUR 4: RECYCLING & WASTE PROCESSORS I
Drive through the Keehi Transfer Station on Middle Street,
where Honolulu's waste is unloaded and reloaded into large
transfer trailers for the haul out to H-POWER. Tour the H-POWER
waste-to-energy plant, which processes over 600,000 tons of
Oahu's waste annually, reducing volume by 90% and generating
7% of our island's electricity. H-POWER extracts virtually
100% of the metals from the mixed waste for recycling and
is testing a new paving material on their truck ramp that
reutilizes the ash - "asphalt." Take a close look
at the environmental protections employed by today's modern
landfill at the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill operated
by Waste Management, including complex liner and leachate
catchment systems and methane recovery. Hawaiian Earth Products
is one of two composting companies on Oahu turning green waste
into product. EcoFeed takes food waste from restaurants, hotels,
markets, hospitals and shopping center food courts and processes
it into animal feed. Tour Hawaii Medical Vitrification for
a look at plasma arc technology applied to processing biohazardous
waste. Honolulu Recovery Systems will take you through their
compacting , baling, sorting and grinding operations as they
process paper, plastic, metals, glass for shipment to market.
Select from numerous restaurants in the Kapolei Shopping Center
for lunch, or brown bag it in Kapolei Park.
TOUR 5: RECYCLING & WASTE PROCESSORS II
Drive through the Ewa Refuse Convenience Center, one of
six such facilities on the island where residents can drop
off big items or large quantities for disposal and recycling,
including appliances, tires, car batteries, propane tanks,
old furniture, green waste. Everything is separated and sorted
at the site for hauling to recycling/disposal destinations.
Tour the H-POWER waste-to-energy plant (further description
in Tour 4). If you’ve wondered what happens to all the
stuff you wash down the drain or flush down the toilet, you’ll
find the answers at the Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant,
where 27 million gallons per day of sewage is processed through
filters and screens to clean and separate liquids from solids.
The tour then moves over to the Honouliuli Water Reclamation
Facility, where US Filter further processes the waste “water”
portion into clean water, which is used for irrigation. Then
on to the Navy’s Biosolids Composting Facility, where
the sewage sludge from Honouliuli is being composted with
ground green waste to create a nutrient-rich compost product.
Hawaiian Earth Products will showcase its grinder, windrow
processing and Menehune Magic line of mulch and compost products.
Island Recycling will show you its multi-material processing
facility on Sand Island, and at Pacific Biodiesel you’ll
see how they convert cooking oil and grease from island restaurants
to a biodiesel fuel that can be used to power all types of
diesel engine vehicles and equipment. Users report that their
equipment runs well. . . and has a pleasant smell of French
fries. Select from numerous restaurants in the Kapolei Shopping
Center for lunch, or brown bag it in Kapolei Park.
TOUR 6: RECYCLING & WASTE PROCESSORS III
At Island Demo's facility, recyclable materials are sorted
from the mixed construction and demolition waste, reducing
the waste headed to landfill by 40%. Island Demo also "deconstructs"
as much of a building as possible onsite to recover recyclable
and reusable components before demolition. Visit the Baseyard
Hawaii Reuse Facility, where still-usable materials from construction
and demo sites are warehoused and then channeled out to projects
for reuse. Walk through mountains of metal at Hawaii Metal
Recycling -- cars, refrigerators, demolition materials and
bigger are shredded and processed for shipment to market.
Grace Pacific incorporates recycled asphalt and crushed glass
into their pavement material mixes. On this tour, Hawaiian
Earth Products will show you their compost process utilizing
recycled wall board and wood waste. Intech will show how they
manufacture hydromulch used for erosion control and seeding,
cellulose insulation that acts as a natural insecticide, and
oil change boxes, all from recycled paper. Used tires are
shredded and crumbed at Unitek for use as landscaping and
playground surfacing material and as fuel to generate power
in AES. Honolulu Recovery Systems is one of two island processors
grinding glass to specification for use as aggregate in construction
applications, including glasphalt, pipe cushion and fill.
Select from numerous restaurants in the Kapolei Shopping Center
for lunch, or brown bag it in Kapolei Park. |
