Talking Trash

       More Letters From Paradise
            Talking Trash
Everybody has some trash. This is so very true as we have become a "throw-away" society.  In the building where we live there are some 900 people, and that causes a lot of trash. We live on an island,  so what to do with our trash? That's what we are abut to find out this Saturday. We are going on a "Tour de Trash 2014." We are required to bring a photo ID. Long pants and closed-toed shores are REQUIRED, NO EXCEPTIONS. This writing will continue following the tour.

Well, the trip is over. We were provided with two large air-conditioned busses.  Two groups per bus. The first stop for our group was the H-Power station where we were shown a film about how the old and the new power plants produce electricity. It was fun to see in the film a refrigerator chewed into bits of scrap metal. Following the film we  were each given hard hats and safety glasses. Our tour took us up three flights of steel stairs to a control room. The room contained a great number of dials and a man enthroned on huge chair with controls in each hand. Looking through the window you could see garbage trucks backing up and dumping their loads onto a giant pile of garbage. The operator in the chair used his controls to cause a giant claw to grasp a load of garbage, and raise it up and over to be burned, causing steam to drive a turbine, to  produce electricity. Material that failed to burn was sifted on a shaker and metals (iron, copper, etc) would be recovered. We were told that one ton of garbage would equal one barrel of oil saved for power. Burning trash amounts for producing 7 percent of power on our island. An interesting fact learned is that limestone for "scrubbers" to keep exhaust clean, comes from Wyoming.  Other plants on the island use some coal and oil.  Photovoltaic and wind are also used to an extent, but it is very hard to control, and power surges can short out an entire grid, we were told.  Batteries are needed to keep up the wind turbines.  Batteries die and need to be replaced.  Cloudy days prevent sunlight from being used and there is no adequate way to store the energy produced as of yet.

Our next stop was Schnitzer Steel, a plant devoted to recovery of steel from cars, white metal(refrigerators etc.) The metal is shredded and cut with giant shears that can cut metal a half-inch thick. Larger metal such as rebars, used in concrete building, is cut with torches. Fairly interesting, but we did not leave the bus because of liability. We had all signed forms earlier, but it would have been too dangerous, and we would have only have been in the way of trucks and fork lifts.

Our third stop was a Hawaiian Earth Co. It is here that all green waste from the city is turned into compost mulch. Everywhere were piles of scrap wood pallets, logs, and compost.  The wood is finely  ground and becomes compost. We have a new unwelcome visitor to the islands called the coconut beetle. This new threat can be killed along with fire ants, when the compost creates heat to 155 degrees, over a period of 15 days. The piles are turned frequently.  The nice reddish compost you buy in the store is compost which has been dyed with a water dye. Interesting information.

Our final stop was a noisy and dusty redemption center for plastic and glass. The owner spoke to us and said that his family had been in garbage for over thirty years. The Roll Off company garbage trucks around town gave the present owner the idea to open a glass recycling business. Not only glass but also plastic containers and aluminum cans.

As we watched, trucks would arrive and dump their loads which would then be sorted on conveyer belts, with some trash falling through holes. Some of the larger trash would be removed by a few people as the belt moved by. The remark was made that this would be a good incentive to stay in school. Dusty, dusty. We climbed up and over the moving belt on a straight up and down ladder. Keeping in mind some of us are senior citizens and one lady was on a crutch. OSHA would have had a fit to have seen this. All the sorted glass, plastic, and metal would be bailed into large bails and stacked in piles to be sold.

The entire tour started at 8:30 and ended at 12:00. Very interesting trip. Very little is being done on the other islands, mainly land fill. We emerged dusty and very thirsty. Some beer would have been a nice touch.  So we went to Chili's and had one!

        Aloha
        Grant