Honolulu agrees to dispose of tons of trash that was to be shipped to Washington state

Honolulu agrees to accept tons of trash

HONOLULU — Honolulu on Monday agreed to dispose of 20,000 tons worth of gigantic piles of shrink-wrapped garbage that have been moldering in the heat of a Hawaii industrial park where it had been waiting for more than five months for a possible shipment to Washington state.

Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the on-again, off-again trash shipping plan to a dump near a Washington state Indian reservation no longer appears viable.

Instead, Hawaiian Waste Systems had agreed that the municipal solid waste will mostly be burned in Honolulu’s “H-Power” electricity generating station. What can’t be burned will be taken to the city’s only dump, the 21-year-old Waimanalo Gulch landfill, which is slated to close in 2012.

“We’ve agreed on a reasonable solution that will resolve this issue and remove the opala,” Caldwell said in a statement, using the Hawaiian word for trash.

The lingering trash piles offered a glimpse into the garbage woes that Honolulu faces as the state’s largest city struggles to find a home for all its waste.

With Waimanalo Gulch filling up fast, officials proposed to ship the blue, plastic-wrapped garbage bales to a landfill near the Columbia River in Washington’s Klickitat County.

But the Yakama Indian Nation vehemently objected and won a court ruling last week that put the plan on hold indefinitely.

The baled garbage now sitting in Hawaiian Waste System’s facility in a Kapolei industrial park will be fed into the H-Power furnaces beginning next month, Caldwell said. It will take about 20 weeks to completely dispose of the rubbish.

“The city bent over backwards to try to make this shipping effort work, but it is clear that shipping is not a viable option at this time.”

Honolulu makes up 80 percent of Hawaii’s population and generates nearly 1.6 million tons of garbage a year. More than a third of the trash is incinerated to generate electricity, and the destination for the remaining garbage is landfills.

But the amount of available land and the desire to build garbage dumps on the island of Oahu is limited, with Honolulu leaders reluctant to add landfills in their backyards and near sites known for their breathtaking, pristine beauty.