MauiLifeStyleBlog

The Maui News November 12, 2008  

Study: Maui's emissions top rate of growth 'Global Warming Solutions Act' will require reductions to 1990 levels HONOLULU -

A 2007 state law requiring limits on businesses, systems and devices that produce greenhouse gases may have its heaviest impact on the Maui, which is estimated to have the largest increase in production of greenhouse gases since 1990.

The law, Hawaii Revised Statutes 342B or Act 234, will allow the state health director to impose fees on emitters of greenhouse gases, with a goal of getting emissions in the state down to 1990 levels by 2020. As a first step, the Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism must determine what the levels of greenhouse gases are now and what they were in 1990.  The inventory of the gases is referred to as GHG for greenhouses gases, but primarily carbon dioxide.

Maui is likely to be the most affected island because preliminary figures show an 81 percent increase in GHG emissions took place on the Valley Isle, well ahead of the other Neighbor Islands. GHG are measured in the equivalent in carbon dioxide. DBEDT calculates that total emissions rose only slightly from 1990 to 2007 - from 19.77 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or equivalent gases to 20.40 mmt. Oahu output dropped from 18.12 million metric tons in 1990 to 16.39 mmt in 2007. The Neighbor Islands all rose, and Maui County surpassed the more populous Big Island. The estimates of the changes from 1990 to 2007 are Hawaii County, from 2.02 mmt to 2.78 mmt; Maui County from 1.60 mmt to 2.88 mmt (Maui island from 1.45 mmt to 2.63 mmt); and Kauai 0.69 mmt to 1.10 mmt.

Not surprisingly, the largest source of GHG is transportation, although emissions levels are down from 12.53 mmt in 1990 to 11.5 mmt in 2007. Emissions from electric power generation are up, from 6.89 mmt in 1990 to 7.36 mmt in 2007, according to the draft report. Maui island's growth in emissions were from energy uses, including transportation and electric power, from 1.22 mmt in 1990 to 2.3 mmt in 2007; from waste handling, including landfills and wastewater treatment, from 0.05 mmt to 0.13 mmt; and form industrial processing, from 0.01 mmt to 0.07 mmt.

At Thursday's hearing at the Capitol, there will be presentations on the law's provisions for monitoring, a permitting system and penalties to be imposed on producers of GHG, including autos. Act 234 establishes a GHG emissions reductions task force that will propose regulations for "the maximum practically and technically feasible and cost-effective reductions." The law specifies that "cost-effective" means least cost per unit of gas eliminated, not other costs. The task force will have 10 members, only four of whom will be from "affected business sectors," which are electric utilities, refineries, ground transportation and maritime business. The regulatory plan must be submitted by Dec. 31, 2009. These will include "all verifiable and enforceable voluntary actions" and "market-based compliance mechanisms," with mandatory emissions reporting.

Although the statute does not use the words "cap-and-trade," that is what it means. Sources that want to emit gases would have to compete with each other to buy rights. The law also calls for a "schedule of fees to be paid by the sources," apparently a penalty for excessive emissions that will go into a Clean Air Special Fund. The proposals are to be debated in the 2010 Legislature and by the end of 2011 the health director will adopt rules to implement the law. Mandatory reporting is to begin in 2012. The Legislature appropriated $1 million for administering the act in the current and next fiscal years. For information on the program, including a copy of the draft report, go to hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/energy/greenhouse/.

From the Maui News.

Crushers have been silenced, but hundreds of tons leave island By EDWIN TANJI, City Editor

More than 1,000 tons of redeemable glass and similar kinds of bottles have been shipped out of Maui to be remanufactured since the state imposed a new standard for handling bottles in the HI-5 redemption program.

Roger Yamagata with Maui Disposal said the company ships out between 20 and 30 containers a month, while Tom Reed of Aloha Glass Recycling said his company shipped out 20 containers over five weeks. Each container is loaded with 20 to 22 tons of glass.

Both are still handling glass beverage containers, paying consumers the 5-cent redemption value for each container. In turn, the state is paying the businesses 4 cents for each glass container shipped to a Mainland processor. It's meant an increase in effort for handling glass, Yamagata said.

Like Aloha Glass, Maui Disposal had begun crushing glass for reuse on the island, he said. But the crusher has been shut down while the company focuses on preparing glass containers for shipping to Mainland companies that remanufacture the glass.

Maui Disposal handles the glass recycling bins at county drop-box centers but now needs to remove some of the glasslike products that are mixed in with the bottles.

"When it's shipped to the Mainland, it's reused instead of recycled. What we have to be careful of is the removal of ceramic plates and window glass. That is a different kind of material and it can't be remanufactured in the same way," he said.

As it is, he said, Maui Disposal has to "ground sort" the glass products to remove contaminants. The work was described as hazardous, with crews having to pick out glass products by hand from a mass of intact and broken bottles.

Yamagata said the market for crushed glass in Hawaii is difficult to access. State law requires road-paving companies to accept crushed glass as an alternative to gravel, when the material is available. But Yamagata said there were strict standards that the glass supplier had to follow.

"The process to get to the end user is difficult and the timing of it becomes a problem. And when the Department of Health increased the handling fee to ship the glass off island, we found it more economically feasible to ship it," he said.

At Aloha Glass, the Health Department decision to encourage redemption handlers to ship out the bottles led the company to shut down its crusher and take only container glass. The Health Department decision reduced the handling fee to 2 cents if the bottles remained on Maui as crushed glass.

"The window glass and dishes we used to take was such a small part of what we handled and the foundry operation that takes the glass bottles can't use the other material," Reed said.

Aloha Glass is handling redeemable beverage containers by the ton and will accept wine bottles, pickle jars, jelly jars and other kinds of glass food containers that can be remanufactured into other glass products. "But no window glass and no broken dishes," Reed said.

While contractors can still dump broken windows at a contractors landfill, the other materials are going into the county landfill. While Reed said it represented only a small part of the materials Aloha Glass previously was turning into crushed glass, it can be a significant amount of waste materials.

"When we were taking glass from the cruise ships, it seemed like a couple of tons of broken dishes were unloaded every time they came into Kahului," he said. Both Reed and Yamagata said they are not able to sort the glass containers by color, which can help to increase the resale value for remanufacturing.

According to www.recycle.net, the average price for clear glass is $24 a ton for a truckload, while mixed glass is $4.50. Yamagata said his company has limited space to handle the materials. On the Mainland, companies are using optical scanners to separate glass materials, but the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars is so high "there's not enough glass on Maui to justify that kind of technology."

Maui Disposal, Aloha Glass and Reynolds Recycling are the primary operators handling beverage containers from a dozen redemption centers on Maui. Several independent businesses - Aloha Shell in Kahului, Hasegawa General Store in Hana, Zitro Recycling in Kihei and Lahaina International Market - also are redeeming containers. Information on the HI-5 program and redemption centers can be found online at hi5deposit.com.