The West Hawaii Sanitary Landfill is on pace to reach capacity in less than 25 years.
At its current rate of use, the landfill that opened in 1993 has about 20 to 23 more years life expectancy, Department of Environmental Management Director Ramzi Mansour said Tuesday during the monthly meeting of the Environmental Management Commission. All county transfer stations, as well as private haulers, truck trash to the island’s lone landfill.
“Keep in mind, landfill operational challenges; 20 years goes so fast. It takes 15 years to site a landfill, so we need to be working on that yesterday,” Mansour told the commission.
The location of a new landfill is also important, Mansour said, telling commissioners that continuing to truck trash multiple times per day from Hilo to South Kohala is not sustainable. But when the 40-acre Hilo landfill reached capacity in 2019, the county had no other option than to truck rubbish cross-island.
“My goal as the director is to tackle it now, before it becomes a problem,” he said. “We need to start thinking if another landfill on the east side is an option.”
Mauna Loa’s recent eruption, which sent lava within 2 miles of the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, is another reason to have a landfill East Hawaii.
“How are we going to continue transporting waste from east to west if Saddle Road closes?” he asked. “Half of our tonnage comes from the east side of the county.”
Another option should the West Hawaii landfill reach capacity would be to ship waste to Oahu for use by its H-POWER (Honolulu Program of Waste Energy Recovery) program, which produces electricity, he said.
In the meantime, the Big Island can make changes to reduce the amount of waste entering the landfill, which topped 203,000 tons in 2022, up from 196,631 in 2021. He noted that a recent survey discovered what county officials already suspected: recycling facilities and collection systems are inadequate, there’s insufficient end markets and shortages of staff. Policies need to be redefined and strengthened and impacts of the system are most felt by rural and low-income communities.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Mansour said. “From curbside collection to control at the source to promoting recycling and diversion.”
The only way that the county can extend the life of the West Hawaii landfill is to reduce waste overall or find another landfill, Environmental Management Commission Chairwoman Georjean Adams said.
“The issue is what can we do instead,” said Adams. “We can divert a lot if we had recycle and reuse capabilities.”
She asked Solid Waste Division Chief Mike Rivera to outline what should be the focus and how the county can do that.
Solid Waste Division Chief Mike Rivera told the commission that the county will begin utilizing the 14th “cell” of the 24-cell, 100-acre landfill sometime this spring. If the rate of use continues at its current pace, with each cell being filled in about 2.5 years — the island’s only landfill will be at capacity in about 23 years.
“Of all that goes into that landfill, about 40% could be diverted out. We can do better as a commission and as an island creating diversions for commercial recycling to keep the material going in at 60% trash,” he said.
Rivera also suggested mandates and regulations for recycling at the commercial and personal level on multi-family dwellings.
“That would help tremendously decreasing the amount going into the landfill. If we did all of that, we could extend the life by about 10 years,” he said.
Rivera agreed that an east-side landfill is needed.
“The amount of miles we drive in a day here going from east to west is what most solid waste divisions would do in a week,” he said.
