Climate Action Plan at a Glance

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Waste

Emissions from waste and wastewater disposal and management are 3% and 0.2% of O‘ahu’s greenhouse gas emissions, respectively. These totals may appear small due to the diversion of waste to H-POWER for electricity generation, but in reality, waste has a significant carbon footprint. Landfills create methane emissions that end up being flared, and plastic-based goods are made using fossil fuels. As such, eliminating waste can reduce emissions locally while also having notable impact on emissions elsewhere.

As the sole manager of O‘ahu’s waste and wastewater disposal, the City has an opportunity to reduce waste at the source and utilize byproducts as resources themselves. The actions in this plan, therefore, focus on both waste prevention and maximizing the efficiency of the waste we cannot avoid. The following two high-impact strategies will further reduce emissions from O‘ahu’s waste sector.

▿Strategy 8: Promote Waste Prevention

Action 8.1: Continue to eliminate single-use plastics and expand the use of multiple-use foodware and serviceware in food distribution and sale.

Action 8.2: Establish a sustainable (Low GHG) procurement policy for the City.

Action 8.3: Strengthen infrastructure and partnerships for edible food recovery.

Action 8.4: Advance development of a volume-based residential refuse pickup program that appropriately prices refuse pickup services for customers.

Action 8.5: Expand the location of public drinking water fountains and retrofit existing public drinking fountains to include devices capable of refilling reusable water flasks, cups, and containers.

Action 8.6: Establish a building deconstruction reuse and recycling program; enable reuse, recycling, and repair systems.

Action 8.7: Develop end-of-life requirements for solar PV and other relevant renewable energy technologies, including battery storage.

▿Strategy 9: Maximize Waste Resource Efficiency

Action 9.1: Implement methane collection systems at landfill and wastewater treatment facilities, where feasible, that would allow the City or others to benefit from methane capture and reuse.

Action 9.2: Explore the feasibility of adding an anaerobic digester capacity or other resource recovery project to the City's solid waste and wastewater processing and treatment infrastructure.

Action 9.3: Based on GHG lifecycle analysis, assess the benefits of the flow of materials to out-of-state recycling instead of H-POWER.

Action 9.4: Seek out new public-private partnerships to increase the diversion of food and other organic materials from the waste stream through composting and/or other solutions.