Yay, our blue cart for mixed recyclables arrived today to compliment our green waste recycle cart. We now have 3 of these, yikes. We need a bigger yard! I managed to fit just under half of the bags of mixed recyclables into the cart, about 6 trashbags… not bad. It’s pretty big. Curbside recycle pickup starts on November 3rd.

Monday is trash + recycling and Thursday is just trash. The green and blue carts alternate so its really 2x a month for mixed, and 2x a month for green waste. Visit opala.org for more info, but that’s the basics. Finally, good curbside recycling for Hawaii… yay!.

The University of Hawaii Manoa campus launched its green campaign on October 1st. I’m not sure the details of the green campaign but it includes the use of biodegradable containers in lieu of plastic and styrofoam for everything from the plates to the dishware and trays.
The removal of the plastic trays reduces the dish washing load which in turn saves water. It also makes students think twice about buying more food than they can consume which is good for the students in many ways as well as for food conservation and elimination of waste.

From this KHON2 article, other universities have done this and cut down on food waste by 25% while simultaneously cutting down water use (I assume use and not waste) by 30%.

The new biodegradeable containers and utensils are made from sugar cane (do they still grow cane here in Hawaii?) and corn starch. According to the KHNL2 article, they decompose in 90 days. So, if you leave them in your dorm room long enough, you won’t have to clean! he he he.
I love the ripple effect of simple actions, and how they can have greater downstream impact. I’m hopeful the University of Hawaii does more in the future to preserve our island and our planet. I searched the University of Hawaii website to see if I could dig up more info on the green campaign but they didn’t have a page with more info. If anyone has more info on efforts by the University of Hawaii, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a line or comment below, thanks!