LIHU’E – “We’re growing up in recycling,” Mayor Maryanne Kusaka said yesterday after her nominee, the Kaua’i Plastic Recycling Group, received a national Environmental Protection Agency Earth Day Award. Kaua’i County doesn’t have the financial resources to do everything it
LIHU’E – “We’re growing up in recycling,” Mayor Maryanne Kusaka said yesterday
after her nominee, the Kaua’i Plastic Recycling Group, received a national
Environmental Protection Agency Earth Day Award.
Kaua’i County doesn’t have
the financial resources to do everything it would like to protect the island
environment, so it depends on community volunteers like the plastics recyclers,
said Kusaka.
While she indicated the county is beginning to understand the
importance of recycling, the growth has been seen in Kusaka herself.
At one
time, Kusaka was critical of putting much emphasis on recycling efforts, saying
they would never be profitable on Kaua’i and were “feel-good”
activities.
Vicki H. Tsuhako, an EPA Region 9 manager, said Kusaka’s
initial attitude regarding recycling is not uncommon, even in the EPA.
Lots
of one-on-one conversations had to take place to convince EPA staffers of the
importance of recycling projects big and small, Tsuhako said.
Grant money
for environmental projects might be available to the county Department of
Public Works as well as volunteer agencies, she added.
Slowly but surely,
everyone is beginning to understand that environmental protection is everyone’s
job, Tsuhako said.
She and other people who examined Kusaka’s nomination
letter were impressed that the volunteers got schools, clubs and other facets
of the community involved in the plastics recycling.
Of 164 entries
received, 46 won awards. Of those 46, three are from Hawai’i, Tsuhako said
during an award presentation at Lihu’e Civic Center.
The Earth Day Award
acknowledges “those special individuals and groups that reach out across
non-traditional lines to build collaborative successes” and that go “above and
beyond the call of duty in working to improve the environment,” according to
the EPA.
Kusaka said the plan was to send Stephanie Kaluahine Reid, the
plastics recycling islandwide committee chairwoman, to the mainland to accept
the award.
When that couldn’t be arranged, the mayor encouraged EPA
officials to come to the island to make yesterday’s presentation.
Felicia
Marcus, EPA Region 9 administrator, said the volunteers “applied creativity,
teamwork and leadership in addressing some of Kauai’s most pressing and complex
environmental problems.”
“I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this
recognition than this outstanding public-private partnership,” Kusaka
said.
Kusaka originally nominated the North Shore Plastic Recycling Project
for the award. That name is a bit of a misnomer now, since the project has
spread island-wide.
What started in December 1996 as quarterly collections
of #2 plastic containers and #2 and #4 plastic bags on the North Shore has
grown to include regular collections at Lihu’e.
The project last year won a
Governor’s Kilohana Award for outstanding volunteerism.
“Perhaps more
importantly, they have instilled in all who participate a sense of
responsibility for the beauty and majesty of the environment which surrounds
us,” Kusaka wrote in her nomination letter.
“You should all be very proud
of yourselves,” Tsuhako told members of the committee. The community saw a
need, took initiative and acted, she continued.
And the volunteers have
seen the fruits of their labors. At schools around the island, and even in the
Civic Center courtyard, benches made from recycled plastics are used daily by
everyone from school children to senior citizens, Tsuhako
observed.
Partnerships, Kusaka and Tsuhako agreed, are a key role in the
success of the project.
The top reason for success, though, Tsuhako said,
is the committee’s ability to get large segments of the community involved in
the project.
Kusaka said the county’s resource recycling center near
Lihu’e Airport will become the central location for future plastics recycling
efforts. A recycling coordinator should be named in around two weeks, she
said.
Besides the plaque for the committee’s overall work, individual
certificates were handed out by Tsuhako to Reid, Bryan Mamaclay, Tracey
Kupihea, Jo Ann Carvalho, Julie Pavao, county solid waste coordinator Troy
Tanigawa, Rob Culbertson, Maurizia Zanin, Joy Morrell and Al Tadani.
Reid
gave small koa boxes (resource recovery receptacles for desktops) to each of
the members, as well.
Staff writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at
245-3681 (ext. 224) and pcurtis@pulitzer.net
