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One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That’s something we say all the time that has a practical meaning.

But many items we use everyday take energy to manufacture and deliver. The energy we use is toxic to the planet and to us.

As someone formerly engaged in retrieving and restoring fine furniture, I know very well what we throw away. I also know that expecting folks to donate in some Pollyanna fashion like we are being told doesn’t work. It’s those who inherit it who have the interest.

Up until recently Honolulu residents could leave out what we didn’t want and give it a chance to be useful to someone else — until the City and County of Honolulu’s new pilot program effectively stopped the recycling of all bulky item rubbish.

But rubbish has value.

In Cairo, Egypt, a small economy developed around it. The Zabbaleen, a religious sect who recycle up to 80% of the city’s trash, were left out when Cairo hired municipal collectors who failed to make re-use of the cities’ waste as the Zabbaleen had done; by asking nothing from the people of the city but their rubbish, they proved their importance.

The Zabbaleen did what they had to to survive yet provided a needed service. We had a force of individuals busy at it. They do a job we can’t do for ourselves.

It’s not the past anymore, and the sooner we wake up the better, especially with the climate threat that Hawaii faces. Repurposing saves the energy used to make a replacement and get it here in the middle of the ocean.

Some of what is thrown away has value that makes it absurd to discard. We can’t act like that anymore. The future demands we do more.

Not Just An Eyesore

The convenience of the pilot program puts the work on you of taking time and/or money to haul it to the dump, making appointments willy-nilly or paying for it, as the eventual goal might be.

In my years of picking up in Honolulu, I’ve met the people who hate the mess. It’s not everyone. Many who got their first furniture or who gather scrap metal agree there are benefits. Most piles are neat, only some are an eyesore.

Rubbish is an unavoidable part of the cycle. At some point everything gets thrown away. It’s a resource that should be dealt with rationally.

In conjunction with this appointment system, perhaps the city could reduce pickups to bi-monthly. That could reduce costs theoretically by half. That’s significant.

Residential neighborhoods could still schedule appointments, so drivers would know where to go, picking up stray bulky items along the way, which isn’t being done now.

Populated areas could go back on regular pickups, which is where it’s headed anyway, making circuits of certain buildings on certain days.

Recycling is not just a pastime anymore. Rubbish is not all the same. Some is a resource that should be re-used for its material, historic and practical value.

We need to make the right decisions regarding what we’ve already created. Old island ways were not so wasteful. We know repurposing works, if we do it. It’s time to start doing the harder work.