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An exciting new project is being launched in Hilo to reduce solid waste and empower the local food industry, thanks to local nonprofit Zero Waste Hawaii Island and its partners.

Zero Waste and another nonprofit, Perpetual, have been working to establish a reusable food container program in Hilo. Pilot programs have been underway for a year or so to allow glass bottles to be collected, washed and reused.

The whole state can benefit from such a program, reducing our food costs, while reducing waste and our carbon footprint.

These efforts will greatly reduce the cost of food. Local food vendors and producers can lower their packaging costs, which are a barrier for many food ventures. In Hawaii we pay more than most places for glass bottles, for example, due to very high shipping costs. Then we ship the used glass back to the mainland at great cost, where some of it is remade into new bottles, a huge energy cost.

As it is now, a glass bottle adds about a dollar to the price of every glass-bottled beverage, and then costs more to send back as recycled glass. Deposit or not, we pay a lot more than it’s even worth to ship the bottles back. The deposit is small but your hidden costs in shipping and taxes for recycling are large and ongoing.

For every glass bottle, we are shipping it across the ocean twice — paying the carbon cost and the financial shipping cost both ways. For every disposable food container we are also paying twice, to ship them here and for waste and landfill costs. These shipping costs are a big part of why food is so expensive in Hawaii. The stores pay the cost, but ultimately the consumers pay the higher price.

It’s unnecessary. If we reuse bottles and containers, the cost will be less and less over time.

The Zero Waste HI effort just got a remarkable boost in the form of a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of over $1.5 million to the county for a new “solid waste infrastructure for recycling” program. This will set up washing and redistribution programs so that food containers and glass bottles can be collected and reused.

Complementing this grant is another $600,000 from the EPA to University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant program for pollution prevention, including reducing ocean plastic pollution. By keeping plastics out of the waste stream we protect our ocean resources, while saving money and landfill space.

These grants are the largest investment of federal money for recycling infrastructure in over 30 years, according to ZWHI.

Hilo is one of only five places nationwide to get such an investment. This is a remarkable opportunity for Hilo and Hawaii to quickly begin to do what we needed to do anyway.

The ongoing local effort showed the EPA that we are serious and deserving of the investment. Among the local heroes of ZWHI are Jennifer Navarra and Ellen Okuma of Hilo, and their many partners and supporters, along with Ellie Moss of Perpetual, working in Florida to support our Big Island efforts. And credit is due to the Biden administration for passing such funding and the EPA for making it a reality.

The groups and the county are currently holding meetings with the public and the food industry to determine how best to grow this program.

Not long ago I travelled to the Philippines and saw crates of soda bottles being collected in stores, for washing and reuse by the beverage companies. Many of us remember this from the “old days.”

There is no reason not to do so, and every reason to return to this common-sense, more sustainable way of life. Why should every bottle or package be used once and thrown away, when they can be reused, lowering our cost of living, improving the environment and bettering our quality of life?

If we can have affordable, readily available glass bottles, we can easily produce these locally.

There are other benefits to reusing containers and bottles in the form of more local food production. Locally produced food brings lower prices, jobs, environmental benefits, and a sustainable system that is less reliant on shipping.

For examples, consider our beverages: lemonade, iced tea, juices and soda. These are a big part of our food budget. As a food retailer I watch us import large shipping containers full of beverages that could easily be made here, if only affordable reusable glass bottles and packaging were available. After all, these beverages are typically 95% water.

Such a waste to ship containers full of water to Hawaii and we pay a fortune to ship it here. We have plenty of water, and we also have lemons and honey to make lemonade, tea and flavorings for iced tea, and ingredients for juices and soda. If we can have affordable, readily available glass bottles, we can easily produce these locally. Given our support, this timely new program will solve that.  

There are some food items that would be hard for us to make here in Hawaii. Beverages are not among them. Beverages can reduce our imported food by 20 % to 30%, and it’s entirely doable. If we can make snack items here, that’s another 20% of our imported food. Reuseable containers can help with that also. 

It’s not overstating things to say that a major obstacle to local food production can be removed by these programs, while we benefit from lower costs and a cleaner environment.

Meanwhile, a direct benefit to our oceans, landfills, carbon footprint, and lower food costs will result from these new programs, and these new grants for the Hilo area will show the way.