[ OUR OPINION ]
Council, stop talking
and start recyclingTHE City Council has no problem talking trash, but members don't seem to want to put money where their mouths are. Fearing to error, the Council timidly hesitates to make decisions about the city's garbage problems.
THE ISSUE
A proposed islandwide curbside recycling plan that has been tested in Mililani is in limbo because of the City Council's political timidity.
The latest episode involves the curbside recycling proposal, a plan that has been talked, studied and tested to death while the Council stubbornly refuses to allow the program to go forward. Instead, members hunt for reasons to delay an essential component of reducing the stream of waste that flows to the city's one and only landfill, fast reaching capacity as the faint-hearted Council has delayed choosing a new site until after the fall elections.
Council members, distrustful of Mayor Harris' cost estimates for curbside recycling, should not let their suspicions stand in the way of the program that most residents favor and that they themselves recognize as prudent. They have the resources and the authority to examine the administration's numbers and adjust the mayor's budget proposal to fit. They don't seem to grasp that spending money now for curbside recycling will benefit the city and taxpayers in the long run.
The Council balked when Harris proposed the program last year. The city then launched a pilot program in Mililani, similar to an experiment conducted in Kailua in 1990, to test the plan and work out the kinks. From there, the administration refined its strategy, gathering comments and suggestions from participants and commissioning an evaluation.
With the revisions, the program now is ready to implement. Residents will be provided with three color-coded bins for green wastes -- organic materials such as grass, tree and shrub clippings -- regular trash and recyclable materials, such as paper, aluminum cans, glass bottles and plastic containers. The current twice-weekly collections will continue with one of the two designated for recyclables one week and green wastes the next.
Council members say they fear that the program will cost too much, but they should weigh the expense against the increasing toll on the environment and for landfill operations.
Some members continue to question whether the program will succeed, saying it has been hastily conceived and is full of holes, but they haven't offered any alternatives.
Others are in denial. Rod Tam, head of the key Public Works Committee, declared that the Mililani program "is not working at all," a fuzzy-headed contradiction if not a blatant falsehood. Tam, whose answer to almost every problem is to conduct a study, is demanding a "full-scale plan" first.
He already has one, one that has been poked, screened, examined, tested, evaluated and run through more hoops than a circus tiger. Communities all over the country have participated fully in recycling programs for decades; this isn't rocket science. Let's make it easy for isle residents to join in the stewardship of Hawaii's gorgeous natural environment. No doubt, the recycling program will experience snags at first; plans often need tweaking when carried out. But not taking steps forward for fear of falling guarantees that you get nowhere.
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Protect isle keiki --
teach them to swimSAFE Kids Week begins today across the nation. Hawaii's main problem in providing safety to children strongly reflects a national problem: the second-leading cause of accidental death in the islands is the inability of too many children to swim. Efforts are needed both inside and outside the school system to teach children this life-saving skill.
THE ISSUE
A week of activities is planned as part of Safe Kids Week, focusing on providing more safety for children.
A study conducted by the city involving more than 6,000 children ages 7-14 found that 70 percent could not swim 50 yards. Swimming is not a mandatory physical education requirement in the public school system, an oddity in a state surrounded by the ocean. The absence of swimming instruction in school is ascribed to lack of money.
Drowning is the second-leading cause of unintentional death, next to traffic accidents, of people ages 5-44 nationally. In Hawaii, drowning is the second-leading cause of death among children 17 and younger. At least 38 Hawaii residents drown each year, and six of them are children.
Sponsors of Safe Kids Week in Hawaii say funding is needed from the Legislature for instructors, coordination and transportation costs at private and public agencies that already provide swimming instruction. Surely Hawaii taxpayers would agree that using public funds to teach our keiki such a basic, life-saving skill would be well worth the investment.
