All 22 of Hawaii County’s solid waste recycling and transfer stations are now accepting tires as the dengue fever outbreak continues to spread.
Since the announcement of the outbreak in late October, health officials have specifically named old tires as one of the leading culprits behind the spread of the mosquito-borne disease. When left outdoors, they collect rainwater and provide perfect places for the little bloodsuckers to breed.
When Hookena and Honaunau were first identified as likely areas where the disease has been transmitted between humans and mosquitoes, the county began accepting tires free of charge at the three nearby transfer stations.
Typically, the county does not accept tires at all. Instead, residents had to pay fees — usually about $5 — for private recycling companies to dispose of them.
Now that the disease has likely gained a foothold in other areas around the island, the county will be accepting tires at all transfer stations, said Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, director of the Department of Environmental Management.
“We’re accepting tires from residential customers,” she said Friday. “This is an extraordinary situation, so the county is trying to do everything we can to help.”
The change took effect last week, after county residents raised concerns that some tires were being disposed of improperly, or people weren’t disposing of tires at all, because of the costs involved.
Tires cannot be left in the county’s landfill, Leithead Todd said, so the county will have to take on the financial burden of recycling them.
County workers are currently storing the tires at a central location in a large Matson container. Once it is full, the tires will be transported to a recycler with which the county has a contract.
Waiting for the container to be full may not take very long.
The Waiohinu transfer station alone collected 320 tires within a one-week period, she said.
“We were a little surprised,” she said.
The county asks that community associations or clean-up efforts contact Environmental Management before delivering large amounts of tires, because special arrangements will need to be made.
More information, hours and locations of the county transfer stations can be found at www.hawaiizerowaste.org/.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
