Try incineration
In Hawaii, there is a problem with municipal waste disposal. The landfills are filling up. And valuable trash is just going to waste.
Some, such as Harry Kim in his first term as mayor, considered a trash-to-energy solution, but the company he was considering was using obsolete, inefficient technology, as I testified before a Hawaii County hearing in Pahoa. In place of using fuel to burn trash, I recommended plasma incineration, which produces its own fuel.
An interesting and educational discussion about plasma incineration can be found at www.explainthatstuff.com/plasma-arc-recycling.html.
The basic idea is to create viable commercial products — such as construction material, fertilizer, fuel and electricity — from the trash while causing minimal pollution. Even electronic waste and hazardous materials can be handled in this way.
Plasma incineration plants could be built next to existing landfills and mine the valuable waste for years to come while avoiding the costs of hauling trash to other landfills. The energy created would be another step toward the goal of Hawaii energy self-sufficiency.
Forward-looking County Council members and state officials should take a serious look at plasma incineration.
Herbert Dorsey
Pahoa
COVID testing
Gov. David Ige was surprised by the large increase of travelers arriving in Hawaii after the travel ban was lifted and pre-travel testing requirements were initiated.
Mayor Harry Kim added post-arrival testing at airports for travelers to Hawaii Island, in addition to their pre-travel tests. The arrival testing at Hawaii Island airports since Oct. 15 revealed more than 90 travelers tested positive for COVID-19. Yet, Mayor Kim wants to reduce the post-arrival testing or do away with it because the percentage of positive cases of all arriving travelers is so low.
An additional 90-plus arriving travelers testing positive on Hawaii Island could increase the spread greatly. As we know, some travelers who are here on short vacations feel free to break the 14-day quarantine.
Oahu’s daily positive cases are becoming lower, but with the lack of secondary arrival testing on Oahu, Maui and Kauai, we are providing fuel to the virus outbreak. Our best approach would be to consider the post-arrival testing as part of the equation to control the spread of the virus.
Merle Hayward
Hilo
Learn from Taiwan
“No Coronavirus Cases in the last 200 days!” That was a headline in a Taiwan newspaper recently.
Just in case you did not know, Taiwan is an island nation, and 200 days is about seven months. That means they stopped the virus in March.
What are we waiting for? There must be a better way, I would think. Instead of reinventing the wheel, perhaps the Hawaii governor should talk to someone in the Taiwan health department?
Phil Shwarz
Papaikou