A company’s proposal to convert Big Island waste into energy, concrete and more raised eyebrows Friday at a Hawaii County Environmental Management Commission meeting.
Back in March, the County Council passed a resolution urging the county to develop a facility that could divert all municipal waste and convert it into more carbon-friendly materials by 2026.
That resolution was based primarily upon claims made by a company called Yummet. The company’s pilot site in Minnesota was visited in March by Doug Adams, director of the county’s Department of Research and Development.
Adams appeared before the Environmental Management Commission on Friday to discuss Yummet’s claims.
Unfortunately, there was a large hole that Adams had to talk around: He said he had to sign a nondisclosure agreement pertaining to Yummet’s patented technology that the company’s CEO Brittany Zimmerman claims can disassemble materials such as plastics, metal, glass, green waste and more into their constituent molecules and reassemble them into clean air, water, hydrogen, cement and biochar.
“I saw the process in action, and I can say it is feasible, and it is scalable,” Adams said.
Adams emphasized that the county has made no promises to Yummet and is currently merely in the process of collecting information. However, he said that the county administration feels that diverting some or all of the island’s waste stream into usable resources is worth investigation.
But others at the meeting had reservations.
Commissioner Melissa Cardwell said she thought the proposal presents few benefits beyond what is already possible with existing facilities, asking whether biochar — carbonized organic matter — is meaningfully more environmentally friendly than simple mulching.
Furthermore, Cardwell said, despite Adams repeating that Yummet’s process does not involve incineration, she was unconvinced that it is more environmentally friendly. Yummet’s process instead utilizes pyrolysis, which still involves generating high temperatures, just with lower oxygen concentrations to prevent combustion.
“I don’t want to end up greenwashing this,” Cardwell said. “Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.”
Other attendees at the meeting also had questions. Jennifer Navarra, program director of Zero Waste Hawaii Island, said there is no need to process materials like glass and metal, which can be reused and recycled just fine using existing facilities.
“Instead of taking our chances on a new, poorly described technology, would it not be better to focus the resources we have on tried and true materials management applications around the world … ?” Navarra wrote in testimony submitted before the meeting. “Technology like Yummet sounds wonderful, but it is not a feasible first step for a county that has yet to implement basic resource management practices such as composting, reuse and basic recycling education and outreach.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
