A program that would replace disposable foodware with reusable items at Hilo restaurants and other places that sell or serve food will take shape later this month.
On Thursday, Martha Guzman, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, announced $2.1 million in grants awarded to Hawaii County and the University of Hawaii which will be used to develop a system intended to wean the county off of disposable foodware items.
Through the grant, the county Department of Environmental Management will receive a little over $1.5 million, with the remaining $622,000 going to UH’s Sea Grant College Program. Both grants will support the same initiative, a Hilo-wide system that would distribute and collect reusable foodware among participating businesses and organizations.
The project is a partnership between Zero Waste Hawaii Island and Perpetual, a nonprofit that has administered similar programs in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Galveston, Texas.
Jennifer Navarra, program director for Zero Waste Hawaii Island, explained that businesses, restaurants, schools and organizations that distribute food, such as Meals on Wheels, will buy into the program by purchasing reusable foodware at a price point that she said should be comparable to current disposable foodware costs.
Customers will use those items, then drop them off at public collection sites located around Hilo, and then workers will retrieve the used foodware from the collection sites, clean them and redistribute them to participating businesses.
“The hope is that, with enough participation, it makes reuse feel more or less the default,” Navarra said. “Eventually, it causes a behavioral shift.”
A pilot program, “No Poho,” has been conducted at The Locavore Store in Hilo through a pair of microgrants, said Zero Waste community liaison Ellen Okuma. When the store decided to stop selling beverages in single-use bottles, the program purchased pallets of glass bottles that customers can return to the store for a 50-cent credit on their next purchase.
While Okuma said she is happy with the success of No Poho so far, she noted that only about 30% of customers actually return the bottles. Navarra said the question of how to incentivize users to return the foodware to collection sites instead of keeping them for themselves or throwing them out is still uncertain.
“There are some options,” Navarra said. “There could be a system where customers pay a deposit — although I think that might cause people to think of the foodware as something they’ve bought that’s theirs. There could be a penalty fee for not returning it in a certain time, or there could be a rewards program. … We’ve found that people don’t like the idea of penalties, but they are happy about rewards.”
In any case, Navarra said that the program — which should launch sometime next year — represents the country’s largest public investment into reusability infrastructure, and said that it could, if successful, eventually scale up to the entire island.
Hilo County Councilwoman Jenn Kagiwada said Thursday that while many of her constituents have complained about the scaling back of the county’s recycling programs over the last several years — largely owing to external factors such as the decline of global waste markets — recycling remains only one pillar of the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra that drives sustainability initiatives.
A series of community events will be held in Hilo from Oct. 24 through Oct. 28, wherein residents will be able to provide feedback about aspects of the project, such as how users can be motivated to return foodware and where collection sites should be located.
The schedule for those events is:
— Oct. 24, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at UH Hilo Library;
— Oct. 25, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Mo‘oheau Bandstand;
— Oct. 26, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Hawaii Community College Cafeteria;
— Oct. 27, 1:30 p.m.-4 p.m. at Pana‘ewa Community Center;
— Oct. 28, 12 p.m.-5 p.m. at East Hawaii Cultural Center.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.