The garbage where you live

I think I figured out the solution to Oahu’s landfill problem. It was easy. It was math. Read and learn.

The current landfill is filling up, which, as I understand physics and geography, is what is supposed to happen. You can’t keep piling garbage on the same pile forever. When the pile gets too big, we’ll need another landfill.

That’s the problem. Nobody wants the landfill in their neighborhood. Leeward Oahu folks don’t care where the landfill goes so long as it goes somewhere else besides the leeward coast. That preference is pretty much universal. Anywhere but where I live.

For elected officials it’s a bit different but the sentiment is the same. “Put the landfill anywhere but near my voters.”

Where will Oahu’s next landfill go? It’s an easy solution, really. In a vote among politicians, the landfill will go where there will be the least political damage, the least number of people, the least voter impact, the least fallout (except for the garbage itself).

If you live where there are not many people but there’s plenty of empty land, look out. Garbage is coming your way. It’s math.

If you read Waste Management’s web site about the landfills they operate, you get a perspective of the problem. Garbage is big business. Not including the area around Honolulu Hale and the State Capitol Building, Oahu generates over 1.6-million tons of waste each year.

That’s about one and a half tons of rubbish for each man, woman, and child on Oahu. More if city and state politicians are included. Much more.

Short of some scheme to load the garbage up on a big barge and send it to the mainland (puts an entirely different spin on ‘boat day’ doesn’t it?), the only solution is math.

If there are not many voters who live in your neighborhood, but there’s plenty of empty land, look out.