Hawai'i, you are an inspiration!
Every country has their own unique culture and history that will influence policymakers and the kinds of regulations has to run parallel in order to be the most ideal solutions to a problem. And I think Hawai'i is very special, in a sense that, it is relatively easier for this state to achieve their sustainability goals.
I noticed the culture of surfing - is so awesome because everyone appreciates the Makai (ocean side) and so does the tourists in Hawai'i. These outdoor activities is not as apparent in my country for example, and this means that the many forest reserves and Marine Protected Areas of our ocean is not fully utilized and thus becoming underappreciated by many.
We are a part of nature and we must be in nature in order to be alive. But if no one wants to be in these raw and beautiful environments, would there be a need to restore, protect and conserve it in the first place?
So our visit to the Bishop Museums has taught me a thing or two about the ancient Gods of the native Hawaiian. Every elements of nature is a God. Sharks, Dolphin, Octopus, Wood, Rocks, Volcanoes are all examples of Gods that ought to be respected and loved. I think it is because of this ideology that the effort for conservation in Hawai'i is highly important.
Other thing I should mention is the fact that the state of Hawai'i is a perfect island for experimentation of regulations, green technologies, etc before launching it to a full scale plan to the mainland America. We did a site visit to H Power, which is the first in the US for harnessing the heat to generate electricity from the incineration plant (waste to energy).
I noticed that there is only cornstarch take away containers in restaurants, food trucks and even the university's cafeterias. There are recycling bins everywhere, all the cutleries are compostable, and I love that Hawai'i has a big open air composting site run by and NGO called Hawaiian Recycling. They worked with the waste collection department to gather green wastes (garden) from the residents on the island.
Their compost costs a lot cheaper than fertilizer.
I remember a saying by one of the staff at the composting site,
'Fertilizer feeds the plant, but compost feeds the soil.'
Now back to the waste to energy by H Power. Though Hawai'i has invested in many clean energy alternatives such as wind power, biofuel, solar and others, it is still not enough. At times where there is not much wind and sun, there will be an energy deficit in the state and they responded by supplementing this with coal energy. Also, the main issue of H Power is the high cost of running the plant, and this is a burden for the customers who need to pay up to 15x the cost compared to choosing their energy source coal-based.
Naturally I would compare to the energy use that we have in Brunei, which is oil and gas. But I see the opportunity in converting wastes to energy in my country is like a need rather than a choice. We produced the highest waste compared to other ASEAN nations, of 1.4kg per person per day. Now that is a lot of space used for landfills! But if we incinerate them, harness the energy, we will produce just a tiny portion of ash relative to the landfills.
I was skeptical at first about the whole system of incineration. What happened to the toxic air from burning? H Power site visit is excellent at showing us their automatic air control and state of the art filtration system for the soot and by-products. You can do more research on this but hey, it works. It is time to take action about our mounting landfills.
It is not gona go anywhere, just an energy resource wasted. Countries in Europe has long implemented this system and they even had to import trash as they have harnessed all of their wastes into energy.
Do you think this is a perfect system to embrace for Brunei?
Let me know in the comment section / send me a message.
