I applaud the Windward Planning Commission’s decision to say “no” to a water bottling plant with coffee roasting facility on this island. (See article: Water Bottling Plant Proposed for Parcel in Hilo published July 21). The proposal is environmentally harmful on four issues: 1) water extraction of our community’s water for private profit, 2) potential for ocean pollution, 3) increased plastic bottles in our landfills and 4) impact of increased traffic for manufacturing and drive through cafe, causing more greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a betrayal of public trust using the public’s water so a business can make money. This commercial use could pollute our pristine aquifer, generate polluting run-off into the ocean and create traffic on overloaded streets. What has not been fully mentioned is the manufacture or import of plastic bottles that will end up in the overfull Hilo landfill or will be trucked to Kona, resulting in more greenhouse gas emissions and long-term, slowly decomposing waste. Some sources say that plastic bottles can take up to 450 years to decompose.
Cory Harden of the Sierra Club is exactly right, “The state Office of Planning has called the aquifer in question ‘fresh, irreplaceable, and highly vulnerable to contamination. Other concerns include the impact on ocean life if the aquifer’s runoff into the sea is disrupted, as well as the production of noise and plastic waste from the facility itself.” Harden said that “the root of the problem is that a bottling plant is a misuse of public trust water.” She also said that because of the mounting effects of climate change, there may come a time where the island will benefit from having an untapped source of fresh water.
Ms. Harden started to cite the plastic problem, but let’s expand on what might be the biggest environmental problem: The manufacture of plastic bottles and more plastic filling our landfills. Think about the steps to making a plastic bottle and why refilling your own bottle is a better choice for the environment! The use of fuel always results in greenhouse gases.
• Use fuel to drill for the oil used in plastics, which can pollute the land or water where it is drilled or fracked, which could result in polluting drinking water or polluting the ocean.
• Use fuel to transport the crude oil to the refinery where fuel is used to refine the crude to produce plastics.
• Use fuel to transport the refined oil to the manufacturing plant.
• Use fuel to manufacture or to transport imported plastic bottles.
• Use fuel to transport bottles to the bottling plant where the water is pumped from the source and energy used to put water into the plastic bottles, which are cleaned and capped.
• Use fuel to load the plastic water bottles into plastic cases wrapped in plastic.
• Use fuel to drive distributing trucks to transport the cases of water to the market.
• The consumer uses fuel to drive to the grocery store, drug store, convenience store to buy the bottled water and then drives home.
• Consumers then makes a choice: Throw it in the garbage? Try to recycle it? Maybe it goes back in the landfill because China doesn’t take recycling anymore and it’s too expensive to recycle.
• The waste plastic then goes to the landfill or recycling center. Since Hawaii county does not have an “at-your-door” plastic recycling program, most plastic ends up in the landfill.
• At the landfill plastic might take hundreds of years to decompose and cause more greenhouse gases like methane.
All of the above steps use fuel which produces greenhouse gases and more waste for the landfill.
If the Roth administration truly supports resiliency, our government must act to protect the water in the public trust, protect our oceans and say no to permitting any water bottling plant on this island. The people of the island would be best served if all plastic water bottles were banned, (causing people use their own bottles) and by installing water refill stations at parks and public places. We need an “at-the-front door” recycling program. Making our island home more self-sufficient and resilient means retaining pure water for citizens, not polluting the ocean, and not importing or manufacturing plastic bottles that will fill up our landfills.
Say yes to resiliency, say no to plastic bottling plants using “our” water.
Debbie Hecht is a resident of Kailua-Kona.