One of the advantages of having family in Maui is the opportunity to visit a beautiful place with regularity. At present, I’m in Kihei doing little more than relaxing with no agenda other than to perhaps get in a dive or two. Believe me, I recognize the absurdity of such luxury and do not take it for granted.

However, it seems that more than a few Maui locals take their island very much for granted. While tourists do crowd the streets and shops, it is the locals who are responsible for most of the incredible amount of trash strewn about what would otherwise be a genuine tropical paradise. Drive down most any road that splits the cane fields and you’re bound to find dumped washing machines, cars, televisions–most any appliance one can think of. Take a stroll along the “local” beach (especially near the Kihei ballfield) and you’ll find mountains of cigarette butts and vast fields of broken beer bottles, all within easy reach of the lapping waves. Yet, despite the indifference by some of the local population to “their” island’s fragile ecosystems, there is an undercurrent of “fuck the mainlanders, they destroy our way of life” attitude that I find completely contradictory.
Despite this local element that trashes the place, there are many, many who desire to preserve the natural integrity of their home. To those, I suggest that the following measures should be enacted immediately on Maui:

1. IMPLEMENT CURBSIDE RECYCLING!: This has been a local government debacle. The Maui government is a joke, having spent millions on recycling containers before implementing a recycling plan. The fact that it is 2006 and they don’t have curbside recycling is more than stunning. It’s a massive black eye on the city’s government, to say the least.

2. BAN DISPOSABLE CAMERAS, BATTERIES: It makes no sense at all to hawk disposable items on any island. With limited landfill space, the idea is absurd. Disposable cameras are everywhere and while tourists bring many of them back to their homes, more than enough are found in Maui’s landfill. Non-rechargable batteries, too, have no place on an island. I’d even argue the same for razors and many other disposable consumer items, but let’s start with the obvious targets.

3. FREEZE THE NUMBER OF AUTOS: You want to buy a new car? Fine. But first you have to arrange for the removal of one existing car off the island. This would help rid Maui of the thousands and thousands of junked cars that litter the countryside and yards. Again, on an island it makes no sense to keep adding millions of tons of scrap metal without an orderly removal system. Instituted via a permit system, those who seek new cars could buy a ‘credit’ from anyone who had ‘proof of removal’. Yes, this would add to the price of a vehicle, as the cost of shipping to the mainland is quite high, but this is a cost that could be borne by both government and the citizenry. Besides which, cars should be expensive considering the horrific havoc they wreak.

4. EDUCATE THE CHILDREN: Clearly, island school kids are not being taught about the fragility of their island, nor the consequences of continuing to trash it. Or maybe they are, and it’s the parents who are failing their kids. I don’t know where the link is broken, but somewhere in the educational loop there is a failure to engage kids on the topic of respect for their environment. Agreed, there are many places in the United States where the local citizens fail to understand the importance of not shitting on their own pillows, but there is no excuse for such a disconnect on a tiny island.
5. BAN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY: When I first visited Maui and noticed the continual drizzle of falling ash I wondered how they could have such bad forest fires! When I found out that it’s a daily occurence due to the continual burning of sugar cane, I couldn’t believe it. Not only is such burning tossing tons of pollutants into the atmosphere, but the respiratory effects are well-documented. In addition, the tons and tons of pesticides and insecticides added to the soil are no bueno. The sugar industry does not employ enough people to justify the massive, massive damages it does to the Hawaiian islands. It’s 2006 - time to say bye-bye to an industry that has inflicted centuries of suffering.

Oh, the house is waking. Time for me to get going. I’ll try to get some pictures of the trash and add to this later. Don’t get me wrong, Maui is a beautiful place. All the more reason for its inhabitants to start taking care of it.

Tags: environment, Ruminations

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 at 11:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.