ADVANCE DISPOSAL FEE KEEPS GLASS OUT OF LANDFILL

There is one good reason why Hawaiian landfills are not clogged with glass.  It’s called an Advance Disposal Fee (ADF) and it has made glass a winner in Hawaii.

Under the state ADF program, every importer pays a tax on incoming glass containers.  The money collected is used to fund the recycling of those glass containers.  The recovered glass is crushed and used as road base, for sandblasting, in filtration systems and for paving, as “glassphalt.”  Most of the glass packaging in Hawaii never reaches the landfill and doesn’t have to be sent back to the mainland for recycling.

The great thing about this program is that it covers ALL glass containers, not just beverage containers.  This means that if I buy things like olive oil and applesauce in glass rather than plastic, I can keep those containers out of the landfill. 

There are plans to do the same with plastic and aluminum beverage containers.  In October of this year, the Hawaii Bottle Bill will require importers of beverage containers to pay an advance fee for their proper disposal.

I wondered if implementation of the Bottle Bill would jeopardize the recycling of food containers.  I went to BottleBillHawaii.org and was happy to find that the ADF will continue to cover non-beverage containers.

Maybe one day there will be an ADF on non-beverage plastic and aluminum containers.  Until then, I buy food packaged in glass containers, knowing that those containers will not end up in the local landfill.

Camille Armantrout