OCTOBER 12, 2023
EPA Announces Two Grants to Develop a Reusable Food and Drinkware System in Hilo, including $1.5 Million to Hawaiʻi County and over $600,000 to the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant
Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island and Perpetual Facilitate Groundbreaking Effort with Hawaiʻi County and the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant to Reduce Waste from Disposable Cups, Bottles, and Food Containers
(Hilo, HI) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the selection of two complementary grants to support the design and implementation of a city-scale, reusable foodware and refillable bottle system in Hilo that aims to eliminate the generation of waste from disposable food service ware.
On September 13, EPA announced that Hawaiʻi County Department of Environmental Management was selected to receive $1,522,130 through the EPA’s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling (SWIFR) grant program to fund reuse system infrastructure and equipment. On October 12, EPA announced that the University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program (Hawaiʻi Sea Grant) was selected to receive $622,000 through the EPA’s Pollution Prevention: Environmental Justice through Safer and More Sustainable Products program. This grant will provide technical assistance to local businesses, schools, and community organizations that provide meals, to enable them to make the transition to the reuse system.
“We are excited to begin working with our community to implement this groundbreaking city-wide reusable foodware and refillable bottle system in Hilo,” said Hawaiʻi County Mayor Mitch Roth. “Our residents have been advocating for more recycling and waste reduction systems, and we now have the opportunity to give them more options thanks to the hard work of our Environmental Management team and the trust and assistance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
Hilo is a population center in Hawaiʻi County, not an official municipality, and it is governed at the county level.
The grant to Hawaiʻi County will fund reuse infrastructure in Hilo, including collection bins for reusable containers, transport vehicles, a dishwashing machine, code scanners, and a technology platform to support asset tracking and management. The funding is allocated through the EPA’s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling grant program, which was authorized by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
A second EPA grant to the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program will provide technical assistance to businesses that make or serve food in Hilo to enable their participation in the reusable foodware system. Technical assistance will include on-site assessments, the provision of written materials and online training, and other support. The funding is allocated through the Pollution Prevention: Environmental Justice through Safer and More Sustainable Products program, also authorized under the IIJA. The project will improve human health and the environment in Hilo by decreasing waste from disposable items and reducing human exposure to chemicals of concern, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which can be present in disposable foodware and migrate from the packaging into the food. The system will positively impact disadvantaged communities in Hilo, focusing on serving intergenerational families, the unhoused, and Native Hawaiians.
“Hawaiʻi Sea Grant is thankful to have EPA support our partnership with Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island and Perpetual to address plastic pollution at the source,” said Dr. Darren T. Lerner, director of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant. “We are excited to bolster the health and resilience of our coastal communities by providing safe, affordable, and reusable foodware options to our local schools and businesses in Hawaiʻi.”
Research shows that switching half of Hilo’s disposable foodware to reusables would lead to a reduction of 500 tons of solid waste annually and more than 3,000 tons of greenhouse-gas emissions. A successful reuse system in Hilo can demonstrate how reuse works at a city scale, catalyzing the adoption of reuse systems in cities across the U.S., with the potential to lead to reductions of plastic pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions of a vastly greater magnitude.
Perpetual facilitates the Hilo reuse project by partnering with cities, local nonprofits, reuse service providers, foodservice establishments, and other stakeholders to design and implement immersive reuse systems that eliminate single-use disposables. Perpetual brings strategic expertise to facilitate the community design process, mobilize funding for infrastructure and transition costs, facilitate the selection of reuse service providers, offer on-the-ground support for system set-up and launch, and share best practices for other communities to create their own systems. Perpetual works closely with Vessel Works, a non-profit organization that collaborates with communities, businesses, government, and industry to design actionable initiatives to move toward circularity.
In Hilo, Perpetual has partnered with Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island (ZWHI), a local nonprofit that connects diverse Hawai‘i Island communities to achieve zero waste, to facilitate a community-driven process across Hilo to design and implement an inclusive, sustainable, reusable foodware system that is rooted in the Hawaiian values of kanaka, ʻāina, and akua connections (People, Land, and Spirit). K. Kuulei Kanahele, ZWHI’s cultural advisor, shared about the “Kuʻi and Kani in Panaʻewa” event held August 12, planned to gather input on the reuse system while engaging cultural practices like pounding taro and making music. “We’re recontextualizing zero waste to uplift Native Hawaiian people and perspectives as leaders in the field of environmental protection. Our community engagement process centers aloha ʻāina, community wellness, and the restoration of family systems as a significant counterpart to reuse in Hilo.”
The complementary EPA grants offer a unique opportunity to implement a city-scale reuse system including sufficient dishwashing capacity, a city-wide network of public collection bins, and efficient logistics to support the circulation of reusable items, and outreach and education for participating businesses and customers. One goal of this scaled approach is to enable a similar level of convenience as single-use disposable items. Insights from various business pilots of reusable food and drinkware have indicated that one of the greatest challenges to implementing reusable systems is the lack of scaled infrastructure. The Hilo reuse system is prioritizing city-wide scale to unlock critical benefits and accessibility for businesses and individuals that are only available with a city-scale reuse ecosystem in place.
While reusables offer a compelling solution to disposable waste, they are not often equitably available. Disadvantaged communities often rely on the convenience and low cost of to-go foods, and alternatives can be expensive or inconvenient. Since April, ZWHI, with support from Perpetual, has been addressing these challenges around equity, affordability, and convenience through a highly participatory outreach effort to solicit input from businesses, nonprofits, local officials, and residents.
“We greatly appreciate EPA’s support, which will fund critical reuse infrastructure that will offer an alternative to single-use disposables and help address the plastic pollution crisis,” said ZWHI Program Director Jennifer Navarra. “This initiative is enabling communities to forge a more sustainable economy – one in which we work to repair food and family systems, respect ancestral practices, promote Indigenous education, and strengthen our relationship to the land – while empowering each person to take responsibility for their own waste.”
Generous grants from the Walmart Foundation, the 11th Hour Project – a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation, the Plastic Solutions Fund, and the Overbrook Foundation – make it possible for Perpetual and Zero Waste Hawai‘i Island to facilitate and support Hilo. Moreover, Perpetual is launching city-scale reusable foodware systems in three other markets including Galveston, TX, Ann Arbor, MI, and Savannah, GA, and is partnering with local nonprofits in each respective city to design and launch the system.
“We are delighted to be partnering with Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island, Hawaiʻi County, and the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program to support the design and implementation of a holistic, equitable reuse system that is accessible to everyone in Hilo,” said Dagny Tucker, co-founder of Perpetual. “These two grants will each contribute critical funding for establishing a reuse system at city scale that will drive significant community, economic, and environmental benefits for the city and the island as a whole.”
In late October, the partner organizations will co-host a series of in-person workshops in Hilo to solicit community perspectives on how the reusable foodware system would work best for them, with questions about system design, materials, and return incentives. Workshop materials will be provided in Hawaiian, Japanese, Tagalog, and English. Attendance will be free of charge and food and drink will be provided. For more information, see https://www.zerowastehi.org/upcoming-events
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About Perpetual
Perpetual is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit that is helping businesses, local governments, and communities in four partner cities across the U.S. design and implement city-wide reusable foodware systems. Perpetual’s inclusive, holistic, science-based design process ensures that reuse systems are affordable and accessible to everyone.
About Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island
ZWHI is fiscally sponsored by Inquiring Systems Inc., and their mission is to connect diverse Hawaiʻi Island communities to support equitable systems redesign and policy change to achieve zero waste. ZWHI began in 2019 as a community group, hosting monthly meetings and doing community outreach. They grew to address Hawaiʻi Island’s waste problem by working to reduce packaging waste through policy, and by modeling systems of waste reduction that are grounded in Hawaiian value systems of Kanaka,`Āina, Akua Connections (humankind, land, and spirit) – recalling the ancient relationship between land and humanity as a zero waste system.
About University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program
The University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program has been supporting an innovative program of research, education, engagement, and communication services directed to increasing sustainability of coastal and marine resources and resilience of coastal communities of the state, region, and nation since 1968.
Media Contacts
Hawaiʻi County: Craig Kawaguchi, Craig.Kawaguchi@hawaiicounty.gov
Perpetual: Ellie Moss, hello@perpetualuse.org
University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program: Cindy Knapman, lknapman@hawaii.edu
Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island: Jennifer Navarra, zwhi@zerowastehi.org