ABOVE: One person's trash: At Hawaii Island transfer stations (a.k.a., the dump), discarded items not quite ready for the landfill are up for sale in on-site thrift stores.
Ladders mix with laundry baskets, koa bowls nestle beside fishing poles and random computer cables clutter the counter. Surprises await at secondhand stores—especially on Hawaii Island, where some of the best thrifting happens at the neighborhood dump.
Retail and rubbish typically don't mix, but this is Hawaii, where the trash-to-treasure ethos thrives at transfer station thrift stores. Officially dubbed reuse centers by the Department of Environmental Management, the county agency in charge of solid waste disposal, these chockablock secondhand stores are a sort of local secret. "I furnished my entire home from the 'mall'—that's what we call the transfer station store in Waimea," laughs Elizabeth Rollins. Rollins, who regards thrifting as a form of environmental activism and preaches reuse as survival strategy, should know: She holds the county contract for the island's seven transfer station stores.
An abundance of ragged treasures in the Hilo transfer station's store.
Hawaii Island, like its neighbors, faces a real and growing garbage problem, generating over two hundred thousand tons of solid waste every year. To boot, there's no municipal trash collection—all refuse goes to transfer stations for sorting and processing. Most of that ends up in a single landfill, which is also problematic. "Hawaii Island's only landfill will reach capacity in about twenty-five years," says Jennifer Navarra of Zero Waste Hawaii Island. "A few years ago, that estimate was eighty years. The more solid waste diversion that happens, the better. These thrift stores contribute to that."
According to Rollins, these shops divert over five hundred tons of reusable items from the island's waste stream annually, helping honor the county's commitment to zero waste, and further the state's efforts toward meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals. William Haas, an avid thrifter who circumnavigates the island searching for bargains, is doing his part. "I go to transfer station stores on the regular. I got a top-of-the-line stove at the one in Keaau when I was building my house in Kalapana." Haas also avails himself of free mulch made from wood and green waste from the Hilo transfer station, another service offered at many Hawaii Island dumps.
Carla Mueller, a self-described thrift hobbit ("it's part hobby, part habit," she says), maintains a booth at the Ocean View Swap Meet stocked in part with goods from these stores. "Finding little treasures is such a rush. I just snagged this awesome cobalt blue mixing bowl for six bucks. Not a chip on it!"
