HawaiiReporter.com editorializes with searing candor about the Hawaii County Council´s recent decision to close the Hilo landfill, which lies near the Big Island´s sunrise coast. The council´s new plan is to build a trash transfer station and truck the displaced waste to a landfill near Kona, which lies near the isle´s opposite shore where the sun kisses the ocean good night. The plan reportedly will cost county taxpayers at least $35 million, and possibly twice that, while disregarding the fact that "solid waste handling companies [are] falling all over each other to offer free construction of sort stations and waste-to-energy facilities."

Sounds to me like there´s a lot of catty politicking and shin-kicking going on down in the Big County. See if you don´t get a kick out of the editorial writer´s colorful casting of the "Kona Boys" versus the "Hilo Gang."

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley seems to be thinking (sort of) along the same lines as the editors of HawaiiReporter.com. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Daley is touting the idea of leasing three of the city´s waste transfer stations to private investors in order to generate revenue that would enable Chicago to trash its beleaguered blue-bag recycling program in favor of a "suburban-style" curbside collection system.

Daley points to the recent privatization of Midway Airport and the Chicago Skyway (that´s the giant bridge connecting the Dan Ryan Expressway to the Indiana Tollway) as precedents that show his transfer-station idea could fly. The idea does seem to have garnered some support among the city´s movers and shakers. We´ll keep an eye on this one.

Let´s close the old ´Box down today with an odd little item from the Ottawa [Ill.] Times by a sports columnist named J.T. Pedelty who writes a sports column that sports the rather witty column moniker "The Pedelty Box." The piece talks about the travails of being a Chicago Cubs fan (I know, I know: Zzzzz ...), but it also wrestles with the burning issue of what one should do when one needs to dispose of an old garbage can and can´t figure out how to get his trash collectors to figure out that what once was a container -- i.e., a useful leave-behind item -- is now a containee -- i.e., a please-take-this-away-from-me-forever albatross.

The solution? Only a true cut-up like Pedelty could figure this one out.

Pete Fehrenbach is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.