Now & Again

With 50 years behind it, Hawaii Business looks back and looks ahead

1966

We'll Have the Usual
For most businesses, updating their menus with the newest carb-free dish or re-vamping their décor can draw in a new wave of customers. However, for Liliha Bakery, change is not a necessary ingredient in its recipe for success. In April 1966, Hawaii Business recognized Liliha Bakery as one of Honolulu's fastest growing retail businesses, as its frozen goods export business had increased 150 percent in six months.

Recognized for its customer service, local feel and exceptional Coco Puffs, not much has changed since the bakery opened in 1950.

Little has changed at Liliha since 1966, as captured in this photo.

"Every year it [sales] has grown. ...We try to improve what we have here. We are not really focused on trying to go beyond Hawaii," says Fred Takakuwa, president of Liliha.

After 56 years in business, there continue to be lines of loyal customers waiting to eat in the 18-seat diner and to take home a variety of pastries, including, of course, Coco Puffs.

1971 Luckily, technology has changed since 1971 and we no longer need punch cards to quickly dial phone calls as shown in this ad. Instead, we can return phone calls with automatic redial, hold down a key to call a stored number and even connect without dialing, by using voice activation.

1981

From Rubbish to Resource
In 1981, the city of Honolulu proposed what seemed to be a promising answer to the state's growing problem with waste management. HPOWER, the abbreviation for Honolulu Pro-gram of Waste Energy Recovery, was an anticipated $90 million facility in Waipahu that would process Oahu's waste to reuseable energy, according to the April 1981 issue of Hawaii Business.

Projected to handle 1,800 tons of garbage a day and reduce it to about one-tenth its original volume, it was estimated that HPOWER would save the city $5.2 million in landfill costs yearly and $22.3 million in electricity sales.

While HPOWER in 1981 appeared to be the next step in managing Oahu's waste, today it has become a necessity.

An artist's rendering shows how the proposed HPOWER system would look in 1981.

Located in Kapolei's Campbell Industrial Park, HPOWER is the only waste-to-energy facility on Oahu. Built in lieu of the proposed Waipahu plant, HPOWER is capable of processing 2,160 tons of municipal waste per day into renewable energy and provides approximately 4.5 percent of the total electrical power consumed on Oahu, says Rodney Smith, facility business manager for Covanta Honolulu Resource Recovery Venture.

"We believe strongly that Oahu must continue to use municipal solid waste as a renewable resource for producing electrical power for our community far into the future," says Smith.

Today, Hawaii residents produce more than 1.5 million tons of solid waste a year, more than HPOWER's current capacity of 605,000 tons a year. Since 1990, HPOWER has processed approximately 9.7 million tons of municipal waste.

With recent discussions targeting the closure of Waimanalo Gulch landfill in 2008, Smith says Covanta Energy believes expanding the plant makes good sense and that it is ready to help in any way it can.

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