Be Green 2: Hui Up

A unique program on Molokai is designed to help residents save electricity and teach youngsters about the importance of energy conservation.

As Dire Straits sing "We got to move these refrigerators," the Blue Planet Foundation and Sustainable Molokai created Hui Up – a clever name for a program designed to get residents to use more energy efficient refrigerators.

"We launched this back in April with Earth Day and we were successful to reach into many homes on Molokai. To date, we have 140 refrigerators traded out and we’re looking at another 30 by the end of the month of next month," said Francois Rogers of the Blue Planet Foundation.

And why refrigerators?

"Well, because refrigerators are one of the highest users of energy. You have your hot water heater and then you have your refrigerator and your freezer and washing machine and dryer," Amellia Noordhoek of Sustainable Molokai.

Sustainable Molokai got students involved, going to neighbors houses with measuring devices to see how much money they might save trading in their old refrigerators.

"That were costing them about $900 a year to run and to get a really efficient energy star refrigerator that will only cost only a $130 a year to run," Noordhoek says.

For Noordhoek, the educational component of the program may be as important as the energy savings.

"But what’s really fantastic is to bring these youth – ages between 12 and 18 – and train them to do energy assessments. So we use this and it gives us the readings for the kilowatts, the dollar amount and then the CO2 that’s sent into the atmosphere," he says.

Important question – what happens to the old refrigerators?

"We have successfully hauled them away off the island to a responsible recycling company and they have, they’re under contract with the state and they have taken everything off the island and it’s probably being recycled right now," Rogers says.

Blue Planet Foundation is hoping to expand the Hui Up program to Lanai soon – and perhaps other islands as well.