One doesn't normally think of the community dump or landfill as an environmentally friendly thing, but consider the alternative.

Waste Management, the big international company that operates landfills on three Hawaiian islands, has a new Web site that highlights the upside of dealing with stuff we don't want or need any longer.

The site, www.Keeping HawaiiClean.com, includes information about landfills, certainly, but also about recycling, cleanups and other community projects, upcoming events and more.

"We hope this Web site will serve as a direct link to the community, providing comprehensive, local information about waste disposal and also connecting to the needs of our customers — a dialogue we aim to make both interactive and interpersonal," said Paul Burns, company general manager for Hawai'i.

There are also links to other sites on similar themes, such as Freecycle at www .freecycle.org, an Internet community bulletin board for offering and seeking used goods. One recent posting shows its potential: Instead of tossing out Halloween decorations after Oct. 31, one Honolulu resident put a notice up on Freecycle's Honolulu site. The decorations found new homes fast, said the 'Ewa Beach resident who posted the notice.

Recycle Hawai'i is a Big Island nonprofit with its site at www.recyclehawaii.org. You'll find lots of information there on recycling, the bottle redemption law, using nontoxic products, and reusing things instead of tossing them.

The City and County of Honolulu's site, www.opala .org, is a dense depot of data on stuff you might otherwise dump. The site makes the point that recycling doesn't happen by itself, and it doesn't happen by accident.

"It's everyone's job to know how to properly dispose of or recycle the waste materials you generate, when to set out your garbage for collection, how to contain it so it doesn't spill in the street, what and where to recycle," says the site.

The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism recycling site includes links to government reports on the topic, at www.state.hi.us /dbedt/ert/chc. It also has copies of the Buy Recycled Hawai'i logo, which companies can use to identify recycled or remanufactured contents in their products.

If you have a question or concern about the Hawaiian environment, drop a note to Jan TenBruggencate at P.O. Box 524, Lihu'e, HI 96766 or jant@honoluluadvertiser.com. Or call him at (808) 245-3074.