Over the past 18 years Hula Noodle has grown from a favorite eatery for the locals to a Lahaina tourist destination. Run by Ralph Umeke, (Uncle Ralph to Lahaina residents), the shop is well known as being one of the best places around to grab a delicious bowl of food and catch up on the local news. Now thanks to a donation from Reality Machine, the Maui landmark is becoming a place where kids can learn the importance of recycling, and have fun doing it.
Umeke never dreamed that his small noodle shop would become a place where kids and tourists alike could learn about the science of recycling, but then again he never thought he’d be famous. When he built the restaurant he had one thing in mind, “making a place where you could grab a warm bowl of food before work, or after a long day surfing, without a lot of fuss or people bothering you.” Everything changed when a brilliant young scientists named Eric Oeming moved to Lahaina and walked through Hula Noodles’ front door.
Despite being known for his gruff exterior and his wariness of tourists, Umeke declared Oeming a “local who just happened to be born somewhere else.” The pair became, and still are, very close friends. Soon Uncle Ralph’s quite local noodle shop turned into a favorite for hundreds of Veilcorp employees and a stop for any company VIPs. Hula Noodle became a hotspot for tourists trying to get a glimpse of the rich and famous, or Oeming himself. The rest, as they say, is history.
The recycling program began like so many things do at Hula Noodle, with Uncle Ralph’s vocal consternation. The issue that was troubling him this time was the amount of wasted food he was throwing away on a daily basis, and he let everyone know it. Bill Stewart, lead designer at Reality Machine, happened to be in the shop at the time and went back to talk to his team. “It was a no brainer,” Bill says. “We all love Hula Noodle and agreed that donating a RMIII to the shop would be a great idea. Having a place where thousands could see one of our machines working up close would be great for business, and we could show Ralph how to break down whatever customers left behind, instead of just throwing it away. I’d be lying if I said that we didn’t also have a laugh about what he’d throw in the recycling drawer when he got upset. We joked that we’d probably have to go down there one day to clear out a rude tourist who was jammed in the machine.”
A week later a working RMIII was up and running inside the shop. “I let my nephew dump the first half-eaten bowl of pho in the machine. He told some of his friends, and by the weekend I had a dozen kids asking if they could help me clean up,” Umeke says. A month later, what started as a novel way for Ralph to get rid of unwanted food and a fun exercise for a few local kids, has expanded into an educational program teaching the importance of recycling.
Umeke and another local business owner, Ano Lee, have partnered to create a unique recycling program many want to expand to other areas. Kids can use Umeke’s machine to recycle trash they’ve found along the beach and in the preservation zone and can deposit the raw materials in a special “Builder Bank” at Lee’s maker commune. “We have a big list of recipes for various things we thought the kids would like,” says Lee. Ranging from backpacks, to various toys and sporting equipment, or even fluorescent shoes, once a child has all the ingredients they need, Lee will demonstrate how it’s made and hand it over as a reward.
“I donate the CHON we get from all the excess food to local farms to use as feed of fertilizer,” says Umeke. “I have to admit that I have almost as much fun as the kids watching something get broken down into it’s core components. The kid’s love it and I’m proud of what Ano and I have come up with. I understand that we’re not going to change the world, but we’re definitely making our little part of it better. I think that’s all you can hope for. With all the tragedy in Lahaina over the past few years and Stonegate’s trainwreck she called the visitor restriction program, we could all use a story that we could feel good about. That’s what this is. A chance for all of us to come together and feel some pride in this jewel we call Lahaina and keep it sparkling.”
However, not everyone is sold. Preservation Zone Compliance Officer Elizabeth Stonegate has been a vocal critic of the program. “I rarely have the pleasure of eating at Hula Noodle myself, as I prefer a more spacious dining area and try to avoid people attempting to fight off a weekday hangover with a bowl of noodles. Nonetheless, I am concerned about any establishment that serves food a few feet away from a glorified garbage machine. I’m not sure I understand how the authorities have allowed this to go on for so long. Throngs of kids are breaking the rules daily by going off clearly marked trails to grab bits of trash and plastic bottles. Instead of punishing them and teaching them how vital it is that we all follow the rules, we are rewarding them with cheap plastic toys. I would be mortified if my children were out in public carrying around bags of other people’s garbage. As a society we pay people who have no other options to do that kind of work. We shouldn’t be encouraging our kids to do it.”
