It seemed at first like a reasonable fallback solution to Oahu’s garbage woes.

But clearly the time has come to move on, now that the waste-shipping plan, after myriad problems, has been canceled through a settlement announced this week between the city and the contractor, Hawaiian Waste Systems.

The contract, never fully activated because of delays in securing permits and meeting other requirements, would have enabled the city to ship some of its garbage to a Washington state landfill.

The attraction was that this would provide a fallback option that Honolulu would have found useful. The city, after all, faces the looming closure of its own municipal landfill and still needs time to boost the capacity of its alternative solution: the H-POWER energy-generating incinerator.

But just as the operation finally seemed ready to launch, final federal permit in hand, the Yakama Nation, whose native land borders on the destination landfill for Hawaii trash, argued that its rights to consultation had been ignored. Hawaiian Waste insisted that the tribal authorities had been notified but had not responded until the 11th hour. Nevertheless, the feds felt compelled by the treaty to pull the permit.

The company and Honolulu officials, including the City Council, share blame for this outcome; the contractor, in particular, should have better anticipated the stumbling blocks that tripped this up.

But looking ahead, the city is now forewarned against planning anything similar unless its private partner has ironed out every wrinkle.

Given all the time lost on this enterprise, finding another such partner hardly seems worthwhile at this point. The focus should be on seeing that the planned H-POWER expansion finishes up on schedule, at the end of 2011.

Timing is utterly crucial. The city is supposed to quit dumping municipal waste at Waimanalo Gulch, with the exception of residual H-POWER ash, after July 31, 2012. That leaves virtually no room for error.

The next city administration should proceed on the assumption that Oahu has to take custody of all its own trash. That means officials must persist in the quest to reduce waste and boost recycling rates. Once homeowners are fully acclimated to curbside recycling, this may mean imposing penalties for those who don’t separate their trash, as other cities have done.

And the hard fact is that an alternative landfill site must be found, as a fallback at least. The city says its search has begun, but this is only the latest attempt and the ultimate decision has stalled for far too many years.

Perhaps the odds of a solution will improve with distance from the current election year, but that political window of opportunity will remain open only briefly.

The failure of the waste-shipping experiment was not the outcome anyone sought. But now that Honolulu finds itself at that juncture, it’s time to accept that this is where we should remain. Self-reliance is the best policy, after all, and Oahu residents simply must embrace it.