City to test recycling plan
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris plans to start a pilot curbside recycling program for 10,000 homes this summer to show that his ambitious, but controversial, islandwide program can work.
The City Council rejected the mayor's mandatory recycling proposal for some 160,000 O'ahu homes in May, but Harris yesterday said a community — yet unnamed — will have the automated weekly curbside recycling pickups for paper, glass, plastic and yard waste.
He said a formal announcement will be made in a few weeks after consulting with neighborhood boards and community leaders.
While the council left him with little money to pursue a recycling program, he expects that within a year a more extensive recycling program will have been implemented.
"Our plan is to institute recycling as quickly as we can within the reduced resources we have been given by the council," he said.
One major difference with the pilot program is residents will keep twice-a-week trash pickups and won't have to pay $8 a month for the second collection.
Harris said the pilot program does not need council approval because the 10,000 homes will not be charged fees for the pickup, and the administration can pay for the program without asking the council to approve more money. It was not immediately clear yesterday how much the pilot program would cost.
Harris' proposal for O'ahu's first ever mandatory recycling program was to start July 1. It called for eliminating one of two weekly curbside trash collections and replacing it with alternating greenwaste and recycling collections. Residents could keep the second trash pickup by paying the $8 monthly fee.
The proposal would not have affected about 80,000 households — primarily apartment residents — that have private refuse haulers or who live in areas that are not served by the city's automated refuse trucks.
Council Chairman Gary Okino yesterday said he is happy to hear that Harris is developing a pilot program but suggested the mayor could have waited until the council members passed a resolution addressing their concerns with the original proposal.
However, without having any details about the pilot program, Okino raised no real objections. "Other than jumping the gun a little bit, I think it's a good effort," he said.
This month, the council's Public Works Committee will work on a resolution that will give the administration guidance about what the members would like to see in a recycling program. The resolution would incorporate the council's concerns and guidelines for using the $340,000 they included in the budget for a recycling study.
One of the disputed points in Harris' original proposal is that those who wanted another trash collection each week would have to pay the $8 monthly fee.
Charging a fee to maintain twice a week garbage pickup was unpopular with council members, partially due to concerns it would create a public health hazard if trash was not collected if payments were not made.
Harris will not be able to collect a user fee to encourage recycling under the pilot program, but he expects that people will voluntarily opt out of a second trash pickup when they realize that they can manage all their waste without it.
"A sizeable percentage won't use it because they won't have anything more to throw away," he said.
Harris said departmental specialists will craft the recycling program, but the administration will keep the council apprised of its plans.
"We feel strongly that the recycling program is an important one, and we will move forward, and we will certainly keep them informed of our plan and let them know how we structure it," he said.
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
