In an island community with limited space for landfills, city officials are looking for innovative solutions as they consider:

• Which landfill space to use in the next decade.

• Whether to expand the city's H-Power garbage-to-energy program.

• What technology can help reduce the amount of garbage that requires disposal.

• How to continue to expand recycling.

Trash is an issue that residents understand and one in which they can make a difference in their own homes.

Systems analyst Amy Caliboso is a Mililani resident who liked the pilot recycling program run by the city and was sorry to see it go.

Mcjohnny Butay of Royal Hawaiian Movers sorts recycling bins for delivery in Wahiawa as part of the city's residential recycling program. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Caliboso, 41, recalls learning about Earth Day and recycling in school and wonders why it has taken this long to reach the curb.

She was disappointed to hear the City Council debate shift to exploring the possibility of paying to export garbage to another state. "I just think it's morally not right to have someone else deal with something that we don't want to deal with," she said.

Before the next mayor takes office in January, the City Council is expected to decide whether to create a new landfill at one of four locations or expand the landfill at Waimanalo Gulch on the Leeward Coast, where it has been since 1989. The four possible new locations are Makaiwa Gulch near Makakilo, and sites in Nanakuli and Ma'ili, all on the Leeward Coast; and the Ameron Quarry in Kailua.

Workers from Royal Hawaiian Movers load up recycling bins that will be delivered to Wahiawa residents. Curbside pickup hasn't begun yet. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"We have reached capacity," O'Brien said, expressing a sentiment that Wai'anae gets what other communities don't want.

"Sure, there's a need," she said. "But the impact it will have is more than taking up more of the land. It works on the psyche of the people."

She sees merit and difficulties with a proposal to provide community benefits to whatever community takes the landfill. "It could be a good thing to go ahead and compensate them," she said. "And it could be seen as a sell-out," and raise issues about who in the community would choose what benefits to accept.

"I think we need the mayor to focus on the people, the economic development, the infrastructure," O'Brien said.

Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i chapter, is critical of the time the city has taken to get this far. Mikulina said choosing a landfill site is a classic environmental problem because the environmental and engineering issues compete with "what's fair and just for the community."

But he's hopeful that the soon-to-begin "bottle bill" law will make a big difference in showing people that there's some value in recycling. That law adds a 5 cent deposit for each aluminum, glass and plastic beverage container, which people will be able to take to redemption centers beginning Jan. 1.

"The nickel helps make the connection in people's heads," Mikulina said "It's not a waste; it's a resource." He also believes it's important to continue to educate people about the other "Rs" — reducing and reusing — rather than a disposable mindset.

"We live on an island and we really have this Mainland mentality when it comes to garbage," Mikulina said.

Roy Takekawa, director of environmental health and safety at the University of Hawai'i, is encouraged by increasing awareness of trash and disposal issues over the past five years on and off campus.

"The general awareness of trash and the disposal of trash is much higher now throughout the general population, Takekawa said. "People will ask questions about disposing of batteries or see things in the Dumpster and call us."

It's clear that Honolulu is running out of landfill space, Takekawa said, so that reality may drive the city to explore seriously new technologies such as high-temperature incinerators that reduce the reliance on landfills.

"A new landfill just buys some time," Takekawa said. Like Caliboso, he's uncomfortable with the idea of exporting garbage. "I don't think it's fair to the other parts of the world just because they have space," Takekawa said.

Meanwhile, the outgoing Harris administration has begun the delivery phase of new bins that will be used for residential recycling. The schedule calls for a six-step program in which some collection could begin as early as next month in Central O'ahu and neighborhoods across the island would be phased in by next summer.

City officials have estimated the program will cost about $5 million a year if the city handles collection and if the recyclables are processed by a Sand Island firm. But City Council members question whether the plan is workable and whether all costs are known. Earlier proposals indicated that privatized collection could push the cost to $13 million a year.

City recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones said the city has ordered 150,000 blue bins to take the program islandwide. The bins have begun to arrive and are scheduled to roll out well into next year, Jones said. The bins come with the message that people should wait for word on when to begin filling them for curbside pickup.

Jones said people can use the bins to bag and collect bottles, cans and newspapers that they then deliver to community recycling centers while awaiting the transition. She said the success of more than 80 community recycling bins shows demand for the service.

After more than a decade working on city recycling, coordinator Jones can see the progress made. In 1988, the city recycled close to 74,000 tons of trash a year or about 5 percent of the 1.5 million tons of waste produced each year in Honolulu, she said.

By 1991, that figure had doubled to 11 percent and doubled again to 22 percent by 1994. In 1997, the percentage rose to 34 percent and has stayed closed to that since then. In the last year completed, city officials saw 473,412 tons of waste recycled, about a third of the waste generated.

"Recycling has been increasing every year," Jones said. She thinks it's working better now because the public is ready for change.

"We really do need to involve every household," she said. "You've got to be connected to the bigger picture of preserving our island home."

Even if the landfill location is decided before the next mayor takes office, Kailua's Reiziss said, the mayor will need to guide the city toward decreased reliance on burying garbage anywhere. "I think the quality of the environment is dependent on how you handle that trash," he said.

"Whoever the mayor is, (his) No. 1 responsibility is to the permanent residents here, the citizens, and not to the developers, not to the visitors," Reiziss said.

Reiziss wonders if the state should consider charging visitors a $1 a day disposal fee to help cope with the obvious impact of some trash generated by the visitor industry, where tourists can outnumber residents.

"I think it's going to take courage on behalf of any mayor," Reiziss said.