Q. What will the city bulky rubbish crews pick up curbside on O'ahu? My neighbor in Kane'ohe just moved out and put all kinds of things on the curb where the pile sat for weeks. I wonder if the city will pick up all that stuff, which includes a truck bed liner and some other junk.

A. City recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones said the city will pick up the old furniture, used appliances and other large items normally generated by a household but too big and bulky for the regular pick-up. But she said crews won't pick up garbage that could be handled by the regular twice-a-week pickup.

Jones said that means such things as appliances, furniture, carpets and mattresses but not tires, auto batteries, propane tanks, construction debris and hazardous waste.

But there's no size or quantity limit on what the city will pick up as long as the items meet the guidelines. Mayor Mufi Hannemann announced this week that regularly scheduled monthly bulky item pickup will expand islandwide by February.

Jones said people should keep in mind the idea of trash produced by an average resident, so that would mean putting out your old kitchen sink but not all the waste from a home remodeling. She said the office fields questions through the environmental concern line at 692-5656 and by e-mail through the Web site at www.opala.org.

The city encourages donating usable large items to such organizations as Goodwill and Salvation Army.

Q. What's going on with those reverse vending machines in front of the Honolulu Municipal Building? Why are they out of service so often?

A. City recycling coordinator Jones said the vending machines are working but the "instadeem" machine that hands out cash has had some problems. She said Reynolds Recycling Co. placed the machines there at no cost to the city as a pilot project to see how well they worked in the building.

One glitch turned up, Jones said, when a woman fed a 35-cent receipt into the machine and got back $5.35. Reynolds market development manager Bruce Iverson said a "simple mechanical adjustment" fixed that, and the company will keep responding to other issues as they turn up.

He said the woman who got the bonus $5 returned the extra money to the security guard stationed there. "It happened once and it will probably never happen again," he said.

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