Windward O'ahu residents have requested and received 800 more green-waste bins, as Honolulu city officials try to tweak the recycling program so fewer yard clippings go in the garbage.

In March, the city announced that it would begin converting 50,000 homes to an automated twice-monthly curbside green-waste pick-up using the one-armed rubbish trucks and 64-gallon blue bins. The grass clippings and other green waste can be churned into mulch and recycled, reducing the amount of waste that goes to the incinerator or landfill.

Under the old system, crews also picked up twice a month, but they manually picked up whatever green waste was produced by a household in bags and bundles of greens.

Windward City Councilwoman Barbara Marshall said many residents in her district find the program confusing and can't fit the amount of green waste they produce into the blue bins.

That's why the city has turned to 96-gallon green bins — the same size as the gray bins used for regular household rubbish. City officials have been using the smaller bins left over from the Mililani pilot curbside recycling project.

Executive assistant Martin Okabe of the city Department of Environmental Services said the amount of green waste being picked up has increased modestly. From March to July 2005, Okabe said, the city collected 2,418 tons of green waste. For the same period this year, the city collected 2,544 tons of green waste.

But, Okabe and Marshall both said, residents frustrated or unfamiliar with the system still throw their green waste in with the rest of their household garbage.

Kailua resident Chris Gardner said she's been frustrated by the new system and ended up recycling less greenery because she couldn't fit it in the bins.

"I just put it in the regular gray bin and just have the trash people take it," Gardner said. "I feel real bad because I'm a former teacher; I've taught recycling and I believe in recycling. I don't know what else to do."

Gardner has tried saving greens in bags until the next pick-up, but still ends up with too much to fit into the recycle bins, even with the gray bin as a back-up. She notices that a lot of people on the Windward side seem to be struggling with the waste-space problem.

"We just have a lot of greenery here," she said. "Those blue bins are just too small." Gardner said she'll request another bin and hope that solves the problem.

The administration of former Mayor Jeremy Harris bought the blue bins for curbside recycling of bottles, cans, newspapers and other household recyclables. Gardner still hopes that some form of household recycling will eventually come to pass.

For now, Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration is focusing on expanding the city's green waste recycling effort.

City recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones said the city is working on the problems. And the city is beginning to get some positive feedback from people who see some advantage in the blue bins. For example, some push them around the yard while they are weeding and trimming and like not having to bag or truck the waste.

Jones said some have complained that the drivers won't pick up bins with open lids. That's because contents of the open-lid bins sometimes spill onto the road.

And she said the open lid sometimes indicates that people didn't sufficiently cut back branches, and the large pieces can get stuck in the bin or make it difficult for the load to be compacted in the truck.

Jones said the city is trying to reduce the number of bags that residents put into the green waste because those need to be pulled out by hand, which increases program costs. She said the composter has studied various automated methods of yanking the bags but has not found one that's effective.

Okabe said the city plans to expand automated green-waste pick-up to about 50,000 more households next year, and O'ahu's remaining 50,000 households in 2008.

But he said the city wants to smooth out problems before adding pick-up routes. "We're still trying to work out the bugs and make it easy for everybody," he said. "We're going to take it slow."

The automated collection costs about $2.1 million a year, Okabe said, compared with $1.2 million for manual pick-up. "It costs twice as much," he said.

Okabe said the city is working toward "future operational changes" they estimate can reduce costs to $1.3 million.

The areas with automated green-waste pick-up are Kahalu'u, Kane'ohe, Kailua, Waimanalo, Kahuku, La'ie, Hau'ula, Ka'a'awa, Waiahole, Wahiawa, Mililani, Waialua, Hale'iwa and Sunset.

Okabe said that the city is issuing only one free green bin per household, but he isn't sure if that will change.

The city also has been converting from the on-call pick-up for bulky items to regularly scheduled monthly collection dates. Okabe said that city estimates indicate more items are being picked up under the new system as well.

A city-sponsored "Discover Recycling Fair" later this month will provide information on green-waste collection and other programs.

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.