When large bags of tree and yard clippings began to pile up in 'Aina Haina and Niu Valley again recently, some residents wondered whether the city's new curbside pickup schedule was to blame.

Not so, said city recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones, as the streets where the green waste accumulated are outside the area currently included in the city's pilot curbside recycling program.

The program, which went into effect in November, stretches from where Kawaihae Street meets Kalaniana'ole Highway opposite Kuli'ou'ou Beach Park to about where Kealahou Street connects with the highway just after Sandy Beach Park.

Households in this area have three bins — a gray one for trash, a blue one for recyclable materials and a green one for green waste.

The rest of East O'ahu, from Kuli'ou'ou to Kapahulu and Manoa, still has the old twice-per-month bag pickup system in which households bag green waste and set the bags out on the curb.

That area will be added to the three-bin pilot program beginning Nov. 1.

Having neighborhoods that are next to each other but on different collection programs can be confusing, Jones said, as some residents may wonder why their neighbors aren't complying.

"Right now, as we're rolling out this new program for the next two years it's going to be that one part of the island is on this new system, while the other part might be on the old system," she said.

Most of Kailua and the North Shore, from Mokule'ia to Sunset Beach, will also be added in November. The city hopes to integrate most O'ahu neighborhoods into the three-bin system by May 2010.

Some residents have been concerned about large piles of green waste collecting recently along Kalaniana'ole Highway, calling the bags an "eyesore" and a potential safety hazard should a sudden gust of wind carry loose clippings or branches onto the busy highway.

"It's really, really bad today," Hawai'i Kai resident J.J. Dicker said recently. "It's been bad for the last couple of days."

"It just seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger," he said.

According to city ordinances, households are not supposed to take green waste to the curb earlier than 6 p.m. the evening before the scheduled pickup, Jones said.

With the new curbside recycling system, the city is actually collecting more green waste than with the old bag system, she said.

Those numbers will be available in an evaluation being prepared to present to the city council at the end of this month.

There is "a lot more consistency and participation," Jones said, and "for those households that do their own yard work, being able to wheel your own bin around is added convenience."

Families with a large amount of green waste may request up to two additional 96-gallon bins. From the start of the pilot program until April 2008, 350 households in Hawai'i Kai had requested extra bins, Jones said.

There are 7,300 households currently participating in the pilot program in East Honolulu.

As the program nears the end of its eighth month, the city is still leaving notes for households that are not placing green waste in the green bins, Jones said.

"Change can be more difficult for some people," she said.