$10 monthly trash pickup fee proposed

Oahu households would be charged $10 a month for curbside garbage pickup under a bill proposed by Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration on Wednesday.

Those in condominiums, apartments and townhouses who now get city refuse service would have to pay market rates under the measure.

Garbage pickup historically has been a core service here that taxpayers have not needed to pay extra for. But Lori Kahikina, the city’s environmental services director, said the majority of U.S. municipalities charge extra for the service.

"We are rare," Kahikina said.

Kauai County residents pay $12 a month while Maui County residents pay $18. Hawaii County does not offer public curbside trash pickup.

On Oahu, most households get regular refuse picked up once a week, and either yard waste or recyclable material pickup a second day. Bulky item pickup trucks also visit each neighborhood once a month. Kahikina said there is only one fee being considered, not separate ones for each pickup.

A study conducted for the city in 2010 estimated it costs the city $50 to provide the service to each household, Kahikina said.

The $10 fee, which would begin next January if approved by the City Council, would apply only to those who receive city pickup, not those who pay for private haulers.

There are an estimated 160,000 Oahu households on the city’s automated trash system pickup, while 20,000 others get non-automated service. About 300 townhouses, condominiums and apartments with dumpsters are served by front-loaders.

At $10 a pop, the city would generate $1.8 million monthly and $21.6 million annually with the new fee. But Kahikina said townhouses, condominiums and apartments served by front-loaders would have to pay a higher, per dumpster basis equitable with what others pay for private haulers.

A draft of the bill says those multiunit residential buildings and nonprofit organizations receiving twice-a-week pickup service of 3-cubic-yard, front-loader containers provided by the property owner would be charged $314 a month beginning July 1, 2014.

A majority of townhouse, condominium and apartment complexes do not receive city service, ostensibly because many cannot accommodate the turnaround radius required by city refuse trucks, although Kahikina said some "may just not know" the service would otherwise be available to them.

Charging townhouses, condominiums and apartments per dumpster at a market rate is "an equity issue," she said, since it would be unfair for those getting city pickup to pay less.

Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said she and other members want to hear the administration’s rationale for the increase. An issue that may arise is what will happen when a household doesn’t pay the fee, she said.

"Do we stop picking up their trash and let it pile up in front of their house?"

In 2003, then-Mayor Jeremy Harris proposed an $8-a-month fee for a second day of garbage pickup a week and tied it to the city’s impending curbside recycling, but that idea was trashed by the Council. In 2007, when then-Mayor Mufi Hannemann began a pilot recycling program in Mililani and Hawaii Kai, households were told they could keep a second, regular trash collection day for an additional $10 a month. But few took that option and that feature was not offered when the permanent, islandwide curbside recycling program began later.

Kobayashi said she’s uncertain how she’ll vote this time.

"Everyone is paying more for so many things," she said, noting that water and electricity rates have been on the rise. "But I don’t know how long the city can afford to pick up trash without any additional costs."

Caldwell is on a trade mission in the Philippines this week and was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

The administration introduced the bill late Wednesday. It will get its first airing at this month’s regularly scheduled Council meeting on Wednesday.

The Council has shot down two other money­making ideas introduced by Caldwell: increasing the fuel tax on motorists to 21.5 cents per gallon from the current 16.5 cents, which would have generated $15 million more for road repaving and restoration of bus routes; and selling advertising on the sides of city buses to raise $8 million for more bus service.