Question: It is OK for Oahu residents to trade or share gray, blue and green bins? In other words, if someone has an extra green bin they don’t use, can they just give it to someone who calls dibs on Facebook? Or, if an avid recycler doesn’t generate enough trash to fill their gray bin, can they give it to the large family who lives down the street?
Answer: “The simple answer is: No trading or giving carts to another resident. People move and carts are City and County of Honolulu property and stay with the address/TMK. Each cart has been assigned and logged into our database per TMKs,” Markus Owens, a spokesperson for Honolulu’s Department of Environmental Services, said in an email.
TMK stands for tax map key, a property designator.
If a resident has an extra bin they no longer need, “they may call their base yard and they’ll pick it up,” Owens said. On the flip side, if a household needs an extra cart, they can request one for free, within certain parameters, which are explained on ENV’s website. (We’ll summarize below).
About 160,000 single-family homes on Oahu are on three-cart curbside recycling routes, with a gray cart for general household waste, a green cart for lawn clippings and other green waste, and a blue cart for mixed recyclables, such as metal cans, certain plastics (marked 1 or 2), corrugated cardboard and other items. Each route has two collection days per week: one for the gray cart and one for recycling, alternating weekly between the green and blue carts.
Kokua Line has received several questions on this topic, including from readers who said they had seen residents trading, giving or even selling carts on social media.
The city doesn’t charge residents for extra carts, but the property must qualify based on usage and/or the size of the property, depending on which extra cart is sought. There is a total limit of five carts per property, comprising the basic trio (blue, green, gray) plus two of any color, according to the ENV website, honolulu.gov/opala. Extra carts are assigned for long-term use only, to properties that consistently generate more material than will fit in their basic allotment. Here are general requirements for requesting extra carts, according to the website:
>> Green carts: “Additional green carts are issued to properties based solely on size. Your property must be at least 10,000 square feet to qualify for a second green cart and 15,000 square feet for a third. Properties in Waiahole, Waikane, Kahaluu, Manoa, Nuuanu, and Kaneohe mauka of Kamehameha Highway, which have higher than average rainfall, must be at least 8,000 square feet to qualify for a second green cart and 12,000 square feet for a third. No exceptions will be made.”
>> Blue carts: “Additional blue carts are issued to properties consistently generating an excess amount of recyclable material. You must be compacting your recyclables and sorting properly without bagging. If you have a small (64-gallon) blue cart, the city also offers the opportunity to swap for a larger (94-gallon) cart. Cart swaps follow the same rules as requesting an additional blue cart.”
>> Gray carts: Additional gray carts are only issued to properties with consistently high volumes of nonrecyclable trash, amounting to at least half a cart of refuse beyond what can fit compacted into the gray cart every week. City workers will monitor your trash to determine if you qualify for a second gray cart. There is a waiting list for monitoring. Before requesting monitoring, make sure that you are not placing any mixed recyclables or green waste in your gray cart, and that you are compacting the trash that belong in the gray cart. If you still consistently lack room in your gray cart, call 808-768-3200 (press two after the recorded greeting) to request gray cart monitoring. Be forewarned that everything in the gray cart during the monitoring period must be part of the household’s regular output: “No party trash. No freezer or pantry clean-out trash. No large Styrofoam. (No) other temporarily produced trash,” the website says.
Getting back to your question, it’s common for friendly neighbors to share room in their bins with folks they know, after a trash-generating party, for example (gray or blue carts) or major yard work (green cart). But such sharing doesn’t require moving the bin from its regular address, and neighbors should ask before using the empty space — we’ve heard plenty of complaints otherwise in Auwes over the years.
Mahalo
I want to thank all the lei makers who shared their artistry at the May Day celebration at Kapiolani Park. The lei were so beautiful and many were so unique and intricate. As a Waikiki resident, this holiday is the highlight of my year. It’s too bad it didn’t fall on a weekend so more people could attend. — A reader
Editor’s note
The city’s Lei Day celebration at Kapiolani Park is held on May 1 every year, regardless of the day of the week, according to Honolulu’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which has posted a list of the lei contest winners at 808ne.ws/3y3ZsTz. (More than 165 lei were entered for judging.)
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokua- line@staradvertiser.com.
