Question: How can I get another garbage bin? My daughter’s family has moved in with us permanently, and we can’t depend on the neighbors forever.
Answer: You’ll have to wait until February to ask the city, according to Honolulu’s Department of Environmental Services, which has temporarily stopped taking requests for extra carts, due to “increased holiday service needs.”
“From Oct. 1, 2024, to Jan. 31, 2025, no gray cart monitoring or additional green/blue cart requests will be accepted. The public may request additional carts starting Feb. 1, 2025,” ENV says in a service alert that is posted on its website and included in the recording that greets calls to the refuse division’s main telephone number.
In general, an Oahu household on a three-cart collection route (with gray, blue and green bins) may request a second gray cart, which is for regular household trash, if the household consistently generates more garbage than will fit in one cart. Such requests are not automatically approved. They are decided on after ENV monitors the household’s trash for a set period, to confirm that a second cart is warranted and that the household is properly sorting its refuse and recycling what it can (mixed recyclables go in the blue cart, while green waste goes in the green cart).
Once ENV resumes taking requests in February, you can call 808-768-3200 to be put on the waiting list for gray-cart monitoring.
Until then you may continue to rely on your friendly neighbors to share any room in their gray carts (not all neighbors are so amenable), or drop off your extra bags of trash at one of the Oahu’s free convenience centers or transfer stations.
Q: How much overflow is necessary to get the second gray cart?
A: At least half a cart (three to four bags) of nonrecyclable trash “beyond what can fit compacted into the existing gray cart every week of monitoring,” according to ENV.
Before requesting monitoring, households should make sure they are placing all acceptable recyclables in the blue cart, green waste in the green cart, “and compacting the trash going into the gray cart as much as possible,” the department says on its website.
If monitoring reveals otherwise, the request for an extra gray cart will be rejected. “The monitoring process is strict to encourage the proper use of all three carts and to verify regular excess trash generation,” it says.
Q: Regarding the statewide prescription drug dropoff, will there still be a site in Kahala? I know about the small drop boxes in drugstores, but I prefer to get rid of it all at once and don’t like taking up the whole drop box.
A: Yes, the National Take-Back Initiative will collect unwanted prescription drugs on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at eight locations statewide, including the parking lot of Times Supermarket Kahala at 1173 21st Ave. Here are the other locations, according to a flyer from the state Department of the Attorney General:
Oahu
>> Kailua fire station parking lot, 211 Kuulei Road
>> State Capitol, drive-thru along 415 S. Beretania St.
>> Pearl City police station parking lot, 1100 Waimano Home Road
Kauai
>> Kauai Police Department parking lot, 3990 Kaana St., Lihue
Maui
>> Maui Police Department parking lot, 55 Mahalani St., Wailuku
Hawaii island
>> Walmart parking lot, 75-1015 Henry St., Kailua- Kona
>> Ka Waena Lapa‘au Medical Complex (upper parking lot), 670 Ponahawai St., Hilo
Tablets, capsules, liquids and other forms of medication are acceptable, but syringes (new or used) are not, according to the Attorney General’s Office. Vaping devices are acceptable only if the batteries have been removed. For more information, go to dea.gov/takebackday.
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
