Maui plans automated
pickup of residential
trash in Kahului

The Oahu-style system would require
new trucks and refuse containers

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By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com

WAILUKU >> Maui County officials are planning to start automated refuse collection in July on the Valley Isle, focusing first on Kahului, where there are about 4,000 residences.

The county Public Works Department is holding a public hearing about the plan at 6 tonight at the Kahului Community Center.

Under the existing refuse system, the county usually has one driver and two workers assigned to a trash truck.

Once a week, the workers empty sacks and boxes of various shapes or up to six 32-gallon trash containers owned by a resident who pays $6 a month for the service.

Automation would allow one person to drive and pick up the residential rubbish along a route.

The proposed system on Maui would be similar to the trash pickup on Oahu, with a driver using an automated arm to pick up and empty standardized containers.

The county would issue the 96-gallon container to the resident at no charge, but the resident would be responsible for replacing the container if it breaks for reasons other than normal wear.

John Harder, the county's Solid Waste Division chief, said the administration will not be increasing the $6 monthly charge and will be offering a second pickup in the same week for residents who have additional trash.

Harder said the county wants to initiate in 2003 a service for recycling green waste, perhaps alternating the second pickup a week between trash and green waste.

The new system is expected to considerably reduce the labor.

Harder said two three-man crews working five days a week are now required to serve 4,000 homes in Kahului. After the conversion, one one-man crew working four days a week will be able to do the same amount of work.

Harder said workers no longer needed for regular trash pickup in Kahului will be reassigned to help in the normal three-man pickup of trash in other areas. He said the transfers will help to reduce overtime and the use of highway workers as substitutes.

Eventually, Harder said, workers not absorbed in the automation of residential routes will be part of the division's expansion of services into curbside recycling and the separate collection of green waste.

He said the county is discussing with the union the possibility in the long term of transferring some workers to different divisions, but the talks are at the preliminary stage.

County spokeswoman Karlyn Kawahara said the Apana administration will be reviewing the results of the conversion before making plans for expanding into other communities.

The plan is considerably different than the proposal in 1996 by then-Mayor Linda Lingle, who wanted to contract with a private company to convert to automated refuse and recycling.

Lingle planned to transfer union refuse workers to other county tasks.

But the United Public Workers union representing refuse workers challenged the transfer in court, arguing that counties were not allowed to privatize jobs traditionally performed by civil servants.

Apana said equipment operators will be receiving a little more money, but the work will occur under the existing union contract.

He said an automated truck is 20 percent to 25 percent more expensive than trucks now being used, but he expects the county to experience savings from assigning only one person to a truck.