Honolulu County, HI Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

12(a) orders the director of environmental services to establish an islandwide program for the curbside collection of recyclable materials, covering the whole of Oahu rather than selected districts. The council allowed the director to implement the program in stages, but wrote a floor into the ordinance: by July 1, 2007, curbside collection had to include at least two of the materials the section lists, which are glass containers, newspapers, plastic containers, green waste, food waste, and manufactured compostable materials. The phase-in did not stop there.

Food waste and compostable materials became mandatory components of the program by April 1, 2026. The operational details, meaning which materials are collected, how often trucks come, and how residents must prepare and set out their recyclables, are not spelled out in the ordinance itself. 12. 12(c), crews can simply refuse to collect recyclable materials that were not prepared or set out at the curb the way the director's rules require.