A curbside recycling project in Hawai'i Kai and Mililani is set to begin on Oct. 29, but plans for the next phase could hit a snag if the City Council doesn't act soon, an official said yesterday.

From Oct. 29 through Jan. 6, the two communities will continue to have two days of trash pickup, plus alternating curbside recycling and green waste pickup once a week. Starting Jan. 7, however, Hawai'i Kai will lose its second day of trash pickup and Mililani residents will pay $10 a month if they want to continue to have a second day of trash collection each week.

However, the bill authorizing the city to collect that $10 fee hasn't passed yet, and Eric Takamura, director of the city Department of Environmental Services, warned council members that even if the bill passes at the Nov. 7 meeting, a fee exemption for low-income Mililani residents would be hard to implement by January.

"If this becomes a law, there is no staff to qualify people (for a fee exemption)," Takamura said yesterday after a public hearing on Bill 63.

While it's not that difficult to figure out which homeowners qualify based on their property taxes, those who rent — and are more likely to fall into the lower income brackets — will have to submit tax forms for every employed person in the household to qualify.

No residents attended the public hearing and council members split on whether the "circuit breaker" fee waiver is necessary; even the two members who represent Mililani didn't agree.

While Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz, who represents part of Mililani, is pushing for the circuit breaker, the community's other representative, Councilman Nestor Garcia isn't sure that many of the 12,000 affected residents in that area need a fee exemption.

Dick Poirier, chairman of the Mililani-Waipi'o-Melemanu Neighborhood Board, pointed out that Mililani is a relatively wealthy neighborhood and that a waiver probably would not affect a lot of people.

"I think they should just do the pilot project and if cost is a problem, then they can do a circuit breaker," Poirier said.

He also said people who can afford the fee might not need a second weekly trash pickup after two months of transitioning to curbside recycling. "I suspect most of them will not have to pay the $10," he said.

Garcia said after the meeting yesterday that he's confident the city will be able to get things sorted out by January, regardless of whether the circuit breaker remains in the bill.

"Everybody wants it, I think. We just get so bogged down in the details, we forget what the goal is," he said. "I'm confident that it will go beyond the demonstration and will go islandwide and everyone will do their part to pitch in."

He thinks Mililani residents were willing participants in a curbside recycling pilot a few years ago that failed to lead to an islandwide program.

Councilman Charles Djou, who represents the 8,000 Hawai'i Kai residents in the recycling demonstration, said, "I'm tired of the city doing pilot curbside recycling projects every couple years, then figuring out some way not to make it islandwide."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.