Oahu residents raise a stink over delayed trash pickups

May 4—1/1

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COURTESY KYLIE BAGIO

Trash piles up at Kulalani Village in Kapolei.

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Large bags of trash littered the ground as they spilled out of the yellow waste bins at the ParkGlen at Waikele townhouse complex this past week — the result of a week of missed trash pickups at the property.

Missed trash pickups have become the norm for multiple apartment, condominium and townhouse properties in West Oahu, bringing maggots, foul smells and a sense of frustration among residents.

Kylie Bagio, who manages multiple properties including ParkGlen, said that since she began working at ParkGlen in August, she was made aware that West Oahu Aggregate, the company that services the property, was short-staffed.

"I do encounter that they just sometimes miss pickups, and then when we call to reschedule, sometimes they're not available," Bagio said.

Bagio said management sometimes gets emails from WOA notifying the team of staffing shortages on certain days, resulting in trash getting picked up on alternate days, but that the emails are infrequent.

"Those (emails) are great, but we don't get those all the time. Also, when we get those messages, the owners, renters and residents don't understand because they pay for these services," she said. "Sometimes we get no notifications. Sometimes we just have to kind of figure it out, like, 'Oh, the trash is getting high, what's going on? OK, they didn't come this day.'"

In July, WOA bought out Aloha Waste Systems of Honolulu, a competing waste removal company. The state also faces a shortage of licensed commercial truck drivers — with the license necessary to drive a garbage truck — that also affects the availability of school bus drivers and the movement of shipments from docks to shelves.

At public housing facility Punchbowl Home, dumpsters also have overflowed with trash for weeks, resulting in flies and foul smells and residents not being able to dispose of their trash. KHON2 first reported Friday that the state initially oversaw trash pickup at the building, but a public notice posted that day said the Hawaii Public Housing Authority contacted a private trash company to manage the waste. The Public Housing Authority referred KHON2 to contact WOA for further information.

WOA did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Department of Health said that it "normally wouldn't regulate trash pickup unless it becomes a public health hazard."

Bagio said the lack of pickups this week at ParkGlen was "the first incident in a while" but that at Kulalani Village in Kapolei, trash hadn't been picked up for almost two weeks, resulting in her contacting another waste management company, Perry Management, to help her and the Villages of Kapolei board president with the cleanup.

"You have dog feces, you have food, and for us to have to go through that with gloves and pick it up? It was very disgusting," Bagio said. "One of the Perry Management drivers that came out said someone actually got sick from picking up trash like this because you don't know what types of chemicals are mixed in, and it just sits out for a couple of days."

Bagio said Kulalani Village has had issues with trash pickup every month and that the property is holding a board meeting to get a permanent switch to Perry Management approved.

Bagio also manages Sixty Parkside in Mililani, whose trash she said was also not picked up this past week.

At ParkGlen, residents were asked to hold onto their trash for a few extra days, just to wait until the trash pickup came. Bagio said the trash was fully picked up Friday — a week after the property's last pickup was completed.

"The associations pay for this service, and it should be a top priority for WOA to get on it with their drivers who provide this service that we're paying for. If not, it's going to be a big mess later," Bagio said.

In the meantime, Bagio said she asks for more communication between drivers and site managers. With more communication, she said, she can help alleviate her residents' concerns faster.

"Mostly, my frustration as a site manager is having to always be in the middle and getting those upset phone calls and trying to make the residents happy, and that's all I can do," Bagio said. "I have to make sure that that trash pickup comes the next day. If not, I'm going to hear it again and again."