SAN DIEGO (CNS) — San Diego will begin delivering new light blue recycling bins on Wednesday to households eligible for city-provided trash and recycling collection service, replacing the older dark blue bins.
According to the city, the new bins are "more durable, easy to identify, better labeled and equipped with scannable tags to improve reliability and accountability."
Most customers will get their new bins delivered on their regular trash day, with crews removing the old recycling bins the same day. However, with more than 225,000 households eligible, the process will take several months, with some properties receiving their new bins in early fall.
"We're excited for customers to experience the benefit of these new recycling bins," said Jeremy Bauer, assistant director for Environmental Services. "As with the new gray trash bins, the new recycling bins include scannable tags that will help the city track performance and continually improve service, a key part of our commitment to serving customers better every day. And we want residents to rest assured that old containers are being recycled, with the material made available to create new bins or other plastic products."
Households will receive email and mail notices from San Diego's Environmental Services Department regarding the dates of delivery, or can visit sandiego.gov/trash.
The city said deliveries are based on the collection route and service day, so a customer may see a neighbor across the street get a new bin before they do. If bins go missing and end up on someone else's property, the new scannable tags are intended to help the city return them to their assigned homes.
Households in the city of San Diego no longer eligible for trash service have been directed to sign up for service with a private hauler. As of Tuesday, 95% of newly ineligible property owners have transitioned their service.
Since the city began rolling out new gray trash bins in October, replacing the old black ones, 96% of the eligible households have received them -- 231,178 gray bins have been delivered to 215,610 customers, 257,508 black bins removed.
Rehrig Pacific Company will continue its process of recycling old bins into plastic regrind for other uses.
"By chipping the bins on site, each truck can carry more material, reducing the number of trips required and lowering overall carbon footprint," said Andrea Deleon, deputy director of the ESD's Waste Reduction Division. "Each bin becomes part of a circular process that keeps plastic in use and out of the landfill. When all is said and done, more than 750,000 bins will be recycled."
Waste collection crews will continue servicing old containers until the new ones have arrived. Collection of recycling materials is bi-weekly. Weekly recycling service will begin July 1, 2027.
The change comes after voters narrowly passed Measure B in 2022, which helped repeal "The People's Ordinance" trash collection model and allows the city to charge a monthly fee for solid trash pickup for single-family homes and multi-family complexes with up to four residences on a single lot.
The June 2025 approval of the solid waste fee broke a 106-year-old precedent of the city not charging single-family homeowners a fee for trash pickup. Starting July 1, homeowners in the city began to be charged $42.76 a month for three 95-gallon cans -- one for trash, one for recycling and one for organics such as yard waste or food scraps -- regardless of how much waste they produce.
Then-Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and Councilman Joe LaCava proposed Measure B in 2022 to allow the city to collect a fee for solid waste collection, transport, disposal and recycling, include the cost of bins and force short-term vacation rentals, accessory dwelling units and "mini-dorms" currently receiving city trash pickup to pay for the services.
Opponents of the waste fee were frustrated, claiming property taxes already paid for trash pickup. Even some initial supporters of Measure B felt they were hoodwinked, citing an estimated trash fee ranging from $23-$29. However, it was with the assumption that the city served 285,000 households.
The ESD, when faced with the prospect of a new fee, counted the number of households the city served following the election and came up with 226,495.
As a result, when a cost study came back in April 2025, the fee jumped to $36.72 per month on the low end and $47.59 on the high. That received almost universally negative feedback from the public, so a revised fee schedule then went to a range of $31.98-$42.76 in the first year by delaying certain services, such as bulky item pickup and an electric vehicle pilot program.
Single-family refuse pickup is funded by the city's general fund, which all residents pay into through property tax -- whether they rent or own a single-family home, a condo or an apartment. The city takes away 300,000 tons of trash and 150,000 tons of recycling, compostables and yard waste annually.
The People's Ordinance had been criticized for years by activists who called it inequitable because although every household pays property tax, only single-family households received trash pickup at no additional charge. In 2009, a San Diego County grand jury concluded that the ordinance had "outlived its usefulness in a 21st century society."
According to city documents released with the ballot measure in 2022, the price of keeping the service as it existed without adding a fee was expected to cost at least $234.7 million between fiscal years 2023 and 2027.
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