San Diego's Environmental Services Department will ask the San Diego City Council to begin the process for setting a monthly cost-recovery fee for trash and recycling collection.
The council will not approve or deny any fee Monday, but will instead consider setting hearing dates in June to then consider charging more than 200,000 single-family homes a refuse fee, overturning a 106-year-old law.
The proposed fees are lower than a preliminary estimate in February. Environmental Services plans to provide all customers with 95-gallon blue recycling and green organic waste recycling bins and a choice for garbage of:
— A 35-gallon bin at a cost of $36.72 per month;
— A 65-gallon bin at a cost of $42.88 per month; or
— A 95-gallon bin at a cost of $47.59 per month.
"Since the preliminary fee was presented back in February, we have continued to review and refine the rate model, and we have taken several actions to bring the fee down," said Kirby Brady, interim director of Environmental Services. "We know it's difficult to ask people to start paying for a service they previously received for free, but implementing the new trash fee is crucial to ensuring the sustainability of our waste collection programs and protecting the environment for future generations."
Passed in April 1919, "The People's Ordinance" prohibited the city from collecting a fee for solid waste collection, transport, disposal and recycling for single-family homes.
In 2009, a San Diego County grand jury concluded that the ordinance had "outlived its usefulness in a 21st Century society."
In 2022, the city council voted 8-1 to place the ordinance in front of the voters, who that year voted for Measure B — allowing The People's Ordinance to be repealed — by a narrow margin of just around 3,000 votes.
Supporters of Measure B said it would end a system that allowed a benefit for certain residents, while those living in apartments or condos have to pay for private haulers.
According to the ballot argument supporting of the measure, its passage would "fix this broken and unfair system so San Diego can start delivering better services for all of us, like bulky item pickup and free replacement of broken trash bins."
Opponents said homeowners already pay for trash pickup through property taxes and thus would be charged twice for the same service if Measure B passed.
"San Diegans already have one of the highest cost-of-living burdens in the nation and we should not be adding to the existing burdens of working families with this costly garbage tax," opponents said in their ballot argument.
If approved in June, or whenever the council decides to discuss charging for the service, the trash fee would allow Environmental Services "only to recoup the costs to provide trash and recycling services," currently paid through the city's General Fund.
As San Diego faces a budget deficit of more than $250 million — which has been reduced through several actions by Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council — the $71 million it spends annually on solid waste management services even being partially recouped could help balance the budget, according city officials.
If a fee is eventually passed, enhanced services would begin July 1. New bulky item pickup and increased recycling collection services would start July 1, 2027, the third year of implementation, matching a proposed increase in monthly fees. Under the proposed plan, the monthly fees would be added to a customer's property tax bill.
Another facet of the proposal is replacing old bins — which are on average 20 years old — "well past the service guarantee," a statement from the city reads.
New bins would include scannable reader tags to identify customers to track missed pickups, but could also present privacy concerns.
San Diego evaluated trash and recycling services in other cities across California before arriving at the above fee schedule. San Diego's proposed fee for service is less than Sacramento, which charges $57.79, and Long Beach, which recently approved a fee of $67.63. Oakland and San Jose have the highest fees, at $160.27 and $160.35 per month, respectively.
