The City of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department (ESD) is proposing a fee for trash and recycling collection services. The proposed fee results from Measure B, a voter-approved ballot measure that passed in 2022 and allows the City to charge a cost-recovery fee for trash and recycling collection services. The cost-of-service study is being finalized and will be presented to City Council on Monday, April 14.  

ESD team members are hosting open houses in communities citywide to give San Diegans the opportunity to share their feedback and better understand how a fee would help the City recover the costs for providing services to more than 200,000 residential properties, ensuring a safe and clean environment for all City of San Diego residents. The open houses also spotlight how a fee would improve customer service and reliability, help the environment by cutting down on illegal dumping, and reduce the department’s dependence on the City's General Fund. 

During this process, ESD has received many questions from affected property owners. Below are answers to their frequently asked questions. 
 
Why does the City need to charge a fee for trash collection?  

Residents in almost every city in California pay a fee for solid waste management services. Charging a fee would enable ESD to recover costs for services and reduce the department’s dependency on the General Fund. Currently, there is no line item in the budget for trash service. Every year, ESD must go through a budget process, with ESD’s requests being weighed against the requests from other City departments such as Police, Fire-Rescue, Parks and Recreation, Transportation and others. The department can cover some of its costs through the Recycling Enterprise Fund, but the fund can only be used to pay for recycling activities. The proposed fee assumes the City will continue to use part of the Recycling Enterprise Fund to support residential recycling through Fiscal Year 2030.  
 

A dedicated trash fee would directly fund the services, ensuring that the cost is covered transparently and consistently. It's a way to ensure that the resources needed to maintain reliable and effective trash collection are available without impacting other essential City services.  
 
Don’t homeowners already pay for trash services through property taxes?   

Many residents have asserted that their property taxes cover the cost of trash collection services, but that's actually a common misconception. The reality is that there is no specific line item in your property taxes for trash services. Instead, these services are funded through the City's General Fund. As part of the City’s annual budget process, ESD’s requests for funding are weighed against other City departments, such as Police, Fire-Rescue, Parks and Recreation, Transportation and others. 

The General Fund draws from various revenue sources, which includes property taxes and sales taxes, among other sources. Nearly 20% of revenue contributing to the General Fund comes from sales taxes, which are paid by everyone who makes purchases in the City. 

Property owners pay property tax to the County, and less than 20% of those property taxes are apportioned back to cities. Most are apportioned to schools. The sum of property taxes that are apportioned back to the City of San Diego makes up less than 40% of the General Fund. It’s important to remember that all property owners pay property taxes and sales taxes, but those who own condos also pay for waste collection services through an HOA, fees or directly to a private hauler. 

Something else to consider is that under Proposition 13, there is a 2% cap on property tax assessment increases, whereas the costs of providing services like roads, schools and trash collection generally rises faster than 2% per year due to inflation, wage growth, increased demand and other factors.  

For more information about the City’s annual budget, please refer to the FY2025 Approved Annual Budget. For information about how property taxes are allocated, visit the County’s website.  
 
How would a dedicated trash fee make things more equitable?  

The City provides waste collection services to more than 200,000 residential properties. Currently, these properties do not directly pay for trash and recycling collection, whereas residents in large apartment complexes and those with homeowner associations with dumpster service, for example, do pay private waste collection companies for these services. Both groups pay taxes that contribute to the General Fund, but only one group receives residential waste and recycling collection paid for by the General Fund. Charging a fee would create a system where everyone pays for trash services and one in which more General Funds are available to pay for services that benefit everyone.  
 
What is meant by “increased reliability”? 

Enhancements - including container repairs and replacements, as well as a new truck replacement schedule - increase service reliability and reduce maintenance costs by reducing the average age of the fleet (waste collection trucks). Between January and June 2024, an average of 1,028 missed collection cases were reported each week and during that same time period, only 83% of the vehicles required to provide collection services were available weekly. In that same time period, there was not a single week when enough vehicles were available to assign to every collection route. The ability to replace collection vehicles on a regular schedule that improves the age of the fleet and provides the ability to maintain a backup pool of vehicles will improve fleet safety and efficiency and reduce out-of-service days, which will ensure the daily availability of a route-ready fleet to complete routes on the scheduled collection day.  
 
What is the amount of the fee being proposed?  

The Environmental Services Department (ESD) presented preliminary results to the Environment Committee of the San Diego City Council on Feb.13. The results presented at that time included a preliminary rate range of $53 plus or minus $3 per month for a bundle of one 95-gallon trash container, one recycling container and one organics container. Since then, ESD has continued to engage with residents and interested parties across the City. ESD plans to present revised, lower proposed rates on April 14, incorporating insights and feedback received since Feb. 13. The new proposed fees will be presented to City Council on April 14 and should be available online by April 9.      

If the fee is approved, what additional City services could be funded?  

If the General Fund is no longer used to fund solid waste collection services, that means the Environmental Services Department (ESD) wouldn’t need to request General Fund money to pay for its collection services. When all other departments submit their budget requests, more money would be available to go around because ESD would no longer be requesting money for residential waste management for single-family homes and multi-family homes with up to four residences on the lot.  

The General Fund could then have additional capacity to support capital needs (e.g., new fire stations, libraries or parks) and/or new or higher levels of public services (e.g., public safety services , increased library or park hours/programs, homelessness services, stormwater infrastructure upgrades necessary to prevent flooding or other targeted services in areas of identified need) because it would no longer be burdened with paying for solid waste management services. And instead of just benefitting a subset of City residents, these services would benefit everyone in the city of San Diego. 

What if I don’t have very much trash...do I have to pay the same as those who produce more?  

Through a new portal the City is developing, customers will be able to order trash containers that fit their needs. This includes options for smaller trash bins available at a reduced rate, or additional containers at an increased rate for households that produce more trash. Therefore, a customer requiring only three containers (including a smaller trash container) would pay less than a household that requires 6 or 12 containers.  

 
Why do we need new containers? 

An Operational Efficiency Analysis determined that the average life of the current bins is 20 years and is past the service guarantee. In addition, new containers will be a different color and will include scannable reader tags to easily identify customers and notify drivers which containers should be picked up. This will help ensure the City is collecting only from those properties eligible for City service and identify missed collections and improve efficiency. 
 
Why is weekly recycling necessary?  

Improved recycling options was among the most popular service enhancements identified during the outreach and community engagement sessions. Providing collection every week reduces the misplacement of recyclable materials in the trash container because some residents may not have the space to store recyclable materials between the two-week cycles. Weekly recycling also increases customer convenience, maintains volume recycled if customers choose fewer containers, facilitates diversion of recyclables and extends the life of the Miramar Landfill.  
 
Where would my fee money go? 

If a new fee is approved by City Council, the City-provided residential waste and recycling collection services would be funded by fees paid by property owners who receive the service. The fees would provide revenue to a new Solid Waste Management Fund, which in turn would be used to fund the cost of providing these services.  

Any fee collected could only be used to fund the services provided, and a fee would not exceed the cost of the service.  
 
Why does the proposed fee differ from the estimate developed by the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA)? 

The IBA is reviewing the preliminary results of the cost-of-service study and plans to provide its assessment of the study and proposed fee by the time the Environmental Services Department (ESD) presents results to the City Council, which is planned for April 2025. As part of its assessment, the IBA may address differences between its original estimate and the estimate provided in the cost-of-service study. 

For more information about the proposed fee, San Diegans are invited to join ESD at an open house or visit the project website at cleangreensd.org.