By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / July 15, 2025
San Diego finalized a controversial plan Monday to replace hundreds of thousands of trash and recycling bins — many of them new or only a few years old — and send the $65 million bill to customers.
City officials say the move is part of upgrading service just as San Diego begins levying its first-ever trash pickup fee.
They contend the new cans will boost dependability, reliability and accountability because they are equipped with special tracking chips and will look different than the old cans so that crews can recognize them.
The new cans, which city crews are scheduled to start delivering to customers Oct. 6, will be light blue for recycling and gray for trash — replacing dark blue recycling cans and black trash cans. Green bins are not being replaced.
Critics say the city’s decision to buy 750,000 new cans and dispose of 950,000 existing cans is bad for the environment and helped drive up the $43.60 monthly fee the city began charging customers July 1.
The City Council voted 6-3 Monday to approve buying the new cans, with support from the same six members who supported the new trash fee June 9.
They are Councilmembers Joe LaCava, Sean Elo-Rivera, Kent Lee, Jennifer Campbell, Stephen Whitburn and Vivian Moreno.
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Wow, translate this.
“It’s going to be really important that folks feel a tangible improvement in service delivery,” said Elo-Rivera, contending that goal justified the $65 million expense.
Oops, how did that slip in?
“Any way we can save folks money is a worthwhile effort,” said Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera.”
What? Previous serial numbers didn’t work?
Bauer said the tracking chips are another key reason for the switch.
A new can on the street means it came from the city. How would you make a mistake charging incorrectly? You pull up and dump it, same as it ever was. Especially after Oct 1.
“It’s essential that we know who our customers are and how many containers they have so that we can charge each one appropriately,” he said. “This is the most practical and efficient way.”
So why the RFID chips?
“The new light gray and the new light blue containers will allow our drivers to clearly distinguish which containers pertain to paying customers — ensuring we only pick up from paying customers,” he said.
Sounds like confusion as usual for our city leaders.
I took my granddaughter to the library to renew her library card. It had been a while since I have checked out any books.
So…IF the library can place RFID on books, why cant the City place them on trash cans without replacing all the cans????
Mission Beach has suffered through fly infestations for many years during the summer months, in part due to the presence of whole home short term rentals, where cans are regularly over-filled with pizza and burgers and other assorted foods, in combination with the use black garbage cans, which absorb substantial heat when in direct sunlight. We showed that the use of the black cans, versus a lighter colored one, increases the temperatures inside the cans by 10-15 degrees F for those cases where the cans are stored in direct sunlight. This then results in a substantial decrease in the fly cycle time, which benefits from the two trash pickups per week, which breaks the cycle.
$65 million for new trash cans! What a pack of assholes. How about a five year plan to phase in new cans? Somebody, somewhere, someplace, I am sure, could have invented & designed a method to retrofit the existing cans with “special tracking chips”; probably could have been a fifth grader in between games of Apex & Fortnight. Some of these council members truly need to return to adult night school to engage in some supplementary reading & math classes.
That $65 million could have been used to afix surveillance anklets to anyone in disagreement with boneheaded decisions by a small group of people.
Greenery bins are unaffected, so then what are the RFID chips really for? If you have extra greenery bins, how would they know on the street what you had? Extra bins are useful though for storing firewood and keeping it dry. Keep that in mind before giving them up.
Help! Aside from the glaring inconsistencies and redundancy and generally high costs of the
new privatized trash collection system, I am concerned about potential for labor actions (strikes) in San Diego by our new private trash collection companies.
My question: What is to prevent a San Diego-wide repetition of trash collection strikes that have plagued cities in the South Bay and are continuing to this moment? Chula Vista has been affected twice in the last two years, and now Imperial Beach, Otay Mesa and San Ysidro are also involved.
And the current work stoppages are sympathy actions in support of East Coast operations!
The cost will be over $100 million after interest on the loan the city is taking out to finance the purchase is factored in.
The can replacement has my blood boiling!!!!! Has anyone watched BUY NOW on Netflix? Just think of all the plastic waste we are generating by switching out the cans. What a waste of $$$$ and environment. I accept dealing with the increased can temperature generating flies. Has the city shared how they plan to dispose of these cans that are perfectly fine? Argh!!!!!