San Diego city crews will begin delivering new gray trash bins to households eligible for city-provided trash service next week as the city shifts how it charges for waste pickup.
The latest development comes as the new trash bins, which were initially scheduled to roll out this week, were facing delays, according to the city’s Environmental Services Department.
According to the city, for most customers, the delivery will occur on their regular trash day schedule, and crews will remove the old black trash bins within the same day.
More than 225,000 households are eligible, so the delivery process is expected to continue for several months, with some properties receiving new bins in 2026.
"We're excited for customers to experience the benefit of these new containers -- newer bins will be less prone to breakage, feature helpful recycling labels to make sorting easier and come in updated colors to help drivers quickly identify which containers to service," said Jeremy Bauer, San Diego's assistant director for environmental services. "We want residents to rest assured that old containers will be recycled, with the material made available to create new bins. Each new container also includes a scannable tag to help the city track performance and continually improve service, a key part of our commitment to serving customers better every day."
Gray trash bins will be delivered first, then light blue recycling bins.
The Environmental Services Department is notifying customers about their bin delivery date and other instructions through mailers, but residents can also check sandiego.gov/trash to see the scheduled date.
After customers have received their new bins, crews will collect only from the new bins, a city statement read. Until then, the city will continue servicing old containers. Old bins will be recycled into new materials.
Green organic waste bins, which were provided to more than 200,000 households in 2023, will not be provided at this time.
An initial deadline to select bin sizes and quantities has come and gone, but city leaders still encourage property owners to set up an account in the city's Residential Waste Collection Services Portal at wasteportal.sandiego.gov.
Anyone who did not create an account will automatically receive the 95- gallon trash and the 95-gallon recycling bins. Customers may then change their service level once per year.
The change comes after voters narrowly passed Measure B in 2022, which helped repeal "The People's Ordinance" trash collection model and allow 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 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.