Environmental Services Department – City of San Diego

they say call us within 24 hours if your collection bins have been missed. I did just that and left a message. waiting and waiting for a call, nothing. I call today and speak to Maria. she says they don’t call back. why? she says they came back Tuesday to pick up the uncollected bins. really, so they came after 6pm? I KNOW that wasn’t the case. I was home all evening.
don’t call them, they are of no help. they just tell you to wait til next pick up weeks later. they will not send someone out in the interim. and they have nooo reason why the bins were uncollected
mistakes happen, I get it. but just own up to them. it’s not a big deal. I don’t appreciate being lied to

If I could rate this a no star I would. This is the 3^rd time recycling as not been picked up. Calling them to let them know is futile. They will turn around and say it’s your fault. This past Thursday they did not pick up my recycling or my neighbors recycling as well. I had my recycling ben on the street by 6 am. When I called they said i would have to have to wait another 2 weeks before the could come collect it. This was not my fault yet I have to suffer. I guess the city CAN do whatever it wants with out taking responsibility for thier mistakes.

Yes, they serve a purpose. This fine city of ours requires them to police various food establishments, restaurants, swimming pools, markets, school kitchens etc etc.
No one wants to get sick from foodborne illnesses or catch something from places like The Tubs.
I simply believe that the field workers and inspectors need a crash course in human relations.
I truly don’t care if they’re nice or not. Just be reasonable and understanding of certain situations you cheeky wankers.
The office personnel seem nice enough, with the exception of the plan checkers.
They just moved into a brand spanking new building in Kearny Mesa. Well, they charge people up the ying yang so Im not surprised at how ritzy the new place looks.

Hey Listen up all you lazy apartment dwellers! Here it is straight off the website of the City of San Diego:
«The City of San Diego’s Recycling Ordinance was unanimously approved by the City Council on November 13, 2007. The new ordinance requires recycling of plastic and glass bottles and jars, paper, newspaper, metal containers and cardboard at private residences, commercial buildings, and at special events requiring a City permit.
The ordinance will become effective on January 1, 2008 for City-​serviced customers who already have blue recycling carts. For privately-​serviced apartment and condominium complexes, businesses and special events, the ordinance will be phased in over the next two years» to eventually include recycling for all dwellings.
* Effective January 1, 2010:
— All Apartments and condominiums
— All Commercial facilities
Now ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has any excuses-​by your trash dumpster, there should now be a city-​mandated receptacle that accepts all the above-​mentioned materials. My own apartment has what I call a «homeless-​proof» dumpster with a locked lid on it.
It is a GREAT DAY that this has finally come to pass because I was so sick of schlepping my bags of newspapers and empty yogurt cups up the street to where the private homes had their recycling cans and furtively dumping it in. Now I can proudly toss the spaghetti boxes and
soup cans without feeling like some kind of neighborhood wretch.
In 2008, the city of San Francisco had a 70% recycling rate; the city of San Diego at last tally managed to divert 64% of it’s waste, which is an honorable figure, but we can do better. San Diego Mayor Jerry Saunders credits «aggressive outreach efforts and tough new municipal ordinances with raising awareness of the need to separate items as plastic, bottles, and newspaper.»
Earth Day will soon be upon us and nothing more would gladden many environmentalists hearts than to see people actually begin to take recycling seriously! Yes-it’s good to take all your beer cans and bottles from your weekend shindigs down to the Recycling Center to get cash back for them; it’s even better to train yourself and your family to AUTOMATICALLY put the old newspapers and rinsed-​out baby food glass jars into the recycling bag and put them into the recycling dumpsters!
I admit to being kind of overly gung-​ho about it-​I compost all my kitchen scraps but then I am just a middle-​aged hippie who hopes to save the world-​1 bag of recycling at a time!

I recently had some questions about the recycling program here in San Diego, so I sent an email over to the fine folks at San Diego Recycling Works. The good news is that they are EXTREMELY HELPFUL! The bad news is that instead of emailing me back, the helpful Waste Reduction Specialist called me around 7 in the morning and woke me up. Hey SD, environmentally sensitive citizens need their rest too…‘specially after a day of family emergencies. But how was she to know about that? I digress.
My friendly Waste Reduction Specialist pointed me to this FAQ page I missed, which answers pretty much every recycling question I could ever possibly have:
Did you know you can’t recycle bottle caps?
And that they ask you do NOT rinse out bottles/​cans prior to recycling?
Read the link to the FAQ page and you’ll learn a lot.
Also, FYI — if you put your recycling in trash bags, it’s extremely likely it will be treated as trash and never make it to recycling, a question I asked because my parents habitually do this and it annoys me to no end.
Did you know you can recycle broken/​used surfboards to be used as concrete filler? (You have to drop them off at their location on Convoy, don’t put a surfboard in your blue bin!) I read about that just now on the main SD recycles website… craziness!
Three cheers for people at Environmental Services working hard to answer important recycling questions and pushing San Diego to be as green as possible!