Let Inga Tell You: As the trash bins turn — a continuing soap opera
San Diego’s new trash bin system seems destined to keep me in column material in perpetuity. Alas.
To recap, the City Council voted 6-3 in June to inflict upon 226,000 single-family homeowners a new trash fee system that is so convoluted and nonsensical, it will make your head explode.
La Jolla’s own City Council member, Joe LaCava — who should be dispatched to a deserted island where the only food source is rodents — has actually championed this debacle.
Among the idiocies of this plan: All the current black (trash) bins and blue (recycling) bins will be replaced with new bins with sensors. The old bins — almost 1 million — can’t go in the landfill. The city vaguely claims they will be “recycled.” Where? How?
This bill of goods was sold as Measure B (short for “Bait and Switch”) back in 2022, with an estimate of monthly fees in the $23-$29 range. The actual costs — which will rise each year — are roughly double that.
And just to add to the confusion, the charges will appear on your property tax bill, with refunds or credits not appearing until at least your fiscal 2027 property tax bill.
No, you can’t opt out and hire your own service.
By the way, don’t even think of trying to put one over on these evil geniuses. To make sure the trash folks are only picking up bins from (over)paying customers, the new sensored trash bins will be gray and the new recycling ones a lighter blue. Given that the green (organic waste) bins are relatively new, they aren’t being replaced.
Every household is required to have at least one trash bin, one greenery bin and one recycling bin whether you need/use/want them or not. More importantly, you’re required to pay for them. In perpetuity. On your property tax bill.
If you don’t have space for the regulation-size 95-gallon bins, you can opt for a 65-gallon bin or even a 35-gallon bin. But except for the black-soon-to-be-gray trash bins (which will cost slightly less), you still have to pay (forever) the full 95-gallon rate for the green and soon-to-be-lighter-blue ones.
According to the Environmental Services Department flier, “Customers that select the 35-gallon or 65-gallon service level for their trash container will receive a credit on their fiscal 2027 property tax bill for the difference between the rates associated with their selected service level and the 95-gallon service level for the period of time between when the customers subscribed to and received the smaller containers and the end of fiscal year 2026.”
Translation: You’re going to be charged the maximum rate and wait at least a year to get the credit.
Are you screaming yet?
The affected homeowners have until Sept. 30 to select what size black-now-gray, blue-now-lighter-blue and green bins they would like delivered starting Oct. 6. A flier with instructions arrived in my mailbox July 22 on how to set up an account at wasteportal.sandiego.gov.
My flier came with a designated 10-digit APN for our address — which stands for assessor parcel number (not that it said this anywhere on the flier) — along with a 10-digit “unique code” (combination of letters and numbers). But before you use any of that, you need to set up an account with your own password.
Is it a requirement of the city of San Diego to only hire IT people who graduated dead last in their computer science class? The wasteportal.sandiego.gov website was, at least initially, a complete mess.
None of the three “bundle” options (combinations of sizes of bins) worked for my household, which requires two 95-gallon green bins (big yard), one 65-gallon trash bin (we’re retirees) and one 35-gallon recycling bin (space limitations).
The closest was Bundle 2, which includes two 95-gallon bins and one 65-gallon bin, to which I had to add the cost of the 35-gallon bin from the chart below the Bundles Options.
At least a temporary problem is that we now have two 35-gallon recycling bins because recycling pickup is currently only every other week. But weekly recycling (“Bait and Switch No. 86 from Measure B, which made it a selling point) isn’t scheduled to start until summer 2027.
I didn’t want to be paying for two recycling bins in perpetuity when there would be a point when we would need only one. So for a while after our new 35-gallon sensored bin is delivered, we will be throwing away a lot of what we previously recycled until weekly service starts.
But back to the wasteportal.sandiego.gov site.
On July 22, I did successfully create an account and a password and then sign in with my 10-digit APN and unique code. But that was pretty much the last success I had.
Please keep in mind that I did this on the first day the fliers were received. This is always a bad idea. With any new software, you should allow time for the glitches to work themselves out.
I was able to select my bin sizes OK. I was given the option of inputting a mobile number so I could get text updates. This seemed like a good idea since I want to make sure the city does not confiscate our current two 35-gallon recycling bins, which we personally paid for from The Home Depot at a cost of $120 each after the city trucks destroyed the ones they’d issued but had stopped carrying that size.
I have no idea what I’ll do with two obsolete 35-gallon bins. Maybe I’ll see if my gardeners want them. But they’re practically new and I don’t want the city to take them and destroy them. Basically I want to do my own recycling of them. They’re mine and they can’t have them!
Anyway, the website would not let me input a phone number or sign up for texts.
There was also an option to select a “secondary user” (say, a spouse). Sensing that Environmental Services may push me into an early death, I indicated my husband, Olof. I received an email from the city indicating he had been signed up.
They also queried — and may I say I nearly fell out of my chair laughing: “Would you like to donate an additional amount to help provide trash services for those needing financial assistance?”
Hell no! It’s not like I don’t have sympathy for the less fortunate, but one of the promises our City Council made in June was that a fund of $3 million was being designated for precisely such persons. So why are you trying to wring it out of me?
The details about how the less fortunate are to access some financial aid on the new trash fees seems just as worrisomely vague as the recycling of a million preowned trash bins. As in “to be determined.” As in “We have no idea how this will work and you will probably have to wait two years to get a credit on your property tax bill.”
But the wasteportal people did email me a confirmation that I have elected not to make a donation. You could feel the words “miser” oozing through the ether.
I couldn’t make the mobile number option or the opt-in for texts work at all, so I finally gave up and used the “Contact us” button to inform them there were problems with those features.
A few hours later, I logged back into my account to see how everything looked, only to have it indicate that (1) I had not selected bin sizes (despite an email confirmation of my choices) and (2) I had not selected a secondary user (even though I tried it twice and received not one but two confirmations that Olof was my secondary user).
Olof, an engineer, suggested I wait 24 hours to see if the wasteportal site would catch up.
The next morning, July 23, there was indeed one improvement: It was now indicating my bin sizes. But still no option for the mobile number, text opt-in and, really annoyingly, it was still insisting I hadn’t opted for a secondary user, despite two confirmations the day before. So I tried signing up Olof a third time.
I also contacted them again and reported these failures.
Some hours later, Olof reported that he had received three separate emails from the city with three different 10-digit unique codes indicating he was a secondary user. We had no idea which code was the right one.
On July 24, I was happy to receive the following message from a public information clerk at Environmental Services:
“We have recived [sic] word from the tech department that the system is back up and running. [Was it ever either?] Please try again. If you have any issues, please give us a call at 858-694-7000.” Where you will be put on hold for six hours. (OK, that last part is mine.)
I logged back into my wasteportal account and was pleased to see that I now actually could input a mobile number! And opt in for texts! But it was still showing that I had not selected a secondary user.
I replied to the public information clerk to report my successes but also ask her to please alert the tech folks that my account was still showing no secondary user despite the secondary user in question having received three confirmations with different “unique codes” — and by the way, which was the actual one?
I received an auto reply saying “Due to the high volume of emails we receive [I bet!], we appreciate your patience as we work to respond. … If sufficient information is provided, we will create a service request on your behalf. … Please see the link below for everything you need to navigate these updates smoothly and ensure a seamless transition.”
Seamless??
But ever optimistic, I logged back into my account daily, but it was still showing “No secondary users have been selected.” I sent yet another query about this.
I will give the wasteportal folks some credit: They do reply. Not for at least several days, but you will get an answer. And I am certain these poor folks were not the architects of this idiocy.
As noted, I had received three emails saying “This is a confirmation that [my husband] has been successfully added as a secondary user,” as had Olof. So I had thought I was done.
But I didn’t read far enough. At the bottom of the confirmation pages, it noted: “An email will be sent to the secondary user with further instructions” (italics are mine).
As the wasteportal folks informed me several days later in reply to my query: “For a secondary user to display on a property, they need to open a portal account and use the unique code they were sent via email. Until they do, they will not appear on your portal account.”
So Olof had to create his own wasteportal account including his own password, different from mine. From there, he could use the “unique code” (we randomly picked one of the three and it worked) to associate himself with our address and bin choices. And low and behold, he is now showing up under my password as a secondary user.
I’m exhausted.
But not to worry. If you don’t do anything, you’ll automatically get charged for three 95-gallon bins (one of each color) and provided with new gray (née black) and light blue (formerly darker blue) cans. (You’re assumed to still have your green one.)
Inga’s looks at life appear regularly in the La Jolla Light. Reach her at inga47@san.rr.com. 
Related columns:
Let Inga Tell You: Still fighting the good fight against new trash fee
Let Inga Tell You: New trash fees are incomprehensible and just plain wrong
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