San Diego’s curbside system uses three bins: a light blue bin for recycling, a green bin for food scraps and yard waste, and a gray bin for everything else. The San Diego recycling rules come down to keeping each stream clean, because one contaminated load can send an entire truck to the landfill. Trash and organics are picked up weekly; recycling is collected every other week.
What Goes in the Light Blue Bin
The blue bin accepts plastic and glass bottles and jars, paper and newspaper, metal containers, cardboard, and rigid plastics such as clean food containers, jugs, tubs, trays, pots, buckets, and toys.1City of San Diego. City-Serviced Homes That covers aluminum and steel cans, milk jugs, detergent bottles, cereal boxes, junk mail, catalogs, and shipping boxes.
Glass bottles and jars of any color are fine so long as they’re household containers. Window glass, mirrors, and drinking glasses melt at different temperatures and contaminate the stream. Rigid plastics marked with resin codes 1 through 7 are accepted, which is most of what you’d find in a kitchen or bathroom.
What to Keep Out of the Blue Bin
The worst offenders at sorting facilities are “tanglers”: garden hoses, Christmas lights, electrical cords, and anything long and flexible that wraps around the rotating screens. When a tangler jams the line, the whole facility stops while workers cut it loose by hand. Plastic bags and film wrap do the same damage and are the single most common contaminant in residential recycling.
Styrofoam shatters during sorting and embeds in bales of paper and cardboard, ruining the batch; it goes in the gray trash bin. Food-soiled paper like greasy pizza boxes and used napkins belongs in the green organics bin.
Hazardous items create safety risks on top of contamination. Lithium-ion batteries are the biggest concern because a crushed battery in a collection truck or on a sorting line can ignite. Consumer electronics, household chemicals, paint, and motor oil all require separate disposal, covered below.
How to Prepare Recyclables
Every item going into the blue bin should be empty and dry. Leftover food or liquid soaks into paper products and can turn an entire bin into trash.2City of San Diego. What Goes Where Guide A rinse or wipe is enough. Flatten cardboard so it fits in the bin and doesn’t block the automated tipping arm during collection.
Keep everything loose. Never bag recyclables in plastic bags; bagged items get treated as trash because workers can’t open them safely on a fast-moving sort line.2City of San Diego. What Goes Where Guide If you collect recyclables indoors first, use a paper grocery bag or a cardboard box, then empty it into the bin.
Leave plastic and glass caps on their containers. Modern sorters handle attached lids more effectively than loose ones, which are small enough to fall through screens and get lost.
Green Bin: Food Scraps and Yard Waste
California’s SB 1383 requires every jurisdiction in the state to divert organic waste from landfills to cut methane emissions.3CalRecycle. California’s Organic Waste Reduction San Diego’s green bin is how the city meets that mandate. It accepts food scraps of all types, including meat, bones, dairy, and vegetable remains, along with food-soiled paper like napkins and greasy pizza boxes.4City of San Diego. New Organic Waste Recycling Program Yard trimmings, grass clippings, leaves, and small branches go here too.
Do not put food scraps in plastic bags before placing them in the green bin, even if the bags are labeled compostable.5City of San Diego. Collection Schedules They don’t break down fast enough in the city’s composting process and contaminate the finished product. To keep the bin clean, layer food scraps between yard waste or wrap them in a paper bag.
Failing to sort organic waste can trigger penalties under SB 1383. CalRecycle sets the structure at $50 to $100 for a first violation, $100 to $200 for a second, and $250 to $500 for a third or subsequent violation within a one-year period.6CalRecycle. Enforcement Questions and Answers In practice, San Diego has discretion over how aggressively it enforces against individual households, and most enforcement starts with education and warnings before escalating to fines.
Hazardous Waste, Batteries, and Electronics
Anything that can catch fire, react, explode, or poison requires separate handling outside the three-bin system. That includes paint, cleaners, pesticides, motor oil, propane tanks, fluorescent light bulbs, medications, and all types of batteries. The EPA classifies these as household hazardous waste and warns against putting them in regular trash, pouring them down drains, or dumping them on the ground or into storm sewers.7US EPA. Household Hazardous Waste (HHW)
San Diego operates a Household Hazardous Waste Transfer Facility near the Miramar Landfill that accepts these materials by appointment. As of April 2026, the facility is open Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in addition to existing Saturday hours.8City of San Diego. Household Hazardous Waste Separate programs handle paint, motor oil and filters, propane cylinders, medications, and needles or sharps.
For electronics, the Miramar Recycling Center at 5165 Convoy Street accepts TVs, computer monitors, laptops, and CPUs at no charge as donation-only items. Smaller electronics like printers, keyboards, and mice cost $0.25 per pound.9City of San Diego. Miramar Recycling Center The center also handles large appliances for a fee, including refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, stoves, washers, dryers, and water heaters.
Bin Placement and Collection Day Rules
Collection trucks use mechanical arms to grab and lift bins, so placement matters. Keep at least three feet of clearance between your bin and any other container, parked car, lamp post, tree, mailbox, or obstruction.10City of San Diego. General Refuse Collection Information and Rules If the arm can’t grip the bin cleanly, it gets skipped.
All bins must be at the curb or in the designated alley by 6 a.m. on your scheduled collection day.10City of San Diego. General Refuse Collection Information and Rules Under San Diego Municipal Code Section 66.0105, you can set bins out as early as 6 p.m. the evening before, and they must be removed by 6 p.m. on collection day.11City of San Diego. San Diego Municipal Code Chapter 6 Article 6 Division 1 Leaving bins out past the deadline is a municipal code violation.
Collection runs Monday through Friday between 6 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Gray trash and green organics bins are collected weekly. Light blue recycling bins are collected every other week.5City of San Diego. Collection Schedules That biweekly recycling schedule catches people off guard, so confirm your specific pickup day.
Finding Your Schedule and Changing Bin Size
The city runs an online lookup tool where you enter your address to see your exact collection days and download a calendar, at getitdone.sandiego.gov under Collection Schedule Lookup.12City of San Diego. Collection Schedule Lookup If the tool doesn’t recognize your address, you may live in a multi-unit building or HOA that uses a private hauler instead of city service. You can also call 858-694-7000.
San Diego offers three bin sizes: 35-gallon, 65-gallon, and 95-gallon.13City of San Diego. Containers After receiving new gray trash or light blue recycling containers under the current rollout, you have 30 calendar days to request a size swap, update your order, or add extra containers through your online Portal account. After that window closes, the next chance to adjust is July 2026.
For bulky items like furniture, mattresses, and large appliances that don’t fit in any bin, the city’s WasteFreeSD directory lists locations that accept items for reuse, recycling, or disposal. The Miramar Recycling Center also takes many large items, with per-item fees for appliances containing refrigerants and other specialty categories.