Is Free Trash Pick Up Sacred Like the Second Amendment? San Diego Is About to Find Out.

A proposal for a ballot measure is taking shape that would bring San Diego in line with the supermajority of localities in the state who charge fees to offset the costs of trash collection

It’s that time again. For the umpteenth time in the past century, some well-meaning people have pointed out that San Diego’s trash system ain’t right. And for the umpteenth time the people who benefit from that wrongness (which was a mistake to start with) are going to try and make the discussion go away.

Roughly 53% of San Diego city homes don’t pay a fee for trash collection; the money for collecting and disposing of our daily waste comes out of the city’s general fund. Those of us living at the other 47% are paying a commercial trash collector to haul our stuff away.

Addresses defined as single family homes on public streets get something the rest of us don’t, and anybody who has seriously questioned the system in the past has run into America’s Finest Cone of Silence, namely talking about the things we should change but don’t because it’s not worth it politically.

People have a hard time talking about trash or, for that matter, any other aspect of what’s left over when we get through doing what we have to do to exist. Consuming is fun; what’s left over just needs to go away.  It’s disgusting. 

Most people in polite society don’t want to chat over cocktails about third world children picking through leftover electronics, our rapidly plasticized oceans, or the methane oozing out of our landfills. That’s why homeless people shitting in public places is the first thing the moral outrage crowd brings up when they’re dehumanizing the humans who get cast aside by society. 

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In the years leading up to 1919, San Diego had a problem. Trash collection for the then-93rd largest city in the United States had gone awry. The contractor who was supposed to make leftovers (which back in that day included “nightsoil”) go away was running a nifty racket, getting paid to collect refuse and getting paid to deliver said garbage to pig farmers in Los Angeles.

Things weren’t all that different a century ago when it came to solving problems in the public sector. What started out looking like a sweet deal (and was supported by voters by a 85-15% margin) ended up being a stinker, although it took a little longer than the new city offices at 101 Ash Street to be realized.

The People’s Ordinance put the city into the business of collecting trash. There was supposed to be a fee associated with the service; somehow it never happened. And what had cost users in the past became a right, enshrined on the Golden Tablets setting forth the way things were supposed to be.

There have been some tweaks over the years, the biggest one occurring in 1986 when, along with removing requirements for separating out “table refuse, night soil, swill and the entrails of butchered animals,’ the voters ended free service for newly built apartments and condos. 

(h/t to VOSD’s Randy Dotinga for the history lesson).

In 2009, a grand jury ruled that the city should repeal the People’s Ordinance on equity grounds “because it provides no-fee trash collection and disposal to some citizens and requires other citizens to pay for the service.”

In 2010, when proposals by libertarian types to dismantle government were all the rage, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith cooked up a privatization proposal. He said it would save the city $34 million annually. The thinking was that a ballot measure asking for voter approval to eliminate city-run trash collection services would be a lot easier than asking them to pay the city a fee.

The private haulers replacing those city workers wouldn’t be bound by the People’s Ordinance. Goldsmith pinky swore the city would get around to mandating that residents be charged no more than the average cost in the county. (Just like they did back in 1919, no doubt.) Despite the momentum of the shrink government ideology at the time, this bait and switch went nowhere. 

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City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is leading the current effort to take city residents' God-given right for free trash service away. (sarcasm international)

He says “free” trash pickup takes money away from other city priorities, creating a “structural” deficit that prevents San Diego from doing things like fixing sidewalks and street lights.

The measure would allow the city to crack down on vacation rentals, mini-dorms and accessory dwelling unit owners who currently exploit the situation to get free trash service they ought to be paying for.

Even now, as the trash collection business is facing new challenges like recycling food waste (no mention of animal entrails) and the not-too-distant end of its current landfills, this proposal has already run into headwinds.

This is an equity issue. The 2019 Climate Equity Index Report found that cost burdens of basic needs, including energy, transportation and housing, are much higher in communities with a higher proportion of people of color. Spending $34 million a year to subsidize a “free service” is counterproductive to our zero waste plan and ultimately a not-smart way to use increasingly scarce resources in the face of the coming challenges of climate change.

Councilmember Raul Campillo, on the other hand, says postponing the ballot measure until 2024 would allow supporters to create a campaign focused on the less obvious positives of eliminating free trash pickup, such as higher recycling rates and millions more in city money for libraries, parks, firefighters and other priorities.

Because such a ballot measure would not involve immediate implementation of a fee, only a simple majority of votes will be required. Do it later proponents think a more Democratic electorate in a presidential year would be less of an uphill task.  

The Big Danger facing any proposal that even implies taxes or fees is the demonization of the suggestion of a mileage tax to pay for future roads and transit. Anything else along those lines will just get bundled into the small minds voter guides.

Carl DeMaio and the rest of the naysayer class have already (in my opinion) made this concept into something perceived to be as dangerous as Sen Ted Cruz’ belief that Critical Race Theory will encourage “them” to loot and burn McMansions. It’s going to take hard work to undo the damage already done by our homegrown fear mongers. 

Fixing the People’s ordinance is a good idea, one I hope local leaders won’t shy away from.

One final thought. The people collecting and recycling our trash have the fifth most dangerous profession in the United States. (Cops are #22, by the way.)

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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com