If you live in the Capitol Hill area still have a dumpster in your alley, it will be replaced with a black trash cart by September, at the latest.
Capitol Hill, Cheesman Park and Country Club are scheduled for July or August conversion. Congress Park and Cherry Creek residents are in the last group and their dumpsters will be removed in September.
This transition has been underway since 2010 and impacts people who live in dwellings with seven or fewer units. Apartments buildings are managed separately, and will continue to be serviced by dumpsters.
Charlotte Pitt of Denver Solid Waste Management recently attended a Congress Park RNO meeting to discuss the transition. She said, “Waste is a tricky issue, because, in essence, it’s the inefficiency of your life. It touches everyone and we realize the transition to trash carts is a big change. Change is hard. Our goal is to make this transition as easy as possible for everyone.”
The transition to trash carts will save Denver money on several fronts. It will help to eliminate the high volume of illegal dumping taking place. Contractors and others have been cited for disposing of items in alley dumpsters rather than taking them to dumps and paying for that service.
For many years, Denver has also operated three types of trash collection services—requiring different trucks—due to the varying sizes of trash and recycling containers. The new black trash carts are identical to the purple recycling and green compost containers, so the same trucks can be used to pick them up. Dumpsters and manual trash collection require different trucks. The cost and labor to maintain only one set of trucks is substantially lower.
According to Pitt, dumpsters are also becoming a thing of the past and the only place outside of Denver that she is aware of still using side-load dumpsters is Wyoming. It had also become more difficult and expensive to purchase trucks equipped to handle the dumpsters. The city was special ordering dumpster-capable trucks at a considerable cost increase. Some of the removed dumpsters have been repurposed. Ones that aren’t in good condition are sold for scrap metal.
The vast majority of Denver neighborhoods have already converted to trash carts with some positive results. According to Pitt, between 2015-2016, there was a 140 pound per-household decrease in the amount of trash collected, which equates to 30,000 pounds, and less trash in city dumps. On average, there was also 50 pounds more recycling per household collected.
As for the carts themselves, the standard-issue ones are 65 gallons and hold four to five bags of trash. Avid recyclers and composters can request smaller 35 gallon carts that accommodate approximately two to three bags. Larger households can request the biggest cart size, which is 95 gallons and holds seven to eight bags of trash.
Capitol Hill, Cheesman Park and Congress Park will be some of the last neighborhoods to receive the trash carts. This is largely due to these areas being densely populated with smaller alleys. Pittman and her team wanted more time to find the right trucks that would fit in the alleys. Denver currently has three small trucks and has ordered three more to use in these neighborhoods. However, even with more compact trucks, there will still be some alleys too narrow and residents will need to wheel carts to the street in front of their homes.
Residents will be notified by mail of the delivery of their trash carts. There are also informational community meetings scheduled, including one on July 18 at 6:00p.m. at Teller Elementary (1150 Garfield St.). For information on the trash cart conversion, visit denvergov.org.
Neighborhood Recycling Rates
Capitol Hill - 67 percent
Cheesman Park – 64 percent
Cherry Creek – 74 percent
Congress Park – 84 percent
Five Points – 66 percent
These numbers reflect customers who have subscribed to recycling service, not how much waste they actually recycle. Citywide, subscription is 77 percent as of May 2017. Residents are automatically enrolled in recycling service when they receive trash carts. Of everything that gets thrown out in Denver, only 18 percent of it ends up in the recycling carts.
