What happens when a City replaces more than 750,000 waste and recycling bins? It creates an incredible opportunity to recycle on a scale few communities ever achieve. Thanks to the City of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department and Rehrig Pacific Company, that material will not go to waste. It will be put back to work.

As part of an effort to validate eligible customers and their service levels, the City is providing new Rehrig Pacific trash and recycling bins to the properties it services. As new bins are delivered, the old ones are being collected and given a second life. Each bin becomes part of a proven circular process that keeps plastic in use and out of landfills. For more than a century, Rehrig Pacific has led the way in reusable transport packaging and, for the past 30 years, has supplied rollout bins to communities across the country.

The Journey of Your Old Bin

When your new bin arrives, your old one is picked up at the curb. From there, it is cleaned and processed into plastic regrind, ready to be used again.

What makes this project especially unique is that the initial material processing will occurs at the City’s Environmental Services Collections yard to reduce transport costs and emissions. By chipping the bins on site, each truck can carry more material, reducing the number of trips required and lowering the overall carbon footprint. Some chipped material is then sent to a Rehrig Pacific plant, where it re-enters production as brand-new bins or other reusable transport packaging, including totes, pallets and trays, creating a true closed-loop cycle.

The rest of the recycled material takes a different path, traveling to toll grinders in California, where it is processed and prepared for use in a wide range of durable products, such as pails, composite railroad ties, and conduit fittings, through local partners. Toll grinders are specialized facilities that process plastic materials on behalf of other companies, transforming them into reusable raw material for manufacturing new products.

Why This Matters

This program keeps valuable plastic in circulation and turns it into products that will serve communities for years to come. For San Diegans, that means every eligible household receives a brand-new bin while knowing the old one is part of a responsible recycling program.

Your old bin is not disappearing. It is becoming part of a new story.