Pay-As-You-Throw Garbage Rates

Thanks for your question.  While every-other-week collection works well for recycling, organics recycling needs to be collected weekly for sanitary reasons. Food scraps and other organic materials are the “smelly stuff” that can quickly cause odors and attract pests—especially during warmer months—if left for more than a week.

Weekly organics collection helps keep things clean, safe, and convenient for everyone.

By contrast, every-other-week (EOW) garbage service works because households can place food waste and other odor-causing items in their curbside organics cart or backyard compost bin. That way, only dry, non-smelly materials remain in the garbage cart between collections.

We appreciate your interest in reducing costs, emissions, and wear on the roads—those are shared goals, and we’ll continue exploring ways to improve efficiency as participation grows.

Thanks for the question.  For households that generate very little garbage, the proposed rates for Council adoption in November includes a new Every-Other-Week (EOW) service level at a reduced rate of $7.93 per month beginning in 2026. This option is designed for residents who don’t fill their carts weekly and want to save money by setting out garbage less often.

We do not have a proposed rate for once-a-month garbage collection. The new EOW service is a good fit for households that recycle and compost regularly and want to keep their garbage costs as low as possible.

Thanks for all you’re doing to prevent waste and compost in your backyard. Backyard composting is a great way to “close the loop” by recycling nutrients right at home, and it also helps reduce environmental emissions from collection trucks. However, not everyone is able to compost in their backyard, so the County requires that curbside organics recycling service be made available to all residents.

Households are not required to sign up for or receive an organics cart, but all residential customers are charged for the program. Hennepin County Ordinance 13 requires cities with more than 10,000 residents to provide organics recycling, and Minnesota State Statute 115A.93 requires that residents who recycle organics or regular recycling must not pay more than those who do not.

Research shows that when organics recycling is funded collectively, the cost per household is lower and participation rates are much higher—helping the City meet its goals to reduce waste, cut emissions, and protect water quality.

For the most part, no — this does not include HOAs. Bloomington provides curbside collection of garbage, recycling, organics, and yard waste for single-family residential properties. This includes duplexes and a small number of townhome communities that have opted into the City’s program.

Most homeowners associations (HOAs) manage their own waste collection services separately through private contracts. If you’re unsure whether your property is part of the City’s solid waste program, you can easily check by entering your address on our Find My Collection Day page on our website. 

Thank you for sharing your feedback.

When the City established organized collection, the intent was always to provide reliable, efficient, and cost-effective service for residents while protecting the environment and maintaining the streets, and we have had Pay-As-You-Throw garbage rates since the program began.  The updated Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) program is not a new direction—it’s an evolution of that same system. PAYT simply aligns costs more closely with how much waste each household produces, so residents who generate less garbage pay less.

No one is being required to pay for something they don’t use; instead, the program provides more choices and fairer pricing based on service level. The changes also help the City meet county and state goals for waste reduction and sustainability.

We value resident input and will continue to communicate openly as the program is implemented.

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback. We share your goal of reducing garbage collection frequency to cut down on truck traffic, emissions, and costs. However, we’re not quite there yet as a community.

To move to every-other-week garbage service citywide, most residents would need to compost food scraps so trash doesn’t sit for weeks and cause odor or pest issues—especially in warmer months. That would likely require mandatory recycling and organics participation.

Right now, the City is encouraging this shift through financial incentives that reward households producing less waste. Hennepin County’s Zero Waste Plan does include an action to work with cities to adopt requirements that would ban recyclable or organic materials from the trash and mandate the separation of recyclables  from the trash by residents and businesses.  Once that happens, Bloomington will be in a stronger position to realistically consider every-other-week garbage collection for everyone.

We appreciate residents like you who are leading the way by recycling and composting—your efforts help make future waste-reduction steps possible.

At this time, the City intends to continue to have recycling collected every other week, which is cost-effective and consistent with national best practices.

Check to see what size your recycling cart is.  Most Bloomington households have a 65-gallon recycling cart. If you need more space, you can:

• Request a 95-gallon cart at no extra cost, or
• Request a second recycling cart, also at no extra cost.
• You can also set out extra bags of recycling, in brown paper bags or cardboard boxes, next to your cart on the day of your collection. 

Thank you for sharing your support of our Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) system. It’s encouraging to hear how your household has been able to manage with a smaller cart and that you see the value in creating stronger financial incentives.

The goal of the proposed 2026 rate updates—and the new every-other-week small cart option—is to make sure families like yours benefit from producing less waste, while also encouraging households with higher trash volumes to recycle and compost more. As you noted, education and clear financial signals are key to helping the community as a whole reduce waste and use our resources more efficiently.

We appreciate your input and will continue sharing updates as the proposal moves forward this fall.