Denver's pay-as-you-throw recycling plan gets approved, aims to cut down on waste

The pay-as-you-throw plan for recycling was approved in the City and County of Denver. City council voted to add new fees aimed to cut down on waste.

It will cost Denver residents a bit based on how much waste created. All this is in hopes of helping to increase recycling in Denver.

RELATED: Denver City Council Discusses Pay-As-You-Throw Fee To Reduce Waste, Increase Recycling

Pay-as-you-throw serves as an incentive to Denver residents to reduce waste through a volume-based pricing for trash. The city is also going to expand its residential waste services to provide weekly recycling and compost collection for all customers.

Under the proposed system, Denver residents would pay $9 dollars for trash cans that are 35 gallons, $13 dollars for cans that are 65 gallons and $21 for 95 gallons.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock hopes this will curb the habits of people in the city to focus on recycling rather than throwing creating more waste.

This is why volume-based pricing could be effective. Seventy-four percent of Denver's waste goes to the landfill, and 50% of that trash is compostable.

Last month ahead of the vote, Hancock told CBS4's Justin Adams told he hopes this will curb wasteful habits.

"We are incentivizing people to throw trash away and to send to a dump site and when we have multiple streams of opportunity to recycle and compost," Hancock explained. "And so what we're trying to do is to flip that paradigm and to say what we are going to incentivize you to do is to do that right thing. And that is the less you toss and send to the dump site, the less it's going to cost us all."

The new pay-as-you-throw waste services program will start at the beginning of 2023.