Denver cuts back recycling to once every other week, reduces frequency of large item pickup

Denver solid waste customers will be getting a reduction in service starting next year. Starting on Jan. 6, 2025, Denver's Department of Transportation and Infrastructure will move to an every-other-week recycling collection and move large item pickup from every four weeks to every nine weeks. 

The service reductions were announced on Thursday morning as DOTI announced an acceleration of its rollout of citywide compost service. The city will complete its citywide rollout in the first three months of next year, nine months earlier than originally planned. 

The 67,000 residents in the four collection districts will be asked to choose what size compost cart they'd like to receive before the Jan. 10, 2025 deadline. Carts will be delivered to those areas in February and March. 

"We've heard Denverites loud and clear - they want composting options, and they want them now," said Mayor Mike Johnston in a statement. "This rollout will dramatically accelerate our compost service timeline city-wide by nine months while meeting our waste needs in a climate-friendly and cost-effective way."

DOTI said the reason for the reduction in recycling service is that offering weekly recycling collection in 2023 and 2024 didn't increase the amount of recyclables collected. Reducing the service to every other week will reduce fuel use by saving the trucks 170,000 miles per year of driving. 

DOTI said reducing large item pick-up frequency will help incentivize efforts to find alternative options to throwing items into the landfill. 

"These adjustments in our collection schedules will allow us to improve customer service, creating greater reliability in our collection services and improving route completion rates for trash, compost and recycling," said Amy Ford, Executive Director of DOTI, in a statement. "In other words, we pick up your solid waste the day we tell you we are going to pick it up. Today we are at 90%, and we are striving to be at 95%."

DOTI said that residents will not see an increase in trash collection fees in 2025. The fees are associated with the size of people's trash carts.