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Santa Barbara Recycling 101

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The Basics

Residents of Santa Barbara enjoy a great set of modern waste services provided by the City under contract with our local waste hauler, MarBorg. An overview:

  • All homes must have trash service;
  • Lots of blue bin recycling is included with your service at no extra charge;
  • Plenty of greenwaste (leaves, branches, grass) collection is also included;
  • We are just beginning foodscraps composting for larger multi-unit apartment buildings;
  • Plus battery collection, bulky waste pickups, mail-in medical sharps and Christmas tree collection.

You have a choice of container types and sizes, and for large residential services, the number of days of pickup.

For details on your bill, view City trash rates.

Sections

Where to Call

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Small Residential Services

If you are a single family home or an apartment building with 1-4 units this information applies to you. If you are a multi-unit property with 5 or more units, read the section on Large Residential Service.

  • Unlimited recycling and up to 192 gallons of greenwaste weekly.
  • Two large item pickups per year at no extra cost. See Large Items for details.
  • Unlimited collection of Major Appliances ("White Goods"). See Large Items for details.
  • Household battery and cell phone collection. Collect your batteries and cell phones in plastic bags and place on top of the blue recycling container.
  • Mail-in Medical Sharps. Call MarBorg at (805) 963-1852 for a free container for mail-in disposal.
  • Christmas trees and extra holiday trash. Place trees next to greenwaste or in trash area. All households will receive unlimited bagged trash on their regular collection day from December 26th to January 9th.

Even more details over at our "Get Started" page.

Container Sizes

You have a variety of container size options to accommodate your needs. Call MarBorg at (805) 963-1852 to make adjustments.

For single-family homes, the container options are:

Silhouettes of Trash containers showing a 35 gal can, 65 gal can and 95 gal can

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