Multifamily Properties (5+ units)

Information about garbage, recycling, and food scraps at apartments, condos, townhomes, and other residential communities with five or more units.

Who Is Responsible?

Property managers and owners are responsible for providing adequate levels of service and easy access to containers. They should provide education to tenants upon move-in and annual reminders. 

Residents are responsible for participating correctly in the waste system. This includes separating waste into the appropriate containers, avoiding contamination of any waste stream, and responsibly disposing of bulky items (not illegal dumping). 

By leading with collaboration and communication, multifamily properties can avoid contamination issues, reduce garbage costs, and ensure compliance. 

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Property Managers and Owners

Find information about: 

• Recycling requirements
• How to set up garbage service 
• Free recycling signs 
• How to compost

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Residents

If you live in an apartment building or other multifamily community (5 or more units), you should have access to recycling and food scrap containers. Garbage, recycling, food scraps, and yard waste containers should be well-labeled and not overflowing. Your property manager should provide you with information about how to recycle and dispose of other waste at move-in, and once every year as a reminder. It is your responsibility to correctly sort materials into the appropriate bins and not contribute to contamination of the containers. Property managers may choose to pass along contamination fines to residents. Carts must be removed from the street or sidewalk within 24-hours of service. State law and City municipal code mandate everyone's participation (residential and commercial) in separating food scraps/organics and recyclables from the landfill.  

Recycle Right!

Download the City's recycling guide here.(PDF, 12MB) See a list of what items are and aren’t allowed in City of Santa Cruz recycling bins. The easiest way to "recycle right!" is to match the photos in the blue section. If something isn't pictured there, it probably goes in the trash! Remember to keep all of your recyclables clean, dry, and loose in the cart. Recycling should never be bagged (except for your bag-of-bags). 

Still unsure what to do with something? Look up specific items using our Waste Wizard tool! 

Food Scraps:

All multifamily properties are required to separate food scraps and other organics from the trash. If your property is not set up with this service yet, contact your property manager to request the service or contact the Waste Reduction team to get the conversation started. 

Don't miss out on your free 2-gallon countertop pail! City residents are eligible to receive a free 2-gallon countertop food scrap pail that helps collect food scraps in the kitchen and transfer them to the larger collection cart.

Remember, the City does not have a commercial compost program. We use collected food scraps to create biogas! For this reason, we do not accept any bags (including compostable bags), paper products, or food packaging (including compostable packaging). We only want the food. Thank you for keeping our food scrap program among the cleanest in the region! 

Large, Bulky Items: 

Large items like mattresses or furniture do not belong in dumpsters or trash enclosures. Ask your property manager if your property hosts a bulky item collection event. To dispose of these oversized items, take them directly to the City's Resource Recovery Facility (to be sorted for recycling or trash) at 605 Dimeo Lane, or use the City's Bulky Item Pick Up service to have us remove them. Non-account holders pay a small fee to schedule bulky item pickups. For more information, check out the Bulky Item Pick Up page.

TVs, Electronics, Batteries, and Hazardous Waste:

These items cannot go in the garbage. Many common household products contain chemicals that can be harmful to humans, animals, and the environment. Examples include paint, solvents, pesticides, household batteries, cleaning products, and auto care products. It is dangerous and illegal to dispose of household hazardous waste in the garbage, down the drain, or on the ground.

TVs and electronics are considered e-waste. E-waste is recyclable, but not something we can accept in the curbside blue recycling cart. These items must be brought to a specific e-waste collection site for separate processing. The City's Resource Recovery Facility at 605 Dimeo Lane accepts small e-waste items and batteries. 

 

Problems? Contact your property manager if waste containers are overflowing, not well-labeled, or missing. If these problems continue, contact SCMU Customer Service.

Do you live in or manage a duplex, triplex, or fourplex? Find information here. 

Do you live outside of the City of Santa Cruz? Your waste hauler is different. Contact Green Waste LLC or the County of Santa Cruz to learn more about what you can put in your recycling cart. 

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Waste Audits & Inspections

Have you noticed City staff checking on your recycling or trash cart? Per S.C.M.C. 6.12.115, Resource Recovery staff may inspect and audit waste producers for compliance with City municipal code and state regulations. 

We inspect carts and containers for several overlapping reasons: 

1. Catch contamination early: Recycling works best if the materials are clean and what we accept. We check bins for "contamination" — things like plastic clamshell containers in recycling, food waste in trash, or hazardous items mixed in. Contaminated loads can get an entire truckload rejected by processing facilities, so catching it at the curb is cheaper than losing a whole batch downstream.

2. Understand where customers are confused and how we can better tailor our education materials to provide clarity.  

3. Hazardous waste detection: We want to prevent hazardous waste from being collected, where it may pose a fire risk to our equipment and staff. Electronics, batteries, chemicals, and medical waste shouldn't go in regular containers at all, for safety and environmental protection reasons.

If a cart or container contains unacceptable materials, City staff may tag it. If your cart or container receives a yellow "OOPS!" tag, this means that there are a couple of items we don't want in there. A yellow-tagged cart will still be emptied on its service day. Please read the tag and avoid putting incorrect material in the tagged container. If your cart or container receives an orange "NOTICE" tag, this means that the cart has been rejected due to high contamination or hazardous materials. The account holder is notified of the rejected cart. The unacceptable material can either be removed from the container and serviced on its next service day, or the account holder can pay to have the container emptied as trash. 

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S.C.M.C. 6.12 SOLID WASTE

6.12.032 COMMERCIAL PRODUCERS AND MULTIFAMILY RESIDENTIAL PRODUCERS.

Commercial business and multifamily residential producers shall:

(a)    Subscribe to the city’s container collection services and comply with the requirements of those services as described in subsection (b), except commercial businesses that meet the self-hauler requirements in Section 6.12.160. The city shall have the right to review the number and size of a producer’s containers and collection frequency to evaluate the adequacy of capacity provided for each type of collection service for proper separation of materials and containment of materials; and commercial businesses shall adjust their service level for their collection services as requested by the city.

(b)    Participate in the city’s organic waste collection service(s) by placing designated materials in designated containers as described below, and shall not place prohibited container contaminants in collection containers.