News/Commentary

City deploys spies to check whether residents are properly sorting trash and recyclables

November 12, 2025 | | Print Article

The leftist city of San Diego has deployed inspectors to check whether residents are properly sorting their trash and recyclables.

Dubbed “lid lifters,” the inspectors from the city’s Environmental Services Department (ESD) are code compliance officers who aren’t allowed to issue fines or any sort of punishment. All they’re allowed to do is educate, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

“[T]he inspectors place either ‘oops’ tags on bins that contain improper materials or ‘do not collect’ tags on bins with dangerous materials like propane tanks or lithium batteries,” the Tribune notes.

The residents who get the “oops” tags on their bins will need to be more careful next time, while the ones who get “do not collect” tags on their bins will need to remove the dangerous materials from their bin and then call the city to schedule a new trash pickup.

“We’re not going to be doing any citations for major or minor contaminations,” Alexander Galasso, the program manager for ESD’s Waste Reduction Program, stressed to local station KGTV.

These inspections are required as per Senate Bill 1383, which recently went into effect and requires residents to recycle organic waste separately from the rest of their trash.

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While it might sound frivolous, there appears to be a genuine need for these inspections. KGTV notes that already this year, a whopping 20 garbage trucks have caught fire because of improper items/materials such as batteries being mixed in with people’s trash.

“The way the trucks are set up, they’ll crush the compacted material,” Galasso said. “Unfortunately, batteries, especially lithium ion, when they get crushed, those cells explode, and fire is a real threat.”

Each San Diego home should expect to be visited by inspectors at least once per year, if not more.

“Waste doesn’t end when you come to the trash can,” Galasso said. “There is a life after waste, and we want to make sure that these are sorted correctly, because not only does it impact our staff and trucks, but it impacts what goes into our landfill.”

“Safety is the City’s No. 1 priority when it comes to our collection, disposal, and code enforcement crews. The more we can educate people about how dangerous things like propane tanks, lithium-ion batteries, and other household hazardous waste can be in the collection bins, the more we can protect our staff and our equipment from harm,” he added.

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So far, San Diego has deployed only six teams of inspectors.

“The city is devoting 12 inspectors to the effort — six teams of two,” according to the Tribune. “They typically work from 6 a.m. to just after 8 a.m., work that includes inspections, travel time, and logging the results into the city’s recycling database.”

Their goal is to complete the inspections before that day’s trash pickup begins.

“They are arriving at the routes before the collection trucks come — that’s why they start so early in the morning,” Julie Sands, the city’s recycling program manager, revealed.

Critics have complained that this is “nanny-state” behavior. Critics have also demanded to know who’ll be paying for these inspectors.

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Vivek Saxena
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