Roseville rolls out new recycling carts
New carts will be dropped off and old carts picked up beginning May 31
Starting May 31, the City of Roseville is swapping out your Eureka recycling cart for a new city-owned cart. In July, your recycling will be picked-up by a new hauler too—Waste Management.
New carts will start arriving this week, a day or two before your usual recycling service is scheduled. Put out your old cart, full of recycling, on the usual day and it will be picked up and returned to Eureka for you. You’ll even get the same number and size of cart you already have. If you want to change your cart size or request an additional car, you can do so after July 1.
Since Eureka is still contracted through June, they will still be the ones picking up your recycling with the new carts until July. Eureka will re-use the carts or recycle them if they have reached the end of their useful life, according to Mayor Dan Roe.
City communications have warned that the new cart’s lid will not be sitting flush when delivered due to the way the carts are stacked and shipped. Just leave it out for a day or two in the sun and the lid should settle into place.
If you forget to put out your old cart this week or you’re out of town, you will need to call Eureka Recycling to coordinate pick-up during the month of June.
Recycling will still be picked up every other week on the same day it is currently scheduled for you.
Why the change?
In 2014, Roseville switched from city-owned 18-gallon blue bins used for separating recycling and began using Eureka-owned recycling carts of varying sizes for the city’s single-sort recycling program. At the time, this was the best decision for the city. But that’s since changed.
Now, Roseville is going back to city-owned recycling carts. One of the reasons was to be able to solicit more competitive quotes from more recycling haulers—having contractor-owned carts had been a barrier to that. Further, if the city switches to a new recycling service provider in the future, the carts will not need to be changed again. This saves money for the city and provides more options when soliciting and negotiation recycling services contracts.
Contract costs
The city received nine quotes from cart manufacturers and reviewed the proposals in July 2024. The cost of purchasing the carts from the lowest bidder, Toter, was $644,047, which will come out of the city's 2025 Environmental budget. Ramsey County will be reimbursing the City of Roseville $100,000, so the total cost to the city is $544,047.
For recycling services, the city received proposals from four companies: Ace Solid Waste, Eureka Recycling, Walters Recycling & Refuse, and Waste Management. On October 7, 2024, the city council voted to approve entering into a contract with Waste Management. Waste Management was the lowest bidder and provided the best value. The contract with Waste Management is for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2030.
According to March 17, 2025 city council meeting documents, "The first year of this new contract will result in a decrease to our base payment to the contractor from $868,784 in 2024-2025 to $826,551 in 2025-2026."
The city pays for recycling services by billing residents a monthly fee. Currently, the base fee per unit per month is $4.41. With the new contract, this will go down to $4.25, but then increase annually at a rate of approximately 3%.
After consulting with market and industry experts, city staff are preparing for an increase in the price for recycling collections to exceed the normal cost adjustment of inflation. This is due, in part, to the commodities market, increased costs for processing, and increased labor costs.
More questions? Visit the City of Roseville's website for more information.
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Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
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