A or B? Spokane is switching to the bi-weekly recycling schedule in May

Starting in May, the City of Spokane will reduce recycling collection to a bi-weekly schedule.

Utility customers can check an interactive map on the city’s website to see if they are on the Week A or Week B schedule. The city also sent notices directly to customers showing what week their recycling will be picked up.

The day of the week that garbage and recycling are collected does not change, only the frequency of recycling collection.

The move was approved by Spokane City Council last year to offset rising recycling costs. This trend can be observed across the country as the market for recyclable materials has declined significantly in recent years.

The reason for a change was clear.

When city officials rolled out the proposal in 2020, the city was well on its way to losing $ 1.4 million on its recycling program in 2020. Ultimately, the recycling program ended the year in the red with $ 1.3 million.

These losses weren’t a one-off slip. According to the city, the recycling program has not been broken since 2013.

By reducing the pickup to a bi-weekly schedule, the city reduced equipment and labor costs. Seven jobs will be cut from the city’s budget, but there will be no layoffs and the cuts will be made through attrition.

The alternative to a biweekly schedule, officials warned city council last year, could be increased fees for city residents.

Other Washington communities, including many local ones, are already using the recycle collection every two weeks.

The city is offering a larger 96-gallon cart free of charge for customers whose current recycling carts don’t process two weeks’ worth of recyclables. The city has budgeted $ 1.5 million in the purchase of larger carts and has already raised 12,000, although officials believe many homes will have adequate capacity in the standard cart.

Anyone south of the Spokane River will be on the A schedule, while those on the north side of the river will be split between the A and B schedules.

The new schedule starts May 3rd and the city has created an address search tool for customers who are not yet sure which weeks their recycling will be picked up at my.spokanecity.org/solidwaste/recycling/map.

A full list of recyclable materials can be found on the city’s website.

Spoiler alert: there are no plastic bags on it.