This post will be geographically specific to our location, but maybe for those of you outside our area, there is a compost bin rebate or voucher program available as well. I will say that this program was not very easy to find, and this is why we decided to post about it.
Josh has been wanting to buy a real compost bin for a while. He tried to use a compost heap, but that didn’t work out. We looked at some compost bins and tumblers online, but we were a bit put off by how expensive they were!
I had seen something about a voucher program in a Dixieline ad, and I showed it to Josh. It wasn’t very clear how it worked, so he decided to go to the Dixieline by our house and see if they even had compost bins there. He didn’t find any. So I decided to do more digging online and realized that there was an application you had to fill out online first before you could buy the compost bin at the discount price.
The voucher application link differs depending on where you live in San Diego County. We are in an unincorporated area, so I went to the San Diego County website.
Click here to go to the Compost Bin Voucher Application for San Diego County
All we had to do was fill out the application so they could verify if we qualified and wait for an e-mail that gave us the voucher for $40 off a compost bin. You could get $40 off vouchers for up to 2 of each type: the classic compost bin and the can of worms compost bin (which I am assuming is for vermicomposting). There are only two Dixieline locations where you can redeem the vouchers for the County of San Diego, the Escondido location and the Rancho San Diego location.
Here are a few other links for those in the City of San Diego, La Mesa, and Del Mar.
Click here to go to the Compost Bin Voucher Application for the City of San Diego
There are 3 options for residents of the City of San Diego. Please note that the voucher redemption locations for the City of San Diego are different than those for San Diego County.
Click here for more information about the Compost Bin Voucher Application for the City of La Mesa
La Mesa has a different method of application and receipt of the voucher. You either mail in or drop off the application, and your voucher is mailed to you in 2-4 weeks.
Click here for more information about the Compost Bin Voucher Application for the City of Del Mar
Those are the only 3 other cities I found in a quick Google search. There may be more opportunities that I just did not see.
Our final cost was around $100 for two of the classic soil saver compost bins. Hopefully, in about two months, we will have good dirt for Josh’s garden beds.
Josh will be taking over the post from here, since he is the one who went to pick up the compost bins. I just took care of the online application for him.
-Lynn
We live closest to the Rancho San Diego Dixieline, so that is the one I got the compost bins from. As Lynn said, I didn’t see any regular compost bins the first time I went to the Dixieline. At that time they did have a couple of the worm compost bins. I would imagine they don’t sell as many of those since people don’t usually want to deal with worms. When I went to the store on Saturday there were probably about 8 of the compost bins, some of which had come from a different store in El Cajon. If you don’t live close to either the Rancho San Diego or Escondido store, you may want to call ahead to verify they have the bins you want.
The cashiers in the store are unable to give you the discount. You have to go to what I believe is called the Pro Center usually located near the middle of the store. This is the place where you also order wood and other large products. This is typically a slower desk because they are working through special or large orders. Make sure you give yourself a few extra minutes in the store in case someone is ahead of you at check out.
– Joshua
