Denver residents may soon join most of their metro neighbors in having to pay for trash service and could see recycling and composting become a way of saving money.

Denver is likely to consider charging residents for trash pickup, something that has been discussed for decades but never implemented in the Mile High City.

The city is looking for ways to increase revenue and cut expenses to resolve a $30 million budget deficit that grows every year.

On Thursday, a task force made up of business and community leaders charged with crafting recommendations for the mayor said making residents pay for trash service is a sensible fix.

“I’m down with this one all the way,” said Denver City Council President Chris Nevitt, a member of the task force that will finalize recommendations by November.

“This will be one of the biggest things to come out of this task force,” said Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, task-force member, director of the Civic Center Conservancy and former communications director under Mayor John Hickenlooper.

“This should be a no-brainer,” said Wayne Cauthen, task- force member and former chief of staff under Mayor Wellington Webb. “This has been talked about for 30 years.”

Not everyone is pleased with the concept.

“To me, that is a basic service,” said Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz. “We need to be looking at basic services before starting to add other things. If they go forth, it won’t be with my support.”

Faatz said a survey of her constituents said they would not support such a plan.

Currently, the city provides weekly trash-collection service for about 173,000 homes at a cost of about $16 million a year from the city’s general fund. No other large city in the Denver area provides free solid-waste services, said Ed Scholz, Denver’s deputy financial officer.

No decisions have been made yet on a trash fee, and details have not been finalized about how a paid trash system would work.

As much as $26 million a year could be generated with a flat trash-collection fee of $15 a month for trash and recycling, and $16 for trash only, according to the city’s budget office.

“Any plan we put out there in regards to trash should be a thoughtful one and one that addresses the question of sustainability as well as economics,” said Mayor Michael Hancock.

He said the best trash-fee concept underway across the country is the “pay as you throw” model.

The program — implemented in Loveland; Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; and San Francisco — provides residents free recycling and composting but charges for trash pickup based on garbage weight.

Residents in those cities pay only for the amount of trash they generate.

The idea is to encourage people to lessen their trash load via recycling and composting.

“By weighing trash, it pays for those services to be offered to those residents for free if they do the right thing,” Hancock said.

Denver’s Public Works Department in October published a report on the city’s solid- waste program, showing a pay- as-you-throw program would cost about $43.6 million in startup costs for vehicles and containers.

Families would get three wheeled containers for trash, recycling and compost. The city would no longer use alleyway Dumpsters.

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com