Delaware trash pickup is run by cities, counties and private haulers, not by the state, and your pickup day comes from your city’s or hauler’s own lookup. Among the largest cities, Wilmington, Dover and Newark collect curbside themselves. Delaware has a ban on yard waste in landfills, but no statewide bottle deposit, PaintCare paint or mattress program.
Find your city
The largest Delaware cities and their official collection pages:
- Wilmington: City of Wilmington Department of Public Works (sanitation collections). Trash is collected Monday east of I-95 and Tuesday west of I-95, with recycling Thursday east and Friday west, and yard waste collected on recycling days. Official page ↗
- Dover: City of Dover Public Works Department. The city provides a 90-gallon container to each residential property with once-a-week trash collection; call Public Works at 302-736-7025 to find your collection day. Official page ↗
- Newark: City of Newark Public Works and Water Resources Department, Refuse Division. The city collects household trash once a week on Monday or Tuesday and single-stream recycling once a week on Thursday or Friday, with yard waste on ‘Green Wednesdays’ from the first Wednesday in March to the first Wednesday in December. Official page ↗ Look up your collection day ↗
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Who collects in Delaware
- Under Delaware’s Universal Recycling Law every waste hauler that provides residential trash collection must also provide recycling collection. Source ↗
- State law requires single-family curbside recycling collection at a frequency of not less than once every other week. Source ↗
National haulers (Republic Services, WM, Waste Connections) hold contracts in many places; the city or county names the hauler for each street.
State-level rules
- Container deposit: No statewide container deposit law. NCSL says ten states and Guam have beverage container deposit systems, and Delaware is not one of them. Source ↗
- Paint: Not a PaintCare state. PaintCare says it operates programs in twelve states and the District of Columbia; Delaware is not among them. Leftover paint goes through the local household hazardous waste program; see paint. Source ↗
- Mattresses: No statewide mattress take-back program. The Mattress Recycling Council says its Bye Bye Mattress program operates statewide only in California, Connecticut, Oregon and Rhode Island. See mattresses. Source ↗
- Yard waste: Banned from landfills statewide. DNREC says yard waste has been banned from disposal in all Delaware landfills since 2007 and should not be put in trash containers. Source ↗
State agency
- State agency: Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), Division of Waste and Hazardous Substances. It runs the Delaware Recycles program, administers the Universal Recycling Regulations and solid waste regulations, and works with the Recycling Public Advisory Council and the Delaware Solid Waste Authority on recycling and drop-off programs. Official website ↗
- Find your local program: Recyclopedia: search what is recyclable in Delaware and find nearby drop-off sites ↗
Flag of Delaware. Public-domain artwork. Artwork: xrmap flag collection. Source. Resized to 480 pixels wide.
Materials with their own rules
Paint · Lithium-ion batteries · Household hazardous waste · Mattresses · Pizza boxes · Christmas trees
Neighboring states
Maryland · New Jersey · Pennsylvania
Sources
Official pages used: dnrec.delaware.gov · dnrec.delaware.gov · wilmingtonde.gov · cityofdover.gov · cityofdover.gov · newarkde.gov · newarkde.gov · ncsl.org · paintcare.org · mattressrecyclingcouncil.org · dnrec.delaware.gov · delcode.delaware.gov.
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