New Jersey trash pickup is run by cities, counties and private haulers, not by the state.
Your pickup day comes from your city’s or hauler’s own lookup. Among the largest cities, Newark and Jersey City collect curbside themselves; Paterson contracts a private hauler. New Jersey has an electronics recycling law and a ban on yard waste in landfills, but no statewide bottle deposit, PaintCare paint or mattress program.
Find your city
The largest New Jersey cities and their official collection pages:
- Newark: City of Newark Department of Public Works. Household trash is collected twice a week by zone: Zone A on Mondays and Thursdays, Zone B on Tuesdays and Fridays. Official page ↗
- Jersey City: City of Jersey City Department of Public Works, Division of Sanitation. The Division of Sanitation answers garbage and recycling pickup questions at 201-547-4400 and schedules curbside pickup of electronic waste and white goods on the same number. Official page ↗
- Paterson: City of Paterson Department of Public Works (regular trash collected by contractor FILCO). Regular trash is collected twice a week by FILCO according to your zone, and the city page lets residents type in an address to find their garbage and recycling days. Official page ↗
Missing your city? Suggest a City.
Who collects in New Jersey
- New Jersey’s 1987 mandatory recycling law requires recycling in the residential, commercial and institutional sectors, and the materials that must be recycled are set by each of the 21 county recycling plans, so requirements differ from town to town. Source ↗
- NJDEP provides Recycle Coach, a free tool where residents select their county and municipality to get trash and recycling pickup schedules and item-by-item disposal instructions. 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. New Jersey is not among the ten states with a beverage container deposit law (California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont). Source ↗
- Paint: Not a PaintCare state. PaintCare says it operates programs in twelve states and the District of Columbia, and New Jersey is not one of 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’s Bye Bye Mattress program operates only in California, Connecticut, Oregon and Rhode Island. See mattresses. Source ↗
- Electronics: Under the Electronic Waste Management Act, televisions, computers, monitors, laptops, desktop printers and desktop fax machines may not be thrown out as solid waste, and manufacturers must fund free recycling for consumers and small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Source ↗
- Yard waste: Banned from landfills statewide. Under the Statewide Mandatory Source Separation and Recycling Act leaves must be source separated and recycled, and landfilling is no longer an option for managing them. Source ↗
State agency
- State agency: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), Division of Sustainable Waste Management. The division regulates waste and recyclable materials in New Jersey - licensing waste and soil-recycling businesses, overseeing recycling facility reporting, running the state e-waste program and publishing recycling information for residents. Official website ↗
- Find your local program: NJDEP county and municipal recycling coordinator locator ↗
Flag of New Jersey. Public-domain artwork. Artwork: author of xrmap, with modifications by Denelson83 and ChrisRuvolo. 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
Delaware · New York · Pennsylvania
Sources
Official pages used: dep.nj.gov · dep.nj.gov · newarknj.gov · jerseycitynj.gov · patersonnj.gov · cga.ct.gov · paintcare.org · byebyemattress.com · dep.nj.gov · nj.gov · dep.nj.gov · dep.nj.gov.
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