North Carolina 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, Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro collect curbside themselves. North Carolina 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
- Charlotte — Solid Waste Services, weekly garbage and yard waste, recycling every other week on a green or orange week.
- Raleigh — Solid Waste Services, weekly garbage and yard waste, recycling every other week; bulky pickups by appointment from $35.
Other large cities and their official collection pages:
- Greensboro: City of Greensboro Solid Waste and Recycling Department. Recycling runs on a red or a blue calendar, and trash, recycling, yard waste and bulk days can shift during holiday weeks even when City Hall is closed. Official page ↗ Look up your collection day ↗
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Who collects in North Carolina
- North Carolina bans a long list of materials from landfill disposal, including yard trash, computers and televisions, white goods, plastic bottles, scrap tires and wooden pallets. Source ↗
- DEQ’s local solid waste programs map gives each community’s contacts, accepted materials, drop-off sites and hours of operation. 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’s state beverage container deposit laws page reports that only ten states and Guam have a deposit-refund system for beverage containers, and North Carolina is not one of them. Source ↗
- Paint: Not a PaintCare state. PaintCare’s own site names the states where paint stewardship laws have created its programs, and North Carolina 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 runs only in California, Connecticut, Oregon and Rhode Island. See mattresses. Source ↗
- Electronics: Discarded computer equipment and televisions are banned from landfill disposal under N.C. General Statute 130A-309.10, and DEQ tells households to use local drop-offs or manufacturer and retail take-back programs. Source ↗
- Yard waste: Banned from landfills statewide. Yard trash is on DEQ’s list of materials banned from landfill disposal under N.C. General Statute 130A-309.10. Source ↗
State agency
- State agency: North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Environmental Assistance and Customer Service (Recycling and Materials Management). It gives technical help and grants on recycling and composting, runs the Recycle Right education campaigns, and publishes directories and maps of local solid waste programs and recycling markets. Official website ↗
- Find your local program: Local solid waste programs map ↗
Flag of North Carolina. Public-domain artwork. 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
Georgia · South Carolina · Tennessee · Virginia
Sources
Official pages used: deq.nc.gov · deq.nc.gov · charlottenc.gov · charlottenc.gov · experience.arcgis.com · raleighnc.gov · raleighnc.gov · greensboro-nc.gov · greensboro-nc.gov · ncsl.org · paintcare.org · mattressrecyclingcouncil.org · deq.nc.gov.
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