Yard, food and seasonal waste
Christmas trees, pumpkins, leaves, brush and food scraps: seasonal programs and organics rules that change by city.
How to Dispose of Leaves: Compost Cart, Bags or Drop-Off
Fall leaves go to a compost cart, a paper bag drop-off or a city leaf program, rarely the trash.
How to dispose of cooking oil and grease: never the drain
Cool it, seal it, then trash it or take it to a drop-off. Cooking oil and grease never go down the drain.
Pumpkin disposal after Halloween: compost cart, drop-off or trash
Compost cart, yard waste site or pumpkin smash: where a Halloween pumpkin goes, and what to remove first.
Christmas trees need a local January program, not a cart rule
A cut fir is yard waste in January. Dates are local and seasonal. Do not copy last January onto this winter.
Organics are where local programs differ most: one city collects yard waste weekly in a green cart, another only on posted weeks, a third bans it from the landfill and runs drop-off sites instead. The guides here cover what is true everywhere about each material and point to the city edition or the state page for the program that applies at an address.
Where to start
Open how to dispose of leaves for compost carts, paper leaf bags and the 2026 fall programs in Denver, Philadelphia and Saint Paul, pumpkin disposal after Halloween for the cart rules and the 2026 drop-off dates, Christmas trees for the January programs and the dates that republish each December, and cooking oil and grease for what to do with the frying oil that must never go down the drain. The city editions show how different the organics rules are: Los Angeles collects a green organics cart weekly, Austin collects compost weekly with the trash, Honolulu alternates green waste with recycling, and Atlanta posts yard-trimming weeks as specific dates. Your state page says whether a landfill ban on yard waste applies, and holiday collection changes covers the weeks when the seasonal route slides.