4 rules for unincorporated Somerset County, New Jersey.
Verified from official government sources
There is no single Somerset County garbage truck. Under N.J.S.A. 13:1E-20 the county runs the solid-waste district plan, but curbside collection is arranged town by town — Bridgewater contracts weekly Friday pickup, while Bernards leaves each household to hire its own licensed hauler.
N.J.S.A. 13:1E-20
Within 360 days after the effective date of this amendatory and supplementary act, the respective boards of chosen freeholders, in the case of counties, and the Hackensack Commission, in the case of the Hackensack Meadowlands District, shall develop and formulate, pursuant to the procedures herein contained, a solid waste management plan for each respective solid waste management district.
Set-out times are municipal, not countywide. Bridgewater requires carts at the curb by 7:00 a.m. on your Friday service day, positioned with the wheels toward the house, and recyclables loose inside the blue 95-gallon cart. Other Somerset towns fix their own hours.
Bulky items are handled by your town — Bridgewater collects bulk and brush on the fourth Friday monthly — while Somerset County runs free household hazardous waste and e-waste drop-off events. Dumping instead of using these routes triggers solid-waste penalties under N.J.S.A. 13:1E-9.
N.J.S.A. 13:1E-9
The commissioner is authorized to assess a civil administrative penalty of not more than $50,000.00 for each violation provided that each day during which the violation continues shall constitute an additional, separate and distinct offense.
Recycling is mandatory across every Somerset County municipality. New Jersey's Statewide Mandatory Source Separation and Recycling Act, N.J.S.A. 13:1E-99.16, forces each town to adopt an ordinance requiring residents to separate designated recyclables from the trash. This is a legal duty, not a choice.
N.J.S.A. 13:1E-99.16
The governing body of each municipality shall adopt an ordinance which requires persons generating municipal solid waste within its municipal boundaries to source separate from the municipal solid waste stream, in addition to leaves, the specified recyclable materials for which markets have been secured and, unless recycling is otherwise provided for by the generator, place these specified recy...
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