Akron, OH Landscaping Rules: Composting (2026)

34 defines a 'compost pile' as any outdoor pile of organic waste matter permitted to decompose, and requires every one in the city to comply with its ingredient, size, and placement rules or be removed. Allowed materials are limited to leaves, grass clippings, herbivore animal manure, garden plants and vegetable trimmings, fruit and vegetable material, nitrogen-based chemicals or fertilizers, and water; the code specifically bars other animal manure, other fruit or vegetable matter, cooked kitchen waste, grease, meat, bones, or fats. A compliant pile is built in layers from ground level, topped with soil at the end of each day, and capped at five feet above ground.

It must sit inside an enclosure that conceals it from view and keeps rodents and other vectors out, and it cannot be visible from any street or sidewalk; placement must be at least ten feet from any building line or fifteen feet from an inhabited dwelling, and the pile can't create nauseous or offensive odors. The property owner is solely responsible for controlling rodents and insects the pile might attract. If a compost pile violates any of these rules, the City serves written notice and the owner must remove it completely within seven days; failing to remove it after notice is itself a separate violation.

If the owner still refuses, the Director of Neighborhood Assistance can remove the pile at the owner's expense, adding an administrative charge of seventy-five dollars or ten percent of the removal cost, whichever is greater.