Hayward, CA Landscaping Rules: Composting (2026)

Article 1 of the Municipal Code otherwise locks collection and hauling of solid waste, recyclables, and organic materials to the city's franchisee: Sec. 25 makes it unlawful for anyone else to collect, transfer, process, or dispose of that material. Sec. 26 lists the exceptions to that exclusivity, opening with a bar on anyone but the franchisee hauling solid waste in the city except for a lettered list of activities that includes, at item (h), on-site composting of yard trimmings composted on a residential premises. In practice, that means a Hayward homeowner who keeps a backyard compost pile or bin and processes leaves, grass clippings, and small branches there is not violating the franchise rule that otherwise bars anyone but the city hauler from handling yard trimmings, because the material never leaves the property to be hauled at all.

The code's broader purpose section, Sec. 00, lists composting alongside reduction, reuse, and recycling as one of the goals the article is meant to maximize, framing the on-site exemption as consistent with, not an exception to, the city's waste-reduction policy. The exemption covers yard trimmings specifically, defined elsewhere in Article 1 as green trimmings, grass, weeds, leaves, prunings, branches, and similar organic yard waste; it does not extend to food scraps, which the definitions section treats as a separate category of organic material generally directed toward the city's organics collection program.