Polk County, IA Landscaping Rules: Composting (2026)

Section 2-5(d) of the Health Nuisance Regulation bans storing junk and debris, including cut brush or wood and dead or decaying plant material, outside an enclosed building anywhere in unincorporated Polk County. But the same sentence exempts two things from that ban by name: material contained in a compost pile, and orderly stacked firewood, provided the firewood is cut in lengths of four feet or less and stacked at least eighteen inches off the ground. That means a compost pile itself carries no separate size, setback or containment standard under this Regulation; the exemption is unconditional on its face, unlike the firewood carve-out, which comes with the two written specifications.

A compost pile can still become a health nuisance under other, narrower provisions if it stops functioning as ordinary composting: Section 2-3(b) reaches any lot where the Health Officer determines cockroaches, rodents or other vermin are present, and Section 2-5(j) separately covers any building or place conducive to breeding, harboring, feeding or sheltering vermin or pests such as flies, mice, cockroaches or rats. In either case the property owner, agent, occupant or lessee must abate within the deadline the Health Officer sets. Because the compost exemption sits inside Section 2-5(d) rather than the general nuisance definition, a compost pile is not, by itself, evidence of a nuisance the way an uncovered junk pile is.