Walla Walla County, WA Landscaping Rules: Composting (2026)

Section 8.24.010(B)(1) declares it an unlawful nuisance to accumulate more than one cubic yard of waste, rubbish and trash, visible from an adjacent property or road, on urban-zoned lots unless kept in covered bins or receptacles. The same subsection then provides that nothing in the rule prohibits maintaining a compost pile outside of the front or side yards, as long as the pile's use is intended for the household's own purposes. The parallel rural provision, Section 8.24.010(A)(1), applies the same compost carve-out to lots zoned with a minimum area greater than one acre, exempting a household compost pile from the two-cubic-yard rural accumulation threshold.

Neither subsection imposes a bin, container or size specification for a residential pile; the only condition printed in the code is that the pile serve the household's own use rather than commercial purposes. This household exemption is distinct from the county's commercial composting-site permit program: Chapter 8.32's solid waste fee schedule charges $350.00 for a new commercial composting site permit and $250.00 to renew one, a licensing fee that applies to a composting facility or business, not to a backyard pile. Because a qualifying household pile is exempt outright, it is not subject to the $75.00/$250.00 civil infraction ladder that Section 8.24.020 applies to other debris nuisances, unless the pile stops serving household use and instead becomes an accumulation of trash or waste that exceeds the yard's cubic-yard threshold.