Sussex County, DE Trash & Recycling: Bin Placement Rules (2026)

1, added July 20, 1999 by Ordinance No. 1328 and amended February 27, 2018 by Ordinance No. 2550, requires screening of loading and trash areas for large-scale nonresidential development in the C-1 General Commercial, CR-1 Commercial Residential, C-3 Heavy Commercial, C-4 Planned Commercial and C-5 Service/Limited Manufacturing Districts. Subsection C(2) requires that all dumpsters, trash pads and trash collection storage areas be carefully located and oriented to be as inconspicuous as possible and screened from adjoining properties. Subsection C(2)(a) sets fixed setbacks for those areas: a minimum of 60 feet from the front lot line, 30 feet from side lot lines, and 30 feet from the rear lot line.

Under C(4), an owner satisfies the screening requirement with either a six-foot-high sight-tight fence or wall, or a four-foot-minimum-height (at planting) evergreen landscape screen subject to Department of Agriculture standards. The rule applies both to new construction of a building or group of buildings containing loading areas, dumpsters or storage areas, and to modifications of an existing site or building that create new loading, dumpster or storage areas, per B(1)-(2). Loading areas themselves must also be oriented to be screened as inconspicuously as possible from adjacent residential land and public roads, per C(1), and may be subject to site plan review.

These trash-area rules are separate from and additional to the general off-street loading design standards of § 115-170, which require drainage and erosion-resistant surfacing for loading facilities generally.