Manchester, CT Trash & Recycling: Bin Placement Rules (2026)

Section 273-4 of Chapter 273, adopted by the Board of Directors on October 13, 2009, governs how Town-issued refuse and recycling carts are placed for collection at residential properties. Subsection C requires the containers to sit at the curbside rather than in the roadway itself, unless the Director of Public Works approves otherwise, and it relieves the Town's solid waste contractor of any duty to enter a building to retrieve refuse or recyclables; carts have to be reachable from the curb. Timing is set out in Subsection D: no refuse or recycling container may be placed at the designated collection spot before 12:00 noon on the day before the scheduled collection day.

Once the Town empties the cart, the resident has to remove the empty container from the collection point by 12:00 noon on the day after collection. Subsection E makes clear the timing and placement rules bind any owner or occupant who puts containers out for pickup, not just the household generating the waste. Placement that does not follow a Town-issued container or that otherwise breaks the Director of Public Works' rules under § 273-6 is separately treated as a violation of the dumping prohibition in § 273-3, and § 273-5 lets the Town remove and bill for anything left out improperly.

The chapter's definitions in § 273-2 describe the refuse container as a Town-issued wheeled green plastic cart and the recycling container as the matching wheeled blue plastic cart.