New Orleans, LA Trash & Recycling: Bin Placement Rules (2026)

Section 138-38 makes the roll cart the exclusive legal container for household and small-business garbage under Chapter 138. The city's service provider issues one roll cart per eligible, occupied service location; carts remain city property and may not be removed from the address they're assigned to. Standard service locations outside the French Quarter and Downtown Development District receive a 96-gallon cart, while locations inside those districts, plus Frenchmen Street between Esplanade and Dauphine, receive a smaller 35-gallon cart. Residents or small businesses inside those same boundaries who are elderly, disabled, or handicapped, or whose property can't store a cart off the public right-of-way, may apply in writing to the Department of Sanitation for an exemption, submitting a current Sewerage and Water Board bill and the property owner's name and address.

8-mil-or-greater black bags, white bags, grocery bags, paper bags and cardboard boxes are not acceptable for collection. Carts stay mandatory for everyone without an approved exemption on file, and violators can be cited and fined for littering. Only a city representative may remove a cart from its service location; willfully damaging, destroying or relocating a cart to another address is unlawful. Each location gets one free replacement cart if the original is stolen, further replacements must be purchased from the city's service provider. Related storage duties (lid closed, kept off the curb between collection days) sit in §§ 138-41 and 138-42.