Wilmington, NC Trash & Recycling: Bin Placement Rules (2026)

Section 10-14 governs where and when refuse containers sit for city pickup. Where an alley serves a block and is physically usable, the city collects from the alley; any right-of-way dedicated for that purpose must be at least twenty feet wide to qualify. Where collection happens from the side or rear of a property, containers must sit near the service street, and where no access road or alley exists, containers go directly behind the curb, or three feet from the pavement edge on streets without curbing.

All containers for a given property must sit in only one location. Timing is just as specific: carts and containers cannot be set out any sooner than noon on the day before the scheduled collection day, and they must be pulled back off the street or alley by midnight of the collection day itself. Section 10-8 supplements these placement rules with container condition standards: city-issued roll-out carts remain city property, must stay at the address where issued, and cannot be filled so full that the lid will not close or that the cart exceeds one hundred fifty pounds, since packer trucks use mechanical lifters that cannot handle an overweight cart.

Commercial, apartment, and industrial accounts follow the same Section 10-14 placement and timing rules under Section 10-9. A violation of these placement and timing requirements is enforced as a general Chapter 10 offense under Section 10-2(b).