Gainesville, FL Trash & Recycling: Bulk Item Disposal (2026)

Section 27-77 covers any waste that, because of its bulk, shape, or weight, can't go in an assigned garbage cart or be bundled for curbside pickup, or that exceeds the size and weight limits set elsewhere in the solid waste article. Instead of a set city fee, the contractor and customer negotiate the price for special collection and disposal directly, and the contractor bills the customer and collects payment before doing the work. The contractor schedules pickup at 'the earliest reasonable time,' with no fixed response deadline written into the code.

Article-wide prohibitions still apply to anything waiting for special pickup: section 27-73(7) makes it unlawful to store solid waste, recovered materials, or food waste on a property for more than a week unless it is securely contained or covered, so a couch or mattress can't sit out indefinitely between a special-service request and pickup. Contractors, tree surgeons, landscapers, and other building contractors who generate construction and demolition debris or tree branches while working in the city must remove that debris to a designated disposal area rather than leaving it for city collection, under section 27-73(11).

These storage and removal duties sit in the same division of the solid waste article as the special-service provision itself, so a resident or contractor waiting on a bulky pickup is still bound by the one-week containment rule and the debris-removal duty while the on-call collection is arranged.