Owensboro, KY Trash & Recycling: Bulk Item Disposal (2026)

Owensboro Municipal Code § 26-266 defines a special load as any solid waste incompatible with the mobile container's automated side-loader collection service, and it splits handling into distinct categories. For residential customers, logs and brush must be separated and cannot go inside mobile or bulk containers; brush has to be prepared with the butt end behind the curb and sidewalk, never in the street, and stacking limbs or brush on streets, sidewalks or medians is strictly prohibited, drawing a notice of violation from the code official and, if uncorrected, a $50 fine per citation.

Tree contractors must display their name and city license number on their vehicles, dispose of everything they cut at a state-permitted facility at their own expense, and a resident who has a contractor or non-family member cut trees loses eligibility for city collection of that material; violating that restriction carries a $100 to $500 fine. Large bulky items that don't fit inside a mobile container require the resident to notify the sanitation department before or when the item is placed at the curb; placing it there creates an implied contract, and the applicable fee is added to the sanitation bill, a process that excludes building material, roofing, soil, rocks, concrete, sand, gravel, bricks, lumber, liquids and paint.

Residential accounts in good standing get a fee exemption if they haul bulky items to the transfer station themselves and show proof of city residence, though that exemption never extends to a business or a rental/management company operating from a residential address.