Charlottesville, VA Trash & Recycling: Collection Schedule (2026)

City Code § 26-30 establishes that the city or its agent 'will provide citywide curbside collection service of trash and recyclables to qualifying properties,' with the actual collection schedule, which days each street is served, set administratively by the Director of Public Works rather than fixed in the code itself; a copy of that schedule must be made available to any city resident or business who asks for it. Section 26-61 narrows who can actually use that service: curbside collection and disposal is provided 'only to curbside customers of the city who comply with this article and other applicable code provisions,' meaning a property that ignores the container, placement or fee rules in the rest of Chapter 26 can lose eligibility for pickup.

Section 26-33 backs this up by authorizing the city to deny curbside service altogether to any property generating, on average, more than twelve 32-gallon containers of refuse a week, in which case the owner must arrange private hauling. The chapter also draws a hard line at the city limits: § 26-32 makes it unlawful for anyone who lives or runs a business outside Charlottesville to bring bagged, boxed or bundled household or business garbage into the city for collection by the city's own service. All of these service rules sit under the same Class 1 misdemeanor penalty in § 26-2 that applies to the rest of Chapter 26.