Guilford County, NC Trash & Recycling: Collection Schedule (2026)

Because unincorporated Guilford County has no county trash truck, collection scheduling is governed through the license every hauler must hold under Code Sec. 5-6(e), which ties licensure to compliance with a Customer Bill of Rights covering scheduling performance. If a hauler fails to pick up solid waste on a customer's regularly scheduled day and the failure is not the customer's fault, the hauler must make the pickup as soon as possible, and in no case later than that customer's next regularly scheduled collection day. If the hauler still has not collected within 24 hours of being notified of the miss, it must issue a pro-rata credit on the customer's next bill.

Weather and mechanical problems get their own rule: when equipment failure, holidays, or inclement weather would make running a collection truck unsafe, the hauler must notify customers of the service delay and provide an alternate collection schedule rather than simply skipping the route silently. Customers also get advance notice rights around changes to service itself: a hauler that plans to discontinue serving a customer must give at least 30 days' notice, and any rate change likewise requires 30 days' written notice before it takes effect.

The Board of Commissioners enforces these standards through periodic review and inspection of a hauler's performance as a condition of keeping its license, and reserves the right to amend the performance standards as needed. A hauler that racks up 15 or more unresolved customer complaints within a single calendar month is considered in breach of its license under the same Bill of Rights.