Lancaster County, SC Trash & Recycling: Collection Schedule (2026)

Lancaster County Code Chapter 12, Division 3 sets up the county's drop-off system for household waste in the unincorporated area, since there is no municipal curbside collection contract outside city limits. Section 12-61 defines household garbage as putrescible animal and vegetable waste, paper, tin cans, glass and crushed cardboard boxes, and separately defines rubbish as furniture, appliances, water heaters, mattresses, building materials, bricks, stumps, brush, auto and machine parts, tires and dead animals from residential living. Section 12-62 requires normal household garbage to go only into a county trash container, while rubbish, aside from dead animals, must be hauled to one of the designated rubbish dumping areas the county administrator establishes around the county; normal household refuse may not be dumped at a rubbish area, and no explosives, chemicals, acids or other hazardous materials may go in or around either type of site.

Section 12-63 requires garbage to sit wholly inside the container, bars leaving trash around the container, and bars overloading it past capacity. Section 12-64 makes it unlawful to set fire to material in or around a container or to dent, bend, puncture or otherwise damage one. Section 12-65 bars entering, standing on, or rummaging through containers or rubbish sites, though the four rubbish dumping sites let residents salvage wood, lumber and boards. Section 12-68 limits container use to county residents, with a narrow carve-out letting any motorist traveling the public highways empty up to one cubic foot of refuse per vehicle.