Mountain View, CA Trash & Recycling: Collection Schedule (2026)

City Code Sec. 16.4 sets the baseline removal frequency for every 'place or premises' in Mountain View, a term Sec. 16.1 defines broadly to cover houses, apartment buildings, mobile home parks, stores, restaurants, offices, and any other location where a business operates or someone resides. Subsection a. requires garbage and waste be disposed of or removed at least once each week, or more often if it accumulates faster, meaning a single-family home's cart and a restaurant's food-waste bins are both bound by the same one-week ceiling, though a restaurant will typically need more frequent service to comply. Subsection b. hands recyclables a separate, flexible schedule: removal 'on a periodic basis as determined by the director of finance,' the official who under Sec. 16.2 sets collection-frequency rules for the licensed disposal service operator with city manager approval.

Subsection c. adds a catch-all: it is unlawful for anyone to accumulate, dispose of, or haul refuse in a way that creates a nuisance, covering the in-between case of staying under the weekly limit while still letting trash pile up and smell or attract pests. Sec. 16.11 backs this up by requiring every property to keep enough containers on hand to hold a full week's worth of garbage and waste, so a household or business cannot argue it lacked capacity to comply.

Because Chapter 16's general violation clause at Sec. 16.0 makes any breach of the chapter a misdemeanor, missing the weekly removal deadline is not merely a customer-service issue with the hauler; it is an offense the city's code enforcement or health inspectors can cite directly, independent of whatever service contract a resident or business has with the disposal company.