Owensboro, KY Trash & Recycling: Collection Schedule (2026)

Owensboro Municipal Code § 26-262 lays out the collection schedule and who qualifies for special service arrangements. Mobile containers for households are serviced once a week under a schedule the sanitation manager prepares, though commercial or industrial areas may be placed on more frequent routes if their volume of solid waste requires it. Residents who are physically impaired and live alone can request special assistance so they don't have to move their own cart to the curb; the sanitation manager requires a doctor's certificate confirming the resident is unable to transport the container before approving that accommodation.

Apartment complexes with 10 or more units are pulled out of the standard single-cart residential system entirely: they must be serviced by bulk containers approved by the sanitation manager, and the complex owner, not individual tenants, is responsible for providing an adequate number of those bulk containers as the sanitation manager determines is necessary to serve all the residents. This scheduling structure sits alongside the curb-timing rules in § 26-263, which separately require whatever container is in use, cart or bulk, to be out by 6:00 a.m. on the scheduled day.

The sanitation manager's authority to set and adjust routes, and to grant or deny special assistance, sits within the department of sanitation under the director of public works, as established in § 26-244.