Thornton, CO Trash & Recycling: Collection Schedule (2026)

Section 58-62(a) entitles each customer to one solid waste collection of refuse per week as part of the standard service described in Article III; customers who want extra pickups are billed the applicable rate for each additional solid waste or recyclable collection beyond that weekly service. Recyclable materials, by contrast, are collected on a schedule the director deems appropriate rather than a fixed weekly cadence set in the ordinance itself, giving the environmental services division flexibility to run recycling routes on a different frequency than refuse routes.

Section 58-62(b) puts route and schedule authority in the director's hands: the director supervises all collection and disposal operations and prescribes and establishes both the routes and the specific days of collection. When the director establishes or changes a route or collection day, the subsection requires reasonable notice to the public, typically handled through mailers, the city's website, or the printed collection calendar the environmental services division distributes to customers. The weekly frequency for refuse ties back into Section 58-63(a), which lets the city council set collection rates by ordinance sufficient to cover service costs, and the monthly fee described in Section 58-63(b) is built around that one weekly refuse pickup plus whatever special programs, such as fall leaf collection, the director has approved for that period.