Sampson County, NC Trash & Recycling: Dumpster Rules (2026)

Sec. 2-27-18 of the county's 2025 Revised Zoning Ordinance governs Multi-Family Development, covering apartments and townhouses countywide outside the towns of Clinton, Roseboro, Garland, Newton Grove, Salemburg, Autryville, Harrells and Turkey. Item 4 of that section requires a dumpster site with opaque screening as a condition of approval, alongside a 15% open-space minimum, a six-unit-per-acre density cap, Environmental Health septic certification for each unit, the buffer options listed at Sec. 2-27-17(B) (a six-to-eight-foot opaque fence, a twenty-foot natural wooded barrier, or a landscaped buffer with staggered evergreen rows), and a rule reserving 25% of any courtyard perimeter for emergency-vehicle access.

A developer submits the dumpster screening as part of the site plan the Zoning Officer reviews under Sec. 2-18-02(C) before issuing the zoning permit; the plan must show the dumpster location along with setbacks, lot dimensions, and the applicable zoning district. The ordinance does not extend a matching screening requirement to a single dumpster or roll-off box placed at a single-family home or a standalone commercial site; those containers instead fall under the county's General Solid Waste Management Ordinance, which requires collection vehicles and containers to be covered, leak-proof and durable under Sec. 3-1-07 and bars letting waste accumulate or spill onto public or private property under Sec. 3-1-06(b).