Tamarac, FL Trash & Recycling: Dumpster Rules (2026)

Sec. 5-166 governs exterior trash container enclosures for any development handling food, retail or wholesale goods, or any bulk container required under the county's garbage collection rules. Before the city approves a preliminary site plan, issues a certificate of occupancy or grants a local business license involving food or retail sales, the owner or tenant must show the enclosure meets these standards. "All trash receptacles shall be required to be shielded by solid masonry walls (stuccoed and painted) and solid gates," and every enclosure approved after November 14, 1979 must include a thirty-inch opening on one side so someone can walk in to deposit trash, complete with a step to reach the dumpster and a wheel stop to keep the container from rolling onto the step.

Wall and gate height scales with container size: six feet for containers up to six cubic yards, eight feet for containers up to eight cubic yards. The enclosure's inside dimensions must be at least three feet wider and two feet deeper than the receptacle, or a minimum ten feet by ten feet with six-foot walls if the container size is unknown. Gate panels cannot exceed six feet wide, chain-link gates with slats are barred outright, and the base must be poured concrete at least four inches thick.

Placement rules give commercial operators a setback break: enclosures may encroach up to three feet into a side or rear setback when the abutting property is zoned B-1, B-2, B-3 or M-1, but where the adjoining property carries any other zoning, the enclosure must sit back the same distance as the principal building. Interior trashrooms built in multifamily developments after January 1, 1982 need a fire-rated thirty-inch door, an automatic sprinkler, washing facilities and a deodorizing and wash-down system on every floor served by the chute.