Waukegan, IL Trash & Recycling: Dumpster Rules (2026)

Waukegan's Sec. 10-7 covers garbage and refuse from any multiple-family structure of four or more dwelling units, any commercial building, and any industrial building. The owner or the beneficial owner of the trust holding the property has to remove waste that is dangerous, offensive to public health and safety, or a fire hazard, and the section is explicit that these generators cannot dump into containers meant for residential use or into the city's 55-gallon litter drums placed on street corners or at other city-owned facilities.

Subsection (b) sets the physical standard for the dumpster itself: it must sit on an approved pad built from a minimum four inches of portland cement concrete or four inches of full-depth asphalt over a compacted base, and it has to be screened to the requirements of the city's zoning code, which elsewhere spells out that refuse, recycling, and grease containers serving commercial uses belong in the interior side yard or rear yard unless the zoning administrator approves an alternate location in writing. The dumpster's contents must be removed daily and properly transported and disposed of, so a business or landlord covered by Sec.

10-7 cannot let a dumpster sit full over a weekend or holiday. Because chapter 10 does not attach a stand-alone fine to Sec. 10-7, a violation defaults to the Code's general penalty, Sec. 00 for each offense, with every day the pad, screening, or daily-removal requirement goes unmet counted as its own separate offense.