Bristol, PA Trash & Recycling: Holiday Pickup Schedule (2026)

The holiday rule in Bristol Borough is one sentence long. Section 20-111 provides that no pick-ups will be made on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and Martin Luther King's Birthday. The text does not print a make-up collection day, so the answer for a given week is the schedule the contractor announces, subject to the approval rule in § 20-113.

That approval rule is the control on schedule changes. Under § 20-113, in the event of any departure from the normal collection schedule, the contractor must first obtain the permission of Borough Council and must give due notice thereof to the public. The contractor penalty in § 20-115 is $1,500 for each day when scheduled pickup is not carried out, unless permission has been given by Borough Council for deviation from schedule.

The baseline schedule in § 20-107 is refuse pick-up twice each week and recycling once a week, with collections between 6:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Bulk refuse pick-up occurs once each week under § 20-112 within the same hours. Holiday weeks sit on top of those rules, so the set-out timing still follows § 20-110: where pick-up is from the curb, receptacles cannot be placed until after 6:00 p.m. the evening before the day of collection and must be removed from the curb by 7:00 p.m. the day of collection.

Residents in Bristol Borough who see a holiday fall on a collection day should watch for the notice the contractor must give the public, since the code leaves the revised pick-up day to that notice.