Orange County, FL Trash & Recycling: Holiday Pickup Schedule (2026)

Orange County Code § 32-190 is the only provision in the county's solid waste collection article that speaks to holiday weeks, and it does so in a single clause. It sits in Article IV, the Orange County Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Ordinance, and it binds the franchisees who hold the residential franchise for the unincorporated area. It does not bind a resident directly. The rule is aimed at the hauler.

The weekly baseline has two tiers. The full service collection program must provide for collection of garbage at least once weekly, and the section carves out no holiday exception for garbage. Yard waste, designated recyclable materials and bulk trash must also be collected at least once weekly, but that second tier carries the exception: it does not apply during weeks containing holidas as approved by the director. The director is the Orange County Utilities Director or a designee, as defined in § 32-153, so the decision on which holiday weeks relax the weekly yard waste, recycling and bulk schedule belongs to the Utilities Department, not to the haulers and not to the Board.

The code itself names no holidays, no observed dates and no make-up day. It does not say that a missed route slides by one day, and it does not list Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's Day. Any holiday calendar therefore comes from the director's approval and the franchise agreement, which § 32-190 says sets the collection intervals. A reader who needs a specific date should treat the code as the legal frame and the county's published schedule as the dated detail. This page does not rely on any posted calendar, because the county page could not be quoted word for word.

The hours rule applies in every week, holiday or not. Full service collection runs from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. daily, and there is no collection on Sundays except as approved by the Board of County Commissioners. That Sunday bar matters in a holiday week, because it limits where a delayed route can be recovered.

There is also a service-failure duty. If equipment breaks down, employees are short, or another cause will or might delay regular service for more than one day, the franchisee must immediately notify the director. Under § 32-193(g) the director can direct a franchisee to rerun all or part of a route when adequate service has not been provided.

Scope matters. The county article governs the unincorporated area. Residents of Orlando, Winter Park, Apopka, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Maitland and the other municipalities follow their own cities' collection rules and calendars.