Merced County, CA Trash & Recycling: Mandatory Organics Recycling (2026)

Merced County Code § 9.06.040 requires single-family organic waste generators, meaning households on premises with fewer than five units, to subscribe to the county's organic waste collection service for all the organic waste they generate and to participate by placing designated materials in the designated containers. In the county's three-container franchise areas (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8), that means source-separated green-container organic waste, including food scraps, goes in the green container, source-separated recyclables go in the blue container, and everything else goes in the gray container; in franchise areas 6 and 7, which run a two-container system, only source-separated green-container organic waste may go in the green container, with recyclables and remaining trash together in the gray container. Households may not place gray-container waste into the green or blue container, and the county can inspect and require households to adjust their container size to match how much waste they actually generate.

Single-family generators in low-population census tracts, as defined by 14 CCR § 18984.12(a)(2), are exempt from this mandatory-subscription duty. Households may also reduce their organic waste on-site or use a qualifying community composting site instead of full green-container service under § 9.06.040(A). This subscription and sorting mandate, along with the related commercial and self-hauler duties in §§ 9.06.050, 9.06.060, and 9.06.100, was suspended by the county between 2023 and June 30, 2025 while the collection program was built out; the suspension expired under § 9.06.150(D), so the mandate has been fully enforceable again since July 1, 2025.