Bergenfield, NJ Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

Section 344-54 of the Sanitary Code, Chapter 344, Article VIII, sets the packaging rules that decide whether Department of Public Works crews will actually take what a resident puts at the curb. Animal feces and dead animals must go into a synthetic bag of at least three-mil strength, securely tied, so nothing leaks or attracts vermin before pickup. Cardboard cartons have to be flattened and either tied into bundles or packed into containers sized for one collector to handle alone, and no bundle or container may exceed three feet by three feet.

Yard waste has its own limits: brush and tree limbs must be cut to lengths no greater than four feet and tied into bundles an individual collector can lift. Tree limbs thicker than eight inches in diameter will not be picked up by the Borough at all, and it falls to the property owner or person in control of the premises to dispose of anything that oversized on their own. Businesses get no help from municipal crews either: bulk refuse generated by a private contractor, and any trade waste generated by a business, must be removed at that party's own expense and risk through an authorized private collector, not the Borough's regular route.

These preparation rules sit alongside Section 344-52's storage requirements and Section 344-55's curbside timing rule, and enforcement of all of them falls to the Department of Public Works Superintendent and the Board of Health.