Charlotte, NC Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

Two adjoining provisions of Chapter 10, Article II, both enacted by Ordinance No. 9151 in 2017, set the basic pickup rules for who may handle curbside material. Section 10-28, "Unauthorized collection prohibited," states that it shall be unlawful for any person to collect, pick up, or cause to be collected or picked up, any solid waste unless the person is authorized by the city. That reaches anyone without a city contract or SWS authorization, from scrap-metal scavengers pulling appliances off the curb to unlicensed haulers working a route the city already services.

Section 10-29, "Ownership of materials," backs that prohibition with a property-law hook: once solid waste is properly placed at curbside for collection, it is legally deemed abandoned and becomes the property of the city or its agents. That means a resident can't reclaim discarded items after they're properly set out, and it gives code enforcement and police a straightforward basis for stopping unauthorized removal, on top of the direct prohibition in Section 10-28. Section 10-27 rounds out the article's front-end protections by separately making it unlawful to interfere, harass, or otherwise impede any person the city has authorized to carry out collection duties, with a law enforcement officer empowered to arrest for that interference. Together the three sections protect the city's exclusive right to collect what residents set at curbside and to do so without obstruction.