Chicopee, MA Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

Section 169-13 sets the preparation rules, and the Department of Public Works will not pick up refuse or household waste that fails them. The approved standard legal container for garbage and rubbish is the thirty-five-gallon City-provided toter, which cannot weigh more than 75 pounds when filled. The cover must be reasonably closed for pickup to occur, and snow-coning of garbage in a toter is prohibited. The City empties one thirty-five-gallon toter per pickup location per week. Weekly garbage that will not fit goes in approved overflow bags set out next to the toter, and anything not in a City toter or approved overflow bag is not picked up and must be removed by the property owner. Garbage and rubbish must also be drained of all water and liquids.

Recycling has its own preparation rules in the same section. Cardboard boxes must be knocked down, flattened or collapsed. If the cardboard cannot fit inside the recycling toter, it can be stacked flat next to the toter, or flattened and placed into another cardboard box, which cannot weigh over 50 pounds. All paper must be protected from the weather and placed in the recycling toter. Section 169-13(G) adds that hazardous waste is not collected at curbside and that no person shall place at curbside any material listed as restricted under the state waste control regulations at 310 CMR 19.017.

Section 169-12 adds crew-side rules. City collection employees will not enter onto private property to make collections, no one shall obstruct any contractor or employee of the Department of Public Works, and sidewalks must be kept free from obstruction and cleared of snow to the curbline. On plastic bags, § 169-5(C) allows any plastic bag to store garbage inside a standard legal container, but bags set out outside the container must be overflow bags. The Board of Health can require bags to be properly contained if it finds a health problem, looking at strewn garbage, torn bags or evidence of rodents.