Placer County, CA Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

Placer County franchises solid-waste collection in the unincorporated area to two haulers across four franchise areas: Recology Auburn Placer (western Areas 1 and 4) and Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal (eastern Areas 2 and 3). The county operates a mixed-waste 'You Toss, We Sort' / One Big Bin program in which recycling, organics, and trash are placed in one container and separated at a Materials Recovery Facility (Western Placer at PlacerRecycles.com; Eastern Placer at TahoeOneBigBin.com). In the Tahoe/Truckee area, garbage collection is mandatory under Placer County Code Section 8.16.220: service is required even for part-time residents (mandatory even if a home is used only one day per quarter). 'Can averaging' lets single-family homes vary weekly pickups while staying within quarterly limits, and discontinuation is only allowed when a home is unoccupied for an entire quarter or longer, with exemption forms filed with TTSD during the 60-day window preceding each quarter. On the Foresthill Divide (Franchise Area 4), owners of developed property pay a mandatory basic service fee funding the Foresthill transfer station. Tahoe set-out rules administered by TTSD require trash to be placed out by the service day morning, kept behind the snow-pole line so as not to obstruct snow removal, and removed the same day; individual containers may not exceed 32 gallons or 51 pounds.