Broome County, NY Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

Section 317-27 governs how recyclables have to be set out once you've source-separated them under section 317-26. From the moment you place recyclable material at or near a curb, sidewalk or street for collection, it becomes the property of the county or its authorized hauler; picking through, collecting or removing someone else's set-out recyclables without the county's authority is its own separate violation of Article IV, charged per incident. Materials must be kept apart from regular trash at the curb and prepared to match the practices and standards the Deputy Commissioner for the Division of Solid Waste Management publishes from time to time; those standards take effect 90 days after they're filed with the Clerk of the County Legislature unless the Legislature rescinds or modifies them first, and the Deputy Commissioner is required to solicit input from haulers and facility operators before revising them.

If your hauler refuses a load because it wasn't prepared correctly, the law lets you pull the rejected material back off the curb yourself, and the hauler must give you written notice explaining why it wasn't collected. You then have to remove and properly prepare or dispose of anything left uncollected, restoring any disturbed ground, or reimburse the county or municipality for doing it instead. The article doesn't stop you from arranging your own private reuse, sale, or donation of recyclables, so long as you keep records of that collection.