Hanover County, VA Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

Hanover County has no municipal curbside garbage service; instead, Chapter 18 of the county code, 'Refuse,' governs how residents and haulers move solid waste to disposal. Section 18-1 requires anyone who removes or transports solid waste, refuse or rubbish in or through the county, including commercial refuse removers, to do so in a manner that does not create a nuisance or adversely affect public health and safety, and in accordance with all applicable federal, state and local laws. The section specifically bars spilling, dumping or throwing solid waste onto any street, court, lane, alley, sewer inlet or vacant lot while it is being transported, whether by a homeowner hauling their own trash to a county convenience center or by a licensed commercial hauler running a route.

Residents typically move household waste to one of the county's convenience centers, defined in Section 18-4 as solid waste disposal facilities operated for county residents, or contract with a private garbage or refuse remover as defined in Section 18-20. Article II of the chapter, covering solid waste disposal generally, carries its own penalty clause: Section 18-15 makes any violation of that article a class 2 misdemeanor, with each day a violation continues counting as a separate offense. Use of the county's convenience centers is itself restricted under Section 18-17 to county residents and permitted nonresidents, and haulers moving waste generated outside the county are barred from disposing of it at Hanover facilities except through a Central Virginia Waste Management Authority arrangement.

Together these sections put the removal duty on whoever is physically hauling the waste, not on a county collection crew, and the Department of Public Works administers and enforces the chapter through the director.