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

Lake County Code Sec. 1 sets the container standard for any boarding house, lodging house, restaurant, hotel, tavern, apartment house, eating house, dwelling house, flat, duplex or multiple dwelling that subscribes to a commercial garbage service authorized by the Board of Supervisors. The property must provide and keep, in a place easily accessible to the garbage collector, a water-tight metallic can or metal-lined box with suitable bales or handles and a tight-fitting cover. The can cannot exceed a 30-gallon capacity, and cannot weigh more than 50 pounds when loaded, a limit meant to keep individual cans liftable by a collection crew rather than requiring mechanized handling.

This standard dates to Ordinance No. 370 from 1954 and has not been superseded for basic residential and commercial can service; separate, more detailed enclosure design rules apply only to larger commercial, industrial, and multi-family properties under Sec. 9-6. Because the can requirement is tied to properties that subscribe to commercial garbage service, a property that self-hauls its own waste under the Sec. 2 exception is not bound by the 30-gallon, 50-pound can specification, though it must still comply with the general dumping and water course prohibitions elsewhere in the chapter.