Lancaster County, SC Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

In unincorporated Lancaster County, the county does not collect trash door to door. Instead, residents use county trash containers and designated rubbish dumping areas set up around the county by the county administrator, and Chapter 12, Division 3 of the county code sets the rules for using them. Section 12-61 defines household garbage as putrescible animal and vegetable waste, paper, tin cans, glass and crushed cardboard boxes, and separately defines rubbish as furniture, appliances, water heaters, mattresses, bed springs, building materials, bricks, concrete, rocks, stumps, trees, brush, limbs, auto parts, machine parts, tires or dead animals from residential living.

Section 12-62 requires that only normal household garbage go in a county trash container; rubbish must instead be dumped at the designated rubbish areas, and normal household refuse may not be dumped in a rubbish area. Hazardous items such as explosives, chemicals or acids may not be deposited in or around any container or rubbish area. Section 12-63 requires garbage to be placed wholly inside the container, not left around it, and bars overloading a container beyond its capacity. Section 12-64 makes it unlawful to set fire to debris or waste in or around a container or to dent, bend, puncture or otherwise damage a container.

Section 12-65 bars entering, standing on top of, or rummaging through containers or site trash, though the code allows removing wood, lumber and boards from the four rubbish dumping sites. Section 12-66 prohibits loitering or discharging a firearm at or near a container site. Section 12-67 bars any commercial hauler from dumping collected trash or debris at the county sites, and section 12-68 restricts nonresident dumping, though a passing motorist may still empty up to one cubic foot of refuse per vehicle into a county container.