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

Section 13.20.130 sets the standards a container has to meet before the City's collector will take it. Subsection A makes it the duty of every householder in the City of Paramount to provide and at all times keep portable containers for garbage and rubbish. A container must be metal or another material approved by the City Manager or authorized representative, must be watertight, and must hold not less than three gallons or more than 40 gallons. A full container cannot weigh more than 80 pounds. Subsection B adds that each container needs a bail or handles on both sides and a suitable close-fitting cover of a design approved by the City Manager or representative.

What goes inside is regulated too. Garbage must be thoroughly drained and thoroughly wrapped before it goes into a container (subsection C). Tree or garden trimmings can go in the garbage containers or in other substantial containers; if they do not, they have to be tied in bundles not exceeding two feet in diameter and four feet in length, and neither a container nor a bundle of trimmings can exceed 50 pounds. A trimmings container or bundle cannot hold anything else. Papers, newspapers and magazines follow the same 50-pound limit per container or bundle, and bundled paper has to be tied (subsection E). Residential receptacles must be a size, shape and weight when filled that lets them be readily lifted into the trucks, and must be free of rough or jagged surfaces likely to injure the people lifting them (subsection F).

A set-out that misses these standards has a practical consequence before any criminal one. Section 13.20.160 lets the City Manager, authorized representative or other official in charge of collection refuse to collect waste that is not placed in the container or manner the article prescribes. Section 13.20.150 requires every container to be thoroughly cleaned, with grease and adherent materials removed, after each emptying and before it is used again. Section 13.20.170 bars anyone other than the owner, the City or its contractor from tampering with a container or its contents or taking items from a container set out for collection, and § 13.20.140(C) bars mixing garbage from one premises with waste from another premises in the same container.