Pocatello, ID Trash & Recycling: Pickup Rules & Schedules (2026)

The Pocatello City Council delegates day-to-day garbage pickup rulemaking to the mayor rather than writing every operational detail into the code itself. City Code § 13.28.070 lets the mayor or a delegate prepare and publish rules and regulations from time to time in connection with the preparation, handling and disposal of refuse, which is how the sanitation department sets details like how residents must ready refuse for the truck. Those published rules have teeth: if a premises does not comply, the mayor can direct the city's own waste disposal crew or its authorized contractor to simply skip that stop rather than collect refuse.

That refusal does not erase the underlying obligation, because § 13.28.030 makes garbage and refuse service mandatory and billed to every premises with water and sewer service, so a skipped pickup still leaves the owner or occupant on the hook for the fees and any penalties assessed under the chapter. The code does build in due process for the customer's side: anyone aggrieved by a suspension of service under § 13.28.070 must receive written notice of the proposed suspension and is entitled to be heard by the Pocatello City Council before the suspension becomes final, rather than losing service purely at staff discretion.

In practice the sanitation director or manager, the officer who runs the collection contract under § 13.28.020, issues and updates the published rules, and copies are required to be kept at the sanitation department and made available to the public, so residents can check the current pickup requirements rather than guess at them.