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

14(b), refuse, recycling and organics containers must stay behind the front yard setback line the rest of the week and only move into the public right-of-way on the date the City is actually collecting, unless the resident has worked out a different arrangement with the Director of Utilities. Subsection (c) covers properties where the normal right-of-way spot will not work: the Director can designate an alternate pickup location, but if that location sits more than 40 feet from the public right-of-way, the City is authorized to charge a special rate calculated to cover the added time and expense of hauling containers that extra distance to the truck.

Subsection (d) layers on a sanitation standard that applies wherever the containers sit: they must be kept clean, sanitary and tightly covered at all times except while waste is actively being loaded or emptied, to keep vectors like rats and flies out of the contents. Subsection (e) turns pickup location and contamination into a billing issue together: a recycling or organics container found contaminated with refuse gets serviced as regular refuse instead, and the owner is billed the current Extra Haul fee from the City's published fee schedule for each contaminated container, on top of whatever location-based charges already apply.