Boise, ID Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Boise City Code section 10-4-2-4 sets up residential recycling as a voluntary service available to every residential customer. A customer who chooses to enroll gets a blue wheeled recycling cart from the city's franchise hauler; declining the program carries no penalty because the ordinance frames it as optional, unlike the mandatory gray trash cart required under section 10-4-2-3. Acceptable materials can be commingled directly into the blue cart or a commercial recycling container, but glass is excluded from that cart entirely: glass bottles and jars go into a separate subscription glass collection program, designated drop sites, or the regular trash cart instead.

Public Works keeps the master list of what counts as a recyclable material and may add or remove items from that list at its discretion, so the accepted-materials list is not fixed by the code itself. The ordinance does spell out what never belongs in the blue cart: plastic bags, film and wraps, glass, extruded polystyrene (Styrofoam), yard waste, pesticide containers, metal pipes, hazardous waste, ammunition, and plastic containers larger than two gallons. Corrugated cardboard must be flattened and cut down so it falls freely from the cart when the truck tips it; oversized or bulk cardboard needs a special pickup arranged directly with the franchise hauler.

Occasional overflow that will not fit in the cart has to go into a rigid, labeled container such as a cardboard box or a 20 to 32 gallon customer-owned can, never loose or bagged. C; properties with four or more units are pushed into commercial service instead.