Gulfport, MS Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Section 4-167(a) imposes the base recycling obligation: when and where garbage or recyclable materials are collected for disposal by a provider contracted by the city, or by a district or county authority that provides or requires a specific garbage or recyclable material container, every owner, occupant or lessee of every building, residence or place of business in the city has a duty to use that contract provider's specified container for collection. This mandatory-container rule takes priority over the general container option in Section 4-167(b), which only applies when no waste-contract container requirement is in force.

The requirement is enforced the same way as the rest of the collection scheme: Section 4-176(a) makes a violation of Section 4-167 a misdemeanor under the Code's general penalty, though a first offense specifically under Section 4-167 is capped at a $150 fine with no jail time. The recycling mandate is one piece of Article VI, Division 2's broader authorization in Section 4-166, which lets the city regulate the manner and times of collection and set the rates charged for garbage, refuse and trash collection and disposal, folding recyclable materials into the same billed monthly service set out in Section 4-175.