Island County, WA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Island County's solid waste code shows the county trying, then abandoning, a mandated curbside recycling standard. 04, titled 'Minimum Levels of Service for Residential Recycling Collection,' setting county-wide floors for how much recycling collection residents in the unincorporated area had to be offered. Less than four months later, Ordinance C-29-13, adopted April 22, 2013, repealed the entire chapter, and the Island County Code today prints only the chapter heading followed by the word '(Repealed)' where those service-level requirements used to sit. 080 without imposing a specific curbside collection mandate on haulers or residents.

Because household garbage and recycling pickup in unincorporated Island County is provided by state-certificated private haulers rather than a county-run program, there is no county ordinance today requiring a minimum recycling pickup frequency, a specific list of curbside recyclable materials, or a particular container standard for unincorporated residents. Anyone wanting to know what a hauler must pick up needs to check that hauler's Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission tariff rather than the Island County Code, since the county chapter that once set those service levels no longer exists.