Kingsport, TN Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Section 86-29(c) of the Kingsport Code is the curbside rule. The producer places the automated residential containers and the recycling containers adjacent to the alley or curbside, facing the street properly, in the location designated by the director or designee. The window opens no sooner than 24 hours before scheduled pickup and closes 24 hours after the day of collection, when the producer must have removed all of the containers. Subsection (b) of the same section sets collection once each week from the curbside or alley, or at another place the director designates.

Placement is not the only condition. Under § 86-29(d), all solid waste, household waste and yard waste included, is put out at or near a public street or alley that is improved with asphalt, concrete or gravel of sufficient width and depth to support the collection vehicle, and the director decides whether the improvement is sufficient by weighing the weight of the service vehicle and the area needed to maneuver and turn it. Under § 86-29(h), material must sit where it does not obstruct vehicular or pedestrian traffic. A producer is limited to a number of automated residential containers sufficient for one week's accumulation, not to exceed four per residence or business.

What belongs in the recycling container is set by § 86-34: newspapers, glass bottles, aluminum and steel cans, used oil and plastic bottles of approved types, in approved containers supplied by the city and never in plastic bags. Where a private hauler serves a business instead, § 86-73(c) requires the permitted collector to carry recyclable materials to a processing center or market at the collector's sole expense, and § 86-94(d) reserves the city's right to collect recyclable material from any place of business or residential establishment at any time.