Monterey Park, CA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Section 6.08.060 of the Monterey Park Municipal Code builds the city's mandatory curbside recycling program around the containers its contracted servicer issues. Every person in possession or control of residential property must keep the servicer's containers in a suitable place and use only those containers: substituting a resident's own can or bin for the city's recycling container is not allowed. If a household generates more refuse, recyclables or yard waste than the standard containers hold between pickup days, the code does not let the resident simply overflow the bin; instead the resident must subscribe to whatever additional service level the servicer determines is needed to keep vectors from breeding in the excess material.

Sorting is fixed by container color. Curbside households put refuse and recyclables, other than yard waste, in the black container and yard waste in the green container, while properties on bin service place both refuse and recyclables together in the servicer-supplied bin. Whichever container is used, its contents cannot exceed three hundred pounds or it cannot go out for collection. Because Section 6.08.150 imposes a parallel duty on commercial and industrial properties, and Section 6.08.180 requires the city's permitted collectors to hit a fifty percent annual diversion rate, the residential sorting rule in Section 6.08.060 is the mechanism that keeps recyclable material out of the black container's landfill stream and inside the reporting the servicer files with the city's public works director. Community and Economic Development code enforcement administers residential compliance, and because Chapter 6.08 sets no separate fine for a sorting violation, a violation defaults to the citywide misdemeanor rule in Section 4.10.010.