Pasco, WA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)
Key Facts
- Governing section
- PMC 8.05.190
- Nature of the rule
- Reserved City option, not automatic mandate
- What may be separated
- Paper, swill, other refuse components
- Who sets the method
- City prescribes storage/collection/disposal
- Related protection
- Set-out recyclables protected from scavenging, PMC 8.05.130
Summary
PMC 8.05.190 gives Pasco the option, not a standing mandate, to require households and businesses to separate paper, swill, or other components of their refuse and deposit them in separate cans, with the City free to set the storage, collection, and disposal method.
The City reserves the right to, and may have the option to, require separation of paper or swill or other component parts of refuse and may require the deposit thereof in separate cans or receptacles and may prescribe the method of storage, collection and disposal thereof.
Official source re-checked September 8, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: current through Ordinance 4837, passed May 4, 2026).
Full Breakdown
190, titled Separation of solid waste, reserves to the City the right and the option to require separation of paper or swill or other component parts of refuse; it also lets the City require that separated material be deposited in separate cans or receptacles and lets the City prescribe the method of storage, collection, and disposal for it. The text is written as reserved authority rather than an active, self-executing sorting mandate: the chapter does not itself list a household recycling schedule or a specific recyclable-materials list, leaving that to whatever separation program the City or its solid waste contractor implements under this section.
200 sets where collected material, once separated, gets picked up, at the curb for residential areas or at alley and service-entrance points for commercial and industrial areas. 130, which bars anyone but the City or its contractor from removing it once placed for collection.
Violations & Fines
If the City exercises its PMC 8.05.190 option and a resident or business fails to comply with a resulting separation requirement, that noncompliance falls under the chapter's general penalty in PMC 8.05.340: a civil infraction carrying up to $500 for a first violation and $50 per day it continues, under the schedule in PMC 1.40.050(5), enforceable through Municipal Court or the Code Enforcement Board per PMC 8.05.350.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Pasco require me to sort my recycling by law?
Who decides what has to be separated from my trash in Pasco?
Can someone else take the recyclables I set out at the curb?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Pasco
Compare Pasco to another location·View the Washington trash & recycling overview
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