East Baton Rouge Parish, LA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Sec. 6:420(1) of the Baton Rouge City-Parish Code prohibits scavenging recyclable materials from residential, commercial, business and governmental areas within the parish. Only the current resident or property owner, or a carrier authorized to collect recyclables, may remove, pick up or transfer recyclable materials left at curbside in a residential subdivision, or curbside at a single-family home, business, or commercial or governmental site. That covers material left in specifically marked recovery containers as well as any other container used to set recyclables at the curb, including but not limited to glass, plastic and aluminum.

Each unauthorized removal is its own separate violation, so someone who picks through several bins on one street can be charged once per bin. 00 for a third and every conviction after that. The identical prohibition and fine schedule apply inside the City of Baton Rouge under Sec. 6:394(1), so the anti-scavenging rule is the same whether the curbside recyclables sit in an incorporated city block or an unincorporated parish subdivision. The rule protects the material stream that funds the recycling side of the curbside program described in the solid waste user fee ordinance, since materials scavenged before the designated carrier arrives are lost to the program entirely.