Sioux City offers voluntary curbside recycling through Gill Hauling under Municipal Code Chapter 5.20. Since July 3, 2023, recycling containers are collected every other week (garbage stays weekly). Recycling totes are free of charge; each household may have up to six totes onsite. Iowa law (Iowa Code Chapter 455D, Waste Volume Reduction and Recycling) sets state-level diversion goals but does not impose a mandatory-recycling duty on individual households. Look up your recycling-week schedule on the City website or the Waste Connect App.
Sioux City's recycling program is operated by Gill Hauling under contract to the Environmental Services Division and governed by Municipal Code Chapter 5.20. The program is voluntary at the household level - Iowa Code Chapter 455D (Waste Volume Reduction and Recycling) sets state-level waste-diversion goals and bans certain materials (yard waste, used oil, tires) from sanitary landfills, but does not require individual households to participate in curbside recycling. Sioux City does, however, supply recycling totes free of charge to every residential customer, and each household may have up to six (6) recycling totes onsite to accommodate larger volumes. Effective July 3, 2023, Gill Hauling collects recycling totes every other week (garbage continues weekly, no change to those routes). Your specific recycling week is published on the City's 2026 Collection Day Schedule (downloadable from sioux-city.org under Environmental Services / Recycling) and through the Waste Connect App, which sends address-specific reminders. Container placement: totes must be placed within 4 feet of the curb on collection day, set out no more than 24 hours before pickup, and removed within 24 hours after. Accepted materials include corrugated cardboard (flattened), paperboard, newspaper, magazines, office paper, #1 PET and #2 HDPE plastic containers (rinsed), aluminum cans, and steel food cans; glass is not accepted in the Sioux City curbside stream (varies year to year with the MRF contract). Critical contamination rule: do NOT bag recyclables - place them loose in the tote. Plastic bags jam the materials recovery facility sorting machinery. Compostable plastics should not be placed in recycling - they belong in compost or trash. Authority: Chapter 5.20; Iowa Code Chapter 455D.
Setting non-recyclables in the recycling tote contaminates the load; the City contractor may reject the load and the resident pays the landfill-diversion cost. Persistent contamination may result in withdrawal of the recycling totes by Gill Hauling. Bagging recyclables (the single most common contamination cause) violates the loose-set-out rule and may also cause tote rejection. Recycling totes left at the curb beyond the 24-hour pull-back window are a Chapter 5.20 violation under Section 1.04.100. State law: Iowa Code Chapter 455D bans yard waste, used oil, lead-acid batteries, and tires from sanitary landfills - placing those materials in either the garbage or recycling cart routes them improperly and may trigger DNR enforcement under Chapter 455B. Selling or scavenging set-out recyclables may be cited as theft of municipal property depending on the contract with the MRF.
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