St. Louis County, MO Trash & Recycling: Recycling Requirements (2026)

Section 607.183 puts the obligation on the hauler, not the county: the plan must list every material the company will accept for recycling, disclose any pre-sorting requirement, describe the recycling container (whether it must be bought from the hauler and at what cost), and state the per-household fee. If the hauler also serves incorporated municipalities, it must attach a list of every city under contract for one and two family residential waste along with a copy of each contract and its fees. The Director approves the plan only if the fee is reasonable, the conditions imposed on customers are reasonable, and the accepted-materials list covers whatever the Director's own rules identify as having a recycling market.

That approval is a precondition of licensing: Section 607.190 blocks the Director from issuing a waste transportation license unless the applicant already provides the Section 607.181 through 607.185 collection services and has an approved Section 607.183 plan on file. Section 607.181 sets the underlying minimum service level, weekly municipal waste and weekly recovered-materials collection for one and two family dwellings, with an exception for haulers serving a municipality that runs its own drop-off facility and hits a 40 percent waste-diversion rate (50 percent after January 1, 2010).

Section 607.184 then requires the hauler to renotify every residential customer at least once every six months about which items the approved plan collects, the fee, and the pickup schedule, and Section 607.185 requires that whatever is collected as recovered material actually be delivered to a facility built to process it for recycling or beneficial reuse rather than landfilled.