Ames, IA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Ames Municipal Code Sec. 10.1(3) defines recycling, or recyclable materials, as solid waste the city designates as appropriate for collection, processing and return to use as raw materials, naming certain newsprint, magazines and catalogs, metal, plastic containers, glass and cardboard as examples. Sec. 10.8(4) then gives residents and businesses exactly three lawful routes for getting that material disposed of: participation in the residential curbside program the city runs under Sec. 10.27, delivery to a licensed collection agency, or hauling it directly to a recycling facility, with the last option conditioned on the hauling containers and vehicles meeting the same conformity requirements Chapter 10 sets for garbage haulers generally.

Because Sec. 10.10 makes it unlawful for anyone besides a resident hauling their own material to collect or haul recycling in the city without a city license, the delivery and hauling options in Sec. 10.8(4)(b) and (c) effectively route most third-party recycling pickup back through the same licensing scheme that governs garbage collection. The material itself still has to meet the presentation rules elsewhere in the chapter regardless of which disposal route a resident chooses: Sec. 10.3 bars setting recycling out in plastic bags or paper sacks, requiring a water-tight hard receptacle instead, and Sec.

10.7 prohibits mixing recycling with yard waste, garbage or refuse in the same container. Ames Resource Recovery and the Inspections Division handle day-to-day enforcement of these presentation and disposal-channel rules.