Bartow County, GA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Bartow County Code § 62-181 governs the county's solid waste collection centers, the drop-off sites unincorporated residents use instead of curbside service. Only household garbage generated by an individual resident of the county may be disposed of at a collection center, and no commercially collected solid waste is allowed there at all. Within that framework, subsection (c) sets the recycling rule directly: recyclable materials must be disposed of in the appropriately designated containers only, meaning a resident cannot drop recyclables into the general garbage compactor or bin.

Waste may only be left at the center during posted operating hours, and scavenging, removing items already deposited, is banned outright under § 62-181(e), echoed by the separate general scavenging prohibition at § 62-175. Attendants direct how waste is sorted and disposed of, and every user must obey those directions; an attendant may also demand proof that a person is a county resident and that the load consists only of that resident's household waste before allowing a drop-off. Alcohol and drugs are barred from all county solid waste management facilities under § 62-174, and loitering on or about the facilities is separately prohibited under § 62-176.

Together these provisions make Bartow County's recycling program a self-sort system: the county supplies designated recycling containers at each collection center, and compliance depends on residents using the correct container rather than on curbside pickup or a hauler sorting materials after collection.