Bellevue, NE Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Bellevue Code of Ordinances § 13-37, titled Separation of Deposits Not Required, states plainly that rubbish may be placed in the same container with garbage. That single sentence is the entire local rule on separating waste streams in the City of Bellevue, Nebraska, and it sits directly beside § 13-36, which only requires that garbage itself be drained and wrapped in paper before it goes into the container, with no parallel requirement for rubbish. Chapter 13's definitions in § 13-1 draw the line between the two: GARBAGE is the organic waste from preparing meat, fish, fowl, fruit and vegetables, while RUBBISH covers nonputrescible waste such as paper, tin cans, bottles, glass containers, rags, paper sacks, boxes and packing materials, the very items a curbside recycling program would normally ask residents to separate.

Because § 13-37 removes any separation duty, a Bellevue household can legally place a flattened cardboard box or a glass bottle in the same 10-to-35-gallon container required by § 13-32 as its kitchen scraps, and the city's own contracted hauler collects it all together under the exclusive collection right in § 13-22. Residents who want to recycle voluntarily are not barred from doing so, but Chapter 13 neither requires it nor sets out a separate recycling container, schedule or program of its own.