Cathedral City, CA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Cathedral City Municipal Code § 6.04.430 sets the commercial recycling duty in Cathedral City, Riverside County, California. The trigger is volume: four cubic yards or more of solid waste per week. A premises at or above that line must arrange recycling service for non-organic recyclables by subscribing to a solid waste franchisee, meaning a solid waste enterprise that holds a franchise the City Council can award under § 6.04.310. The Code defines non-organic recyclables as non-putrescible and non-hazardous recyclable wastes, including bottles, cans, metals, plastics and glass.

Subsection B adds a customer-facing rule. A business covered by subsection A that provides customers access to the business must give customers a non-organic recyclables container for material purchased on the premises. The container must sit adjacent to the gray container waste container (restrooms excepted), stay visible and easily accessible, and carry educational signage on what belongs inside. Full-service restaurants are exempt from that container requirement if they provide their employees a non-organic recyclables container for material purchased on the premises and implement a program to collect non-organic recyclables. For a park covered by subsection A, the container rule applies on and after January 1, 2022.

Ownership is settled in § 6.04.400. Once an owner places non-organic recyclables at a designated recycling collection location or in a franchisee-provided container, the material becomes the property of the recycler or franchisee. The same section protects any person's right to donate, sell or otherwise dispose of recyclables they own, provided they pay the buyer or donee no consideration for collecting, processing or transporting the material and pay no consulting or broker's fee. Commercial businesses, which the Code says include multi-family residential dwellings, also face the separate three-container organic waste rules in § 6.04.520.