Doña Ana County, NM Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Chapter 287's Collection and Disposal article, the County's core waste ordinance, does not require residents or haulers to separate or recycle household waste; it regulates disposal, not diversion. The County's only codified recycling provision sits in the convenience-station fee schedule at Chapter 179, Article XVI, Section 179-43, adopted by Resolution 2010-50 and referenced back to Chapter 287, Article I. That schedule charges $4 for loads up to 200 pounds and $8 for loads up to 400 pounds of normal residential solid waste brought to the County's eight convenience stations, but its closing note carves out an exception: clean green waste, single-stream recyclables and household hazardous waste are accepted at those stations at no charge.

Chapter 287, Section 287-3(D) separately makes it unlawful for anyone to scavenge, separate, collect, recycle or remove solid waste already deposited at a County disposal facility without the County Manager's approval, which protects the material stream but does not create an affirmative recycling mandate for residents. In short, recycling in the unincorporated County is voluntary and drop-off based through the convenience-station network rather than a curbside sorting program; the incorporated municipalities (Las Cruces, for example) run their own separate recycling services under their own codes, which are outside County jurisdiction.