Eagan, MN Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Eagan City Code § 6.37, Subd. 2 makes it unlawful for anyone to collect and haul recyclables, along with garbage, refuse, yard waste, or organics, for hire without a license from the city; only someone hauling material generated at their own home or business is exempt, and even then they must follow the section's disposal rules. What counts as an acceptable recyclable is set at the county level: Subd. 1.D defines the 'designated list of recyclables' as the list the Dakota County Board of Commissioners approves and the county's Environmental Resources Department publishes, representing the minimum materials a hauler must accept and a generator must recycle, with a six-month grace period for haulers and residents to adjust after any update.

Before the city issues or renews a garbage, refuse, or recycling hauler license, Subd. 4.D requires the applicant to file a schedule of the rates it plans to charge, and any single family/multiple dwelling-individual household service licensee must offer at least three levels of regular service priced by volume or weight, structured to reward reducing, reusing, and recycling waste. That same provision flatly bars a licensee from charging a resident who recycles more than one who does not. Licensed haulers must also report their recycling, organics, and solid waste collection and disposal activity to Dakota County as the county, state, or city requires, and every hauler license is capped by category: the council issues no more than seven single-family/multiple dwelling-individual household service hauling licenses citywide.