Johnston County, NC Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Section 20-41(b) of the Johnston County Code makes it unlawful to leave solid waste at a recycling and convenience center or landfill unless a county employee is on duty to direct and supervise the disposal. Subsection (c) separately bars littering at recycling and convenience centers, defining littering to include dumping solid waste into a container in a way that causes it to overflow, and it bars dumping at a landfill outside the areas the landfill operators designate on duty. The county recovers its costs under this section: all expenses it incurs collecting and removing litter at a recycling and convenience center or landfill, or collecting and properly disposing of material dumped there without authorization, are recoverable from whoever littered or dumped it and from whoever generated the material in the first place.

Section 20-41(d) lets the county trace that liability using anything in the waste, such as mail, that identifies whose property it was, treating that identification as prima facie evidence the addressee owned the waste. These rules work alongside § 20-39, which puts the Utility Director in charge of a written operating policy for the container and recycling sites, adopted by the Board of Commissioners.