Madison County, IL Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

15 of the county's Residential Recycling Code gives each occupant of a residential dwelling unit three ways to comply. First, living inside a municipality that has signed a written agreement with the county assuming responsibility for the state's 25% mandated recycling goal, with the municipality reporting its compliance annually, satisfies the rule without any action by the resident. Second, the same exemption applies to residents of an unincorporated township that has entered its own agreement with the county. Third, absent either agreement, the occupant must personally separate recyclable materials, at minimum newsprint, glass and plastic containers, and aluminum and steel cans, from garbage and municipal waste and store them in containers made for recycling, or instead haul the sorted materials to an established recycling center.

The county encourages, but does not require, municipalities and townships to adopt volume-based user fees that charge for trash by weight or volume as an incentive to recycle. The separation duty connects directly to hauler regulation: a licensed hauler may not knowingly dispose of residential waste until recyclables have been pulled out, unless that waste comes from a municipality or township covered by one of the two agreement options above. , and its own County Solid Waste Plan. The Residential Recycling Code was enacted by Ord. 94-09 in 1994 and last amended for hauler provisions by Ord. 2024-01 on March 5, 2024.