Olympia, WA Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Section 13.12.135 is three sentences long and settles who owns the recycling bin in the City of Olympia. Recycle containers will be issued to customers upon request, so there is no application fee or form printed in the section. The container is the property of and maintained by the city, which means the customer holds it but does not own it, and repair or replacement of normal wear sits with the city. The cost shifts to the customer in one situation: customers will be charged for stolen or damaged containers due to customer neglect.

The request for a container is also the first of two paths to the reduced garbage rate in § 13.12.130(B). A customer who contacts the city for a recycling container and, during a calendar month, recycles at least two categories of material through the city's curbside recycling program qualifies for the reduced rate. The categories printed there are aluminum cans, tin cans, newspapers, glass and mixed waste paper.

The definitions in § 13.12.020 give a "recyclable" a manufacturing-based meaning: any discarded material that can be incorporated into a manufacturing process as a raw material. The same section says "waste" does not include materials subject to manufacture into byproducts. Garbage cans, by contrast, are supplied by the occupant under § 13.12.110, with the specification of thirty-two gallons at most and two secure handles, while the city owns the recycle container. Receipts from the sale of recyclables go into the solid waste fund and are accounted separately under § 13.12.040.