Twin Falls County, ID Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Section 4-2-3(C) of the county's solid waste chapter sets the storage and handling rule for recyclable materials: they must be stored, handled and disposed of only at authorized or designated sites that comply with federal, state and local law, and individuals, businesses, corporations or other entities may hold them for up to one hundred eighty days while awaiting transport to a recycling center, recycling plant or other designated site. Section 4-2-1 defines a recycling center as a facility where recyclables are collected, sorted, flattened, crushed or bundled for shipment to reprocessors, expressly noting that automobile salvage yards can qualify as recycling centers for chapter purposes, while a recycling plant is where the materials are actually reprocessed or reused into new products or raw materials; both categories must otherwise comply with the rest of the county code.

The chapter defines recyclable materials themselves as items retaining useful physical, chemical or biological properties after their original use that can reasonably be reused or recycled, but it treats them as ordinary solid waste for enforcement purposes whenever they are not actually being recycled. That dual status matters practically: material sitting past the 180-day mark, or stored somewhere other than an authorized site, loses its recyclables exemption and falls under the general solid waste disposal, storage and dumping rules, including the fourteen-day accumulation limit and the penalty schedule that applies to unlawfully stored or dumped waste elsewhere in the chapter.