Waukegan, IL Trash & Recycling: Recycling Rules (2026)

Sec. 10-9 of the Waukegan City Code sets two separate rules under the heading of restrictions on scavenging and theft of recyclable commodities. Subsection (a) is the broader rule: no person may scavenge through a private or public solid waste container, and the section defines scavenging as foraging or scrounging in waste containers, language broad enough to cover someone digging through a neighbor's garbage cart as well as a curbside recycling bin. Subsection (b) targets recyclables specifically: no person may steal or take, without the owner's permission or right, any recyclable commodity from the recycling bin sitting at the curb line of a residential unit or from the city's recycling center at the public works department, closing off both household-level theft and theft of materials already delivered to the city's own facility.

00 for each offense, and layers on a labor requirement: anyone found in violation has to work at the city recycling center for not less than four nor more than 24 hours. The section treats theft from each individual recycling bin as its own separate and distinct offense, so someone who empties several curbside bins along a block in one pass can be charged, and sentenced to work hours, for each bin rather than a single citation covering the whole route.