Carver County, MN Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

070 prohibits disposing of yard waste at a mixed municipal solid waste (MMSW) disposal or processing facility unless that facility has a designated, county-licensed yard waste compost area, or has received an exemption from the requirement from both the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the county. The section separately establishes that license and operating requirements apply to yard waste composting sites generally, but carves out an exception for small-scale, on-site composting: a resident's or business's own compost pile, built only from waste generated on that same property, does not need a county license.

That exemption still comes with two conditions the code spells out directly. First, the compost site must be maintained in an orderly and nuisance-free manner, tying it to the county's general nuisance authority elsewhere in the code. Second, the pile itself is subject to a siting rule: it cannot be located less than five feet from the property line of the parcel where it sits, and it cannot be placed closer to a neighboring primary residential structure than it is to the primary residential structure on the property where the compost pile is operated.

This dual-distance test means a resident has to measure against both their own property line and their own house's distance to the neighbor's house, not just a flat setback number. 009(B), which independently bars yard waste from land disposal or MMSW processing facilities except composting operations, and from transfer stations unless the material will move on to a licensed compost facility or the transfer station itself has a licensed compost area.