Durham, NC Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

Section 58-98 sets Durham's yard waste preparation standard and it turns on the container, not the material's identity. Plastic bags, plastic wrappers and plastic sheets are flatly disqualifying, the city will not collect yard waste in them or accept it at the city landfill area. To be picked up, yard waste instead has to go out in biodegradable paper bags designed and marketed for yard waste, subject to type, size and closure rules the Director of Solid Waste can set under Section 58-2, or in whatever other receptacle or manner the director's regulations permit.

The section carves out one alternative specifically for woody debris: tree and shrub trimmings can skip the paper-bag requirement if they're securely tied into bundles that don't exceed four feet in length, 18 inches in diameter and 75 pounds in weight, with no single piece of wood wider than six inches. Larger loads fall outside Section 58-98 entirely and move to the "extra refuse" process in Section 58-99, which the city hauls separately for a fee at the owner's request rather than on the routine yard waste run. As with the rest of Chapter 58, putting yard waste out in a disqualifying plastic bag doesn't trigger a citation for the material itself, the routine consequence is simply that the crew leaves it, and repeated noncompliance with the director's rules under Section 58-2 can be pursued as a civil remedial-fee violation under Section 58-8.