Garland, TX Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

53(C) of the Code of Ordinances makes it an offense for any person, including a landscape maintenance employee, to cause, suffer, permit, or allow the discharge of yard waste to a street, alley, or any appurtenance of the municipal storm sewer system. 170(69) as leaves, grass clippings, yard and garden debris, and brush that results from landscaping maintenance or land-clearing operations. The section builds in three affirmative defenses so ordinary mowing and trimming does not become a code violation: sweeping or vacuuming the clippings off the street, alley, or storm sewer appurtenance by hand or machine within one hour of the lawn work; bagging the yard waste in plastic or wet-strength paper for lawful disposal; or using a maintenance technique that reasonably keeps the debris from reaching a street, alley, or storm sewer appurtenance in the first place.

The provision sits inside Garland's broader storm sewer discharge rules in Chapter 31, which generally bar introducing anything but stormwater into the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4), and it exists because grass and leaves left in the street break down and feed the algae blooms and sediment loads the City's federal MS4 discharge permit is written to prevent.