Mount Prospect, IL Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

Section 19.202.A.9.b of the Mount Prospect Village Code limits yard waste to a short list of approved receptacles: biodegradable thirty two gallon compost bags, thirty two gallon standard garbage cans with a yard material decal, or a scavenger owned and provided ninety five gallon wheeled cart. The code defines yard materials as small amounts of sod, grass clippings, garden materials, small brush, leaves, twigs and weeds. Whatever goes into the receptacle cannot exceed the size of the receptacle or fifty pounds in total weight.

Section 19.202.A.12.a(3) attaches a user fee. Yard material collection and disposal requires the purchase of a Village yard waste sticker, which must be attached to every unit containing yard material and placed for collection. The sticker fee is set in appendix A, division II of the code, and the village manager determines it as an amount directly related to the cost of the sticker, its distribution and the cost of collecting and disposing of yard materials.

Subsection A.11 is blunt: mixing of yard waste with any other type of solid waste is prohibited. Grass and leaves cannot ride in the green garbage cart, and garbage cannot go into a yard waste bag. Larger brush follows a different path: brush bundles are among the bulk items that need no container under A.9.e and are stacked alongside approved receptacles.

Piles kept at home for composting fall under the property maintenance code adopted by § 21.603, which inserts a subsection 302.11. Compost piles cannot exceed four feet tall by four feet wide by four feet long, must sit behind the principal structure and outside any required front or side yard, and must stay a minimum of five feet from a property line. They must be regularly tended so the materials decompose.