New Brunswick, NJ Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

The City of New Brunswick treats brush and leaves as mandatory recyclables, not as ordinary trash. Section 8.40.020 lists both in its definition of recyclable materials. Brush means branches, woody plants and like vegetative material that does not exceed five inches in diameter, plus Christmas trees, and it excludes leaves and grass clippings. Leaves means only foliage that has fallen from trees, and only when it is not mixed with grass clippings or contaminated with branches, stones, paper, litter or any other debris. The code separately defines yard debris as wood except tree stumps, branches, grass clippings, soil and other yard waste, and that definition does not include leaves.

Under § 8.40.110(E)(9), brush is deposited at the curb according to guidelines set by the Department of Public Works. Under § 8.40.110(E)(10), leaves are raked to curbside or placed at the curb in biodegradable bags for collection on specific days the department schedules. The code calls leaves in a biodegradable leaf bag containerized. Loose leaves face a tighter clock: sweeping, raking, blowing or otherwise placing them at the curb or along the street is allowed only during the seven days before a scheduled and announced collection, and they cannot sit closer than ten feet to any storm drain inlet. Leaves placed at any other time or in any other manner violate the chapter, and the person responsible must remove them from the street.

Yard debris follows a different track. Section 8.40.040(D) says no mandatorily recyclable material or yard debris is placed at curbside for regular collection, and no solid waste is collected from any container that includes such materials. Section 8.40.040(F) also carves yard debris out of the bulk-item pickup that residents book with the division of sanitation. Grass clippings and other lawn or garden waste appear in the code's definition of litter in § 8.40.020, so clippings swept into the street also raise the littering rules in § 8.40.060.