New York, NY Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

Section 16-308(f) requires that generators of yard waste 'shall separate, tie, bundle, or place into bags or receptacles, in accordance with rules promulgated by the commissioner, any yard waste set out for collection by the department,' and obligates the Department to notify residents of the district-specific bagging procedures before service starts. The underlying collection program comes from § 16-308(b): the Sanitation Commissioner must provide for source separation, collection and composting of yard waste unless a resident arranges private recycling, mulching or storage, and the Department must maintain at least one yard waste composting facility per borough where it runs curbside collection.

Section 16-308(g) draws a hard line against businesses: no person engaged in a business that generates yard waste may leave it for department collection or disperse it in or about the curb or street; commercial generators must instead haul it to a permitted composting facility, or, if the Department certifies there's no capacity within ten miles, to another permitted solid waste facility. Section 16-308(i) adds a seasonal grass-clipping rule: residents in a district receiving yard waste composting collection may not set out grass clippings as regular garbage during the collection season, though the Department cannot penalize anyone for that violation during the program's first year in a given district.

Enforcement of the household bagging duty in subdivision (f) runs through the general Chapter 3 penalty schedule at § 16-324(a); the tougher business ban in subdivision (g) carries its own, separately-scaled fine under § 16-324(b).