Palmdale, CA Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

Article IX of Chapter 5.52, adopted by Ordinance 1587 in 2022 to implement state SB 1383, requires single-family organic waste generators to subscribe to the city's three-container organic waste collection service under Section 5.52.420(A). The City can review the number, size and location of a household's containers to confirm they provide adequate capacity for proper separation, and can require a resident to adjust its service level accordingly.

The green container is the designated bin for yard waste. Section 5.52.030 defines "organic waste" to mean solid wastes containing material originated from living organisms, expressly listing "food, green material, landscape and pruning waste, organic textiles and carpets, untreated lumber, untreated wood, paper products, printing and writing paper, manure, biosolids, digestate, and sludges," and Section 5.52.410(V) confirms the green container is used for the storage and collection of source-separated green container organic waste. Grass clippings, tree trimmings, leaves and prunings therefore go in the green cart alongside food scraps, not in the gray trash container.

Residents are not limited to curbside green-cart service. Section 5.52.420(C) preserves the right to manage organic waste, including yard trimmings, on site or to use a permitted community composting site instead of the green container, and the residential-householder exclusion at Section 5.52.160 separately allows composting green waste generated on the property without the franchised hauler at all. A resident who prefers to self-haul yard waste rather than cart it curbside must still source-separate it from other trash and deliver it to a facility that recovers organic waste, per the self-hauler rules of Section 5.52.480.