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

Chapter 13.20 makes the City and its franchised contractor the exclusive collectors. Section 13.20.090(A) makes it unlawful for any other person to gather, collect or remove garbage or rubbish from premises other than industrial premises, and subsection B makes it unlawful for an owner or occupant to contract with a collector the City has not licensed. Subsections E and F carve out self-hauling. Householders hauling occasional loads of waste, refuse or manure, not containing garbage, from their own premises to a legal point of disposal are excepted, and the section does not prohibit hauling or disposal of grass cuttings, pruning, manure or other rubbish not containing garbage to or at a legal point of disposal as part of gardening or horticulture. Subsection G.2 exempts containers for recyclable material sold or donated by the generator, defines recyclable material to include grass, tree or shrub trimmings, and withdraws the exemption when the generator pays for collection.

A second layer comes from Chapter 13.09, the mandatory organic waste chapter adopted by Ordinance 1156 in 2021. Section 13.09.010 defines organic waste to include food, green material, landscape and pruning waste, and lumber. It also defines uncontainerized green waste and yard waste collection service as collection of yard waste placed in a pile or bagged on the street in front of a house or business for transport to a facility that recovers source separated organic waste. Single-family generators subscribe to organic waste collection and use the green container under § 13.09.020, except those who self-haul or practice on-site home composting or grasscycling and do not generate organic waste for collection. Self-haulers under § 13.09.080 haul source separated green container organic waste to a solid waste facility, operation, activity or property that processes or recovers source separated organic waste, and a residential self-hauler does not record or report hauling information.