Prince George's County, MD Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

Section 21-142(k) of the County Code states that as of January 1, 2014, the County's yard waste composting facility at Western Branch shall not accept yard waste in plastic bags. The rule targets contamination: bagged yard waste slows the composting process and forces workers to cut open and dump bags by hand before the material can be processed, and it sits alongside the Department of the Environment's expansion of food-scrap composting under Section 21-142(i).

Section 21-143(40) defines yard waste as organic, vegetative wastes typically consisting of branches, leaves, brush, grass clippings, thatch and similar material, while Section 21-143(41) defines a yard waste composting facility as any facility designed and operated for receiving and processing source-separated leaf and yard waste, including grass clippings, brush and limbs, and other garden materials.

Beyond the composting facility's bag ban, Section 21-148(a)(2) gives the Director of the Department of the Environment authority to direct County landfill facilities to stop accepting yard waste once a feasible, cost-effective alternative to landfilling exists. In deciding whether to impose that landfill ban, the Director must weigh the higher cost of collecting yard waste in an uncontaminated, source-separated form. Under Section 21-148(b), any resulting ban can be seasonal, temporary or permanent, and can apply by individual load, geographic area, or however the Director judges will best support the County's recycling programs.

Yard waste sits within the broader recycling program set up under Division 3 of Subtitle 21, which the Director administers, and its treatment is distinct from the household curbside recycling of bottles, cans and paper covered elsewhere in the same Division.