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

Municipal Code Section B6-1 defines Organic Materials to mean plants, yard trimmings, food scraps, compostable paper, and clean wood, individually or collectively, and it also reaches herbivore manure such as from horses, cows, goats, sheep, or rabbits, plus compostable plastic bags, utensils, cups, and containers if a composting facility can actually process them. Critically, no discarded material counts as Organic Materials under the chapter unless it has been source separated from Recyclable Material and Solid Waste and is hauled to a facility that diverts organics, so mixing grass clippings into the trash cart defeats the category entirely.

The Director, working with the Authorized Collector, has the authority to set out exactly which organic material types are acceptable for source-separated collection. Section B6-2(A) folds yard waste into the same mandatory three-stream service required of every occupied property: an organics container is one of the three bins every property must maintain, and Solid Waste and Organic Materials, which includes yard trimmings, must be collected at least once every seven calendar days. Property owners are separately required under Section B6-2(A)(10) to give every tenant, whether residential or commercial, convenient access to the organics and recyclables collection containers, so a tenant cannot be shut out of the yard-waste bin serving their unit.