Tallahassee, FL Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

Section 21-488 of the Tallahassee Code of General Ordinances, "Yard waste from residential establishments," sets specific containment limits rather than leaving yard debris to accumulate loosely at the curb. Leaves, grass clippings and pine straw must go into manageable containers, heavy-duty plastic or paper trash bags or cardboard boxes are named examples, and all of that material together must be piled no larger than six feet long, four feet wide and four feet high. Tree trimmings, limbs and shrubbery follow a separate limit: no branch may exceed four inches in diameter, pieces must be cut to no more than six feet long, and the cut material must be stacked parallel to the curb or street edge, again within a pile capped at six feet long, four feet wide and four feet high.

Yard waste has to stay separate from other solid waste under subsection (a), so a customer cannot bag grass clippings in with household trash and expect the standard yard waste pickup to take it. If a pile goes out after the scheduled cutoff, subsection (d) does not entitle the customer to same-day service: the debris simply waits for the next regularly scheduled collection day, unless the customer pays for a special collection under section 21-484(e) to have it removed sooner. The rule was renamed from "yard trash" to "yard waste" by Ordinance No.

11-O-02AA in 2011, which also folded the definitions into section 21-481, but the six-foot/four-foot/four-foot dimensions and the four-inch limb limit have carried forward unchanged. Commercial tree services and land clearers cannot use this residential program at all: section 21-491 makes them responsible for hauling away their own debris rather than setting it at a residential curb.