Trash & Recycling
What goes where
Search any item and find out whether it belongs in the recycling cart, the trash cart, a drop-off site or a hazardous-waste event. Guessing is what contaminates a whole truckload.
Or browse everything
- Recycling cartGoes in your blue cart, loose — never bagged.
- Trash cartGoes in your regular cart. Not everything can be recycled, and that's fine.
- Drop-off siteNot accepted curbside. Bring it to a City drop-off site or a participating retailer.
- Hazardous wasteNever curbside. Bring it to a household hazardous-waste collection event.
- Yard wasteYard-waste cart or bundle, March through November.
- Donate or reuseStill usable — a donation keeps it out of the waste stream entirely.
Not sure which day is yours?
Look up your address and get your trash day, recycling week, yard-waste day and brush zone all at once.
The five rules that cover almost everything
Empty, clean and dry
Rinse containers. A jar with food in it contaminates the paper it rides with.
Loose, never bagged
Plastic bags jam the sorting equipment. Put recyclables in the cart loose and take bags back to a store.
Nothing smaller than a credit card
Small items fall through the sorting screens and end up as landfill either way.
No tanglers
Hoses, cords, chains, string lights and rope wrap around the machinery and shut the line down.
When in doubt, throw it out
Wish-cycling feels good and costs money. One bad load can send the whole truck to the landfill.
Your collection service
Set out by 7:00 AM
Crews start early and don't come back. Carts out the night before is the safest habit.
Three feet of clearance
Keep carts three feet from each other, from parked cars and from mailboxes so the arm can grab them.
Holiday delays
Collection slides one day for the rest of the week after an observed holiday. Sign up for alerts and you'll be told.
Bulky items
Two bulky-item pickups per household per year, scheduled online. Mattresses and appliances need to be tagged.
Missed pickup?
Report it by 3:00 PM the next business day and a truck comes back.
Note: Collection rules here are illustrative and written to demonstrate the format. Check the City of Springfield's real Environmental Services pages for actual rules.
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