Labor Day, Mon Sep 7: most routes slide one day later that week. See the 2026 holiday schedule →
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Methodology

How we verify collection schedules

Three rules govern every record on this site. They are the reason some pages say "we don't know" instead of guessing — and the reason you can check our work rather than take it on faith.

The three rules

1 · Start at the official source

Every record traces to a named municipal department, county authority, or the contracted hauler for that service area. We record the agency, the page URL, and the date a person last opened it.

2 · Label how far the source goes

Some cities publish an address lookup; others publish only a zone map or one citywide schedule. We say which applies rather than presenting them as equally precise.

3 · Never invent a date

An exact collection day appears only where the source supports it. Otherwise we show the coverage we do have and link the city's own tool.

What the confidence labels mean

Every schedule on this site carries one of three labels. They are not decoration — each has a specific definition and a specific consequence.

LabelWhat it meansWhat we will show you
Verified The schedule matches an official municipal source that a person opened and confirmed, within the re-check window below. Collection days, set-out rules, the source link, and the check date.
Community At least three residents of the same block independently reported the same day, and nothing in the official source contradicts it. The reported day, clearly marked as community-sourced, with the report count.
Unknown We have no source we can stand behind, or the source we had has gone stale. A plain statement that we don't know, plus a link to the city's own lookup.

Why coverage varies so much between cities

There is no national trash schedule. Collection in the United States is arranged locally by roughly 19,000 municipalities plus hundreds of private haulers, and what each one publishes differs enormously:

  • Address-level lookups. The best case. Type an address, get a day. We link straight to it rather than re-keying the answer, because their tool is authoritative and ours would only add a chance of error.
  • Zone or route maps. Common. We can publish the zone table, but you must confirm which zone your street sits in before relying on a day.
  • A single citywide schedule. Usually smaller cities. No lookup needed.
  • A phone number and nothing else. More common than you'd expect. We name the agency and stop there.

How often we re-check

A verification date only means something if it has an expiry. Ours do.

Re-check cadence

Address-level sourcesEvery 90 days
Zone & citywide sourcesEvery 180 days
Holiday calendarsEvery November
Reader correctionsWithin 5 business days

What happens when one lapses

A record that passes its window is automatically downgraded — the Verified label is removed and the page reverts to showing the source link only, until a person re-checks it.

Stale data presented as current is worse than no data. This is the mechanism that stops that happening.

How corrections work

Readers know their own streets better than any dataset does. But a single report doesn't silently rewrite a page — here's the actual sequence:

  1. You submit a report or correction, ideally citing the official page you saw.
  2. We check it against the official source for that service area.
  3. If the source confirms it, the page updates and its last-checked date moves forward.
  4. If no official source covers it, the report counts toward a Community label — three matching reports on a block are needed.
  5. If the source contradicts it, we leave the page and note the conflict for review.

We never publish house numbers. Reports are aggregated to the block.

What we will not do

Invent statewide defaults

We won't publish a single "collection day" for an entire state as though it applied to every address in it. It never does.

Leave last year's holidays up

Holiday calendars are rebuilt annually before the season starts, not left to drift.

Publish placeholder contacts

Every phone number on the site belongs to a real agency, or the field is left empty.

Fill gaps with guesses

Where we have nothing, the page says so. That's a feature, not an oversight.

Even so — always confirm before you rely on it Weather, equipment failure, and route changes can shift collection on any day, and no third-party site can see that in advance. Your city or hauler is always the final word.