City guide · Ohio

Cincinnati Trash Pickup Schedule

This Cincinnati trash pickup schedule covers a program where you're responsible for buying your own garbage cart, and where a single holiday can push every remaining pickup that week back a day. That resident-must-buy rule is worth knowing before your first week in a new home: unlike the free recycling cart the city provides, the garbage cart itself is on you to purchase and register, and only newly constructed homes get one at no charge. Here's exactly how the Cincinnati trash pickup schedule works for garbage, recycling, and yard waste, including the seasonal cutoff that catches a lot of residents off guard every January.

How often is trash picked up in Cincinnati?

The Cincinnati garbage collection schedule collects garbage weekly, Monday through Thursday depending on your address, for eligible 1-4 unit residential properties. Recycling is biweekly on that same collection day, and yard waste is also biweekly on that day - but only from April through the second week of January, with no service for the rest of the winter. That gap means residents who bag up leaves or trim branches in late January or February need another plan entirely, since yard waste carts simply aren't collected again until the program resumes in April.

Recycling and yard waste are collected by contracted hauler Rumpke, 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Garbage is collected separately on the city's own route, so a Rumpke truck skipping your street on a given day doesn't mean anything about that week's trash pickup.

Find your exact pickup day

Every address on the Cincinnati curbside collection schedule has its own pickup day, assigned by location within the city's service area. Because garbage runs Monday through Thursday while recycling and yard waste run biweekly on that same day, it's worth confirming both your day and which week is a recycling week before you're caught leaving the wrong cart at the curb.

Look up your Cincinnati pickup schedule →

Or use the 311Cincy mobile app, or call 311 (513-765-1212).

Bin placement rules

A handful of rules govern what a Cincinnati cart or bundle needs to look like on collection morning:

• Recycling placed loose in the city-issued cart, no bagging or sorting required
• Yard waste in paper bags, marked cans with handles, or tied bundles (3 ft x 2 ft diameter max, branches under 6 inches, twine or rope only - no tape or wire)
• Garbage carts must be purchased separately from recycling carts and registered with the city
• Registering a newly purchased cart with the city ties it to your address, which is part of why it must be an approved, automated-truck-compatible model rather than any standard bin
• Trash cart weight limit is 75 lbs; yard waste containers must stay under 25 lbs

The 25-lb yard waste limit is noticeably lighter than the 75-lb garbage cart limit, so a paper bag packed with wet leaves or soil can easily exceed it - splitting a heavy load across two lighter bags avoids having either one left at the curb.

Cincinnati Trash Holiday Schedule

Cincinnati uses a cascading holiday shift: when a regular collection day falls on an observed holiday, that day's collection moves to the next day, and every remaining collection for the rest of that week is delayed by one additional day. The shift applies uniformly across garbage, recycling, and yard waste. Unlike cities that exempt a few minor holidays from any delay, Cincinnati's official calendar lists all ten recognized holidays as triggering the same cascading shift, so there's no holiday on the list that leaves the week's schedule untouched.

A Monday holiday pushes Monday's route to Tuesday, Tuesday's to Wednesday, and so on through the end of that week; the schedule resets the following Monday.

What goes in each bin

Garbage, recycling, and yard waste each have their own container rules and their own weight limits in Cincinnati:

Cost & billing

No separate monthly trash bill or per-unit rate is published on Cincinnati's official pages. Based on available official information, the city funds collection through general municipal services rather than a standalone fee - unlike some neighboring Ohio cities that bill a flat monthly charge. That funding structure is also the likely reason Cincinnati asks residents to buy their own garbage cart rather than issuing one free with service, since the city isn't recovering that cost through a recurring collection fee the way it would if billing residents directly.

Bulky waste pickup

Bulky item collection is free, but it's by appointment only - request it through 311 (call 311 or 513-765-1212, or use the online portal), with a limit of 5 items per household per scheduled appointment. Set items out the night before your scheduled date; a claw-truck crew collects them. Smaller items - under 45 lbs and roughly under 4 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft - don't qualify as bulk; up to 3 of those can instead go out with your regular weekly trash, which is the simplest option for residents without room to store items until an appointment date. Tires require a separate request and aren't included in the standard bulk limit. Excluded from bulky pickup entirely: batteries, auto parts, concrete, construction debris, lumber, chemicals, hazardous waste, propane tanks, and anything over 6 ft tall - those categories typically need a specialty disposal option rather than curbside collection of any kind.

Apartments & multifamily buildings

City collection covers single-family homes and residential buildings with 4 or fewer units. Buildings with 5 or more units - and any residential unit that shares a building with a business - are classified as commercial and must contract with a City-registered private waste hauler instead. Because that 4-unit line is drawn at the building level rather than the individual unit, a fourplex still qualifies for city service even though each unit inside it would need to buy and register its own garbage cart separately. Tenants who aren't sure which category their building falls into should ask their landlord or check with 311 before assuming curbside service is included. Because private haulers serve 5-or-more-unit buildings directly rather than through the city, the pickup day, cart type, and billing arrangement for those buildings are all set by the private contract rather than the citywide schedule described in this guide.

Reporting illegal dumping

Report illegal dumping through 311, available 24/7 - call 311 or 513-765-1212, use the web portal at 311cincy.com, or report through the Fix It Cincy! mobile app. Having the same 311 contact handle both illegal dumping reports and routine collection questions makes it a single number worth saving, rather than one more hotline to remember on top of your regular waste questions. With three separate ways to reach 311 - phone, web portal, and mobile app - residents can pick whichever channel is fastest in the moment rather than being tied to one method.

Frequently asked questions

Quick answers to the questions Cincinnati residents ask most often about cart purchases, holiday delays, and bulky pickup:

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City contact & resources

Bookmark this Cincinnati trash collection calendar and check back whenever a holiday shifts the calendar. Between the resident-purchased cart, the biweekly recycling and yard waste days, and the seasonal January cutoff, Cincinnati's program has a few more details to track than a simple weekly pickup - saving 311's number covers nearly all of them. Need more than curbside pickup? Compare local bulk & junk removal quotes. Browse all Ohio cities or the full state directory.