City guide · Texas

Fort Worth Trash Pickup Schedule

This Fort Worth trash pickup schedule covers a city where garbage and recycling actually run on the same rhythm - both collected weekly, on the same day, rather than splitting recycling onto a slower biweekly cycle like most other Texas cities do. Yard trimmings ride along with the regular garbage cart every week too, as a standard part of service.

Food-waste composting is a newer piece of the picture, but it's currently a drop-off program rather than a curbside cart. Here's how the city's garbage collection schedule works, what it costs on the water bill, and how the zone-based bulky waste program is structured.

Because garbage, recycling, and yard trimmings all move on the same weekly day in Fort Worth, most households only need to remember one date each week rather than juggling separate calendars for separate streams. That single-day rhythm is one of the simpler setups among major Texas cities.

How often is trash picked up in Fort Worth?

Garbage is collected weekly, Monday through Friday, with the specific day set by address. Recycling is also weekly and always falls on that same collection day, and yard trimmings go out weekly too, either loose in the cart or bagged beside it.

Separate from curbside service, Fort Worth's Residential Food Waste Composting Program is drop-off only: residents pay a one-time $20 fee, get a kit, and haul scraps to a neighborhood drop-off point. City staff have described curbside composting as a future goal rather than current service.

Households that want to compost food scraps today can still do so through the drop-off kit program, even though it works differently from the weekly cart system used for garbage, recycling, and yard trimmings. It's a separate enrollment step rather than something that shows up automatically with cart service.

Find your exact pickup day

No dedicated address-lookup webpage has been confirmed for Fort Worth. The most reliable way to find your exact garbage and recycling day is the city's own free app or a call to its contact center.

Visit Fort Worth Solid Waste Services →

Search "Fort Worth" for the free "Garbage and Recycling" app on the App Store or Google Play, or call 817-392-1234 (the 311 Fort Worth Contact Center) to confirm your collection day.

New residents in particular should confirm their day directly rather than assuming it matches a previous address, since collection days are assigned by route and can differ street to street even within the same neighborhood.

Bin placement rules

Setting carts out correctly helps Fort Worth's collection trucks service every stop on a route without delays, and it also helps residents avoid the city's noncompliance fees for overloaded or improperly placed carts.

• Carts at the curb with lids closed and handles facing the street
• Recycling loose in the blue cart, never bagged
• Yard trimmings loose in the regular cart or in bags set beside it

Leave room around each cart so the truck's mechanical arm can lift and empty it cleanly, and keep lids closed to avoid the $6 overloaded-cart fee.

Fort Worth Trash Holiday Schedule

Fort Worth's official 2026 holiday collection schedule confirms that only three holidays affect the calendar: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Routine city holidays like MLK Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Veterans Day cause no change to pickup.

When one of the three qualifying holidays lands on a Thursday, that Thursday's route moves to Friday and Friday's route moves to Saturday. The rest of that week otherwise shifts forward one day.

Confirm exact current-year dates on the city's holiday collection schedule before relying on this table for a specific week.

Because Fort Worth limits schedule-affecting holidays to just three, most of the calendar year runs on the same predictable weekly day. The main weeks to watch are late November and the stretch from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day.

What goes in each cart

Fort Worth's curbside system centers on two carts, garbage and recycling, both collected on the same weekly day. Keeping recyclables free of food residue and plastic film helps the single-stream recycling load stay usable rather than contaminated.

Fort Worth's Residential Food Waste Composting Program is a separate $20 drop-off kit, not a third curbside cart - scraps go to a neighborhood drop-off point rather than out with the regular collection.

How much does trash service cost in Fort Worth?

Fort Worth charges for trash service on the water utility bill rather than as a stand-alone invoice. Current rates are $19.50 a month for a 64-gallon cart or $25.75 a month for a 96-gallon cart; a smaller 32-gallon tier was discontinued for new customers in October 2024.

Two noncompliance fees apply if carts aren't used correctly: $6 for an overloaded cart that won't close, and $3 for a loose bag left beside the cart instead of inside it.

Billing through the water utility account means trash charges are easy to overlook as a separate expense, since they arrive alongside water and sewer charges rather than as their own bill. Checking a water statement line by line is the simplest way to confirm which cart size you're currently paying for.

Bulky waste pickup

Bulky waste collection in Fort Worth is free, but it isn't scheduled per item or per request. Instead, each address is assigned to a zone on the city's collection map, and bulky items go out once a month during that zone's designated bulk week.

Check your zone and bulk week on the city's Solid Waste Services pages or through the MyFW app so large items are set out on the correct week rather than missed.

Because bulky pickup runs monthly by zone rather than on demand, it works best to plan ahead for furniture removal, appliance swaps, or seasonal cleanouts around your zone's known week instead of expecting a same-week pickup after signing up.

Apartments & multifamily buildings

City curbside cart service is built for single-family residential addresses. Apartments and other multifamily properties typically contract with private haulers instead of using the city's cart system.

Fort Worth's Multifamily Recycling ordinance requires properties with 8 or more units to file a Recycling Plan with the city, with fines of up to $2,000 per violation for noncompliance.

Renters unsure whether their complex has an active recycling plan on file can ask their property manager directly, since the requirement applies to the property owner rather than to individual residents.

Reporting illegal dumping

Report illegal dumping or a missed collection by calling 817-392-1234, the 311 Fort Worth Contact Center, or through the MyFW app. Illegal dumping can also be reported through reportdfwdumping.org, a regional reporting tool.

reportdfwdumping.org covers multiple North Texas cities, so it's useful for dumping spotted near city lines or in areas where jurisdiction isn't immediately obvious.

Frequently asked questions

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City contact & resources

Bookmark Fort Worth's trash pickup schedule and check back whenever a holiday shifts the calendar. With garbage and recycling sharing one weekly day, the main things worth double-checking are your zone's monthly bulk week and whether a holiday has pushed that week's routes.

Need more than curbside pickup? Compare local bulk & junk removal quotes. Browse all Texas cities or the full state directory.