Trash and recycling pickup in Boca Raton
Who collects your bins depends on whether you live inside the city limits. Your pickup days, the two-bin recycling rule, bulk items and where hazardous waste goes — and what changed for unincorporated areas on October 1.
Two different organizations collect bins in Boca Raton, and the line between them is the city limit, not the postcode.
- Inside the City of Boca Raton, the city's own Sanitation Division collects, and it serves city households only.
- In unincorporated Palm Beach County — which includes a great deal of what everyone calls West Boca — the Solid Waste Authority (SWA) arranges collection through contracted private haulers. The SWA does not run trucks itself.
Not sure which you are? This guide settles it in a minute.
How often
| City of Boca Raton | Unincorporated county | |
|---|---|---|
| Garbage | Twice a week | Twice a week |
| Recycling | Once a week | Once a week |
| Yard waste | Once a week, same day as recycling | Once a week |
| Bulk items | Once a week, same day as recycling | Once a week, up to three items |
| Collection days | Monday to Friday | Monday to Saturday |
Finding your days. City households are split into four collection areas; the curbside collection page has the weekly table and a map, and the recycling page has a schedule lookup by address. In unincorporated areas, the SWA's My Service Collection Days tool, on its pickup schedule page, does the same.
New haulers from October 1, 2026. The SWA's new collection contracts for unincorporated areas began on that date, across five service areas. If your truck, your hauler's name or your days have changed, that is why — the lookup tool reflects the current arrangement.
Two bins for recycling, not one
Palm Beach County has run a two-bin system since 1987, and the city uses the same one:
- Yellow bin: paper and cardboard.
- Blue bin: containers — plastic bottles and tubs, food and drink cans, glass bottles and jars.
In the city, flattened corrugated cardboard has to be cut to pieces no bigger than 2 feet by 2 feet, in or beside the yellow bin.
Things that go in neither bin, according to the SWA: plastic bags, foam, shredded paper, plastic utensils and straws, and aluminum foil or foil trays. Bagged recycling is the most common mistake.
Bulk items
- City: no booking. Bulk goes out on your recycling day, at least five feet clear of trees, poles, mailboxes and your bins. Anything bigger than about a washer and dryer together needs the city's paid pickup option, arranged by phone; its bulk waste page has the details and a list of what it will not take.
- Unincorporated: once a week on your bulk day, three items at most.
When to put the carts out
- City: no earlier than 7pm the evening before, and no later than 7am on collection day, at the edge of the curb with the handle facing the street. Bring them back in within 12 hours of collection.
- Unincorporated: at the curb before 6am on collection day.
Paint, chemicals and electronics
There is no curbside collection for household hazardous waste anywhere in the county. County residents can take it, free, to one of seven SWA drop-off sites called Home Chemical & Recycling Centers — and electronics are accepted there too. The two closest to Boca Raton are both in Delray Beach:
| Center | Address |
|---|---|
| Eastern Delray Beach (self-service) | 1901 SW 4th Ave, Delray Beach |
| Western Delray Beach (staffed) | 13400 S State Road 7, Delray Beach |
Check the SWA's page for current hours before you load the car.
Holidays
- City: collection shifts around holidays on a published table. Text SanitationAlert to 38276 for the city's sanitation alerts.
- Unincorporated: collection runs on every holiday except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
What this page will not tell you
What any of it costs. City collection is billed on the same bill as your water, as the moving guide explains, and the rates are the city's to publish.
Where this comes from
Checked against these on 2026-10-03. Fees, deadlines and portals change — if one of these pages disagrees with this one, the official page is right and we would like to know.
- City of Boca Raton — Sanitation
- City of Boca Raton — Residential Curbside Collection
- City of Boca Raton — Garbage Collection & Containers
- City of Boca Raton — Recycling
- City of Boca Raton — Bulk Waste
- City of Boca Raton — Holiday Sanitation Schedule
- Solid Waste Authority — Pickup Schedule
- Solid Waste Authority — Collection contracts
- Solid Waste Authority — Recycling
- Solid Waste Authority — Hazardous Waste
October 2026 — First published.
We record when a guide was published and when it was last revised. We do not yet record what changed, so this is a dating record rather than a changelog.
Written and checked by a person, and carrying the month they were published and the month they were last revised. Where a rule or a fee applies we link the official source rather than quoting a number that will go stale.
A fee that has changed, a link that has moved, an answer that is no longer right — tell us and we will check it and say we did.
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