Never miss bin day again

Never Miss Trash Day Again — From NYC Curbside to Suburban Cart Service

BinMinder reminds you when to roll your cart to the curb, no matter who hauls your trash or what color cart your town uses.

In the United States, who collects your trash depends entirely on where you live. Big cities run their own sanitation departments — New York's DSNY, Los Angeles Sanitation, Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation — while many suburbs and small towns leave it to private haulers like Waste Management, Republic Services, or WM. In some suburban and rural areas, there's no municipal service at all: you pick a hauler and pay them directly, often per pickup or per bag.

There is no national bin-color standard, but a pattern holds across most of the country: a black or grey 96-gallon cart for trash, and a blue cart for single-stream recycling, where mixed paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and metal cans all go in together. Yard waste is usually handled separately in a green or brown cart or in kraft paper bags, often on a seasonal schedule. Glass is sometimes banned from single-stream bins and must go to a drop-off instead.

Collection is typically weekly for trash and weekly or every-other-week for recycling, with automated side-loader trucks grabbing carts set out at the curb — or in the alley, in older cities like Chicago and Dallas. Many New England towns run pay-as-you-throw programs where you buy official tagged bags or stickers, and bulk pickup for furniture or appliances usually needs to be scheduled in advance.

• Check whether your town uses curb or alley set-out — putting your cart in the wrong spot is the most common reason for a missed pickup, and rules differ block by block in older cities.
• In pay-as-you-throw towns (common across Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire), only official tagged bags or stickers get collected, so stock up before a holiday weekend.
• Trash day often shifts by one day after federal holidays like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July — haulers publish a holiday schedule, and your normal reminder may be a day off that week.
• Carts usually must be out by a set time (often 6 or 7 a.m.) and pulled back from the curb within 24 hours, or you can be fined — especially in HOAs and cities with set-out ordinances.

Everything you need for bin day