Local Rules

Two Feet, Nothing Beside It, No Construction Material

Three short rules decide whether your garbage gets collected on Tuesday. Most people only learn them by being skipped.

What the City does collect

Draper City runs its own collection, and it is straightforward: garbage weekly, recycling bi-weekly. Your collection day is set by neighborhood boundaries rather than by anything you choose, so if you have just moved in, check which day your street falls on rather than watching the neighbours.

That is a genuinely good service and it covers ordinary household life without any thought. The trouble starts the moment a project does.

⚠️ The two-foot limb rule

This is the one nobody believes until their branches are left at the curb.

Two feet. Not four, not "roughly manageable" — two. It is one of the tightest limb limits anywhere, and it exists because the material has to tumble freely out of an automated can into a truck without jamming.

The practical consequences:

• Anything off a mature tree needs cutting down twice. A single branch from a bench-property maple can become a dozen two-foot lengths.
• A real pruning job produces far more volume than the can holds, even cut correctly.
• Trunk sections, stumps and root balls are not yard trash at all, at any length.
• The cutting is the work. On any significant tree job, the time spent reducing branches to two-foot lengths usually costs more than a container would.

And the economics of green waste have changed recently, which makes this worse — see the green waste article.

⚠️ Nothing beside the can, ever

The second rule, and the one that generates the most frustration.

This is not pettiness. Automated collection means the driver stays in the cab and an arm lifts the can. A bag on the ground is not something the truck can see or lift, and a driver stepping out into a live street to retrieve it is exactly the safety risk the system was designed to remove.

So:

• The lid has to close. An overfilled can spills when the arm tips it.
• Two extra bags beside the can will still be there on Wednesday.
• A "just this once" pile after a party or a clear-out is not collected.

Once you know the rule, the maths is simple: if a job produces more than the can holds, the overflow needs its own route from the start. It never gets absorbed.

No construction material at all

The third rule, and the one with the sharpest edge.

Construction materials and hazardous waste are not allowed in the City can. That is not a volume limit — it is a category exclusion. Even a small amount is out.

What counts as construction material:

• Drywall, plaster and lath
• Timber, plywood and sheet goods
• Cabinetry, countertops and trim
• Tile, flooring and underlay
• Roofing, siding, soffit, fascia and guttering
• Doors, windows and framing
• Concrete, brick, block and mortar
• Insulation

A bathroom renovation produces every one of those. So does a kitchen. There is no residential curbside route for any of it in Draper, which is the single clearest reason a container exists.

What goes in the recycling can

Bi-weekly, and narrower than most people assume. Three things:

• Corrugated cardboard — flattened, with styrofoam, peanuts, bubble wrap and plastic liners removed first.
• Plastic bottles and jugs with a neck — water bottles, milk jugs. Rinse the residue and put the cap back on.
• Metal cans from food and beverages.

That last rule catches almost everyone. Putting hopeful items in the recycling can does not help; it contaminates the load and it ends up at the landfill anyway.

Glass is drop-off

Glass does not go in the curbside recycling can at all. It has its own drop-off arrangement:

• Draper City Hall, 1020 Pioneer Road. The green dumpster on the southeast side of the car park, accessible 24 hours a day.
• IKEA, 67 IKEA Way.

Worth knowing before a move or a big clear-out, because glass accumulates fast and it is heavy enough to matter in a container you are paying for by weight.

Where a container fits

We would rather you used the City service and the free county facilities than paid us unnecessarily. A roll-off earns its place when:

• The material is construction or demolition debris, which the can cannot take at all.
• The volume is a clear-out rather than a week's waste — a basement, a garage, a whole house.
• The yard job involves trunk sections, stumps or root balls, or simply more brush than is worth cutting into two-foot lengths.
• You need it gone on a date — a closing, a turnover, family visiting for one week.
• You are a business, church or school, which changes what free facilities are open to you.
• The overflow would otherwise sit beside the can, where it will not be collected.

A short checklist

• Garbage weekly, recycling bi-weekly, day set by neighborhood
• Limbs cut to two-foot lengths
• The lid must close — nothing beside the can
• No construction material, in any quantity
• No hazardous waste in the can
• Recycling: flattened cardboard, bottles and jugs with a neck, metal cans
• All other plastic is trash
• Glass is drop-off — City Hall or IKEA
• Stumps and root balls are not yard trash at any length
• Call us when the volume or the material stops fitting the can