Middletown: Trash Cart Collection Rules In Sanitation District Will Be Changing

MIDDLETOWN, CT — Effective Jan. 1, 2026, trash cart collection rules in the Sanitation District will be changing.

An announcement was posted Friday:

The volume-based pricing pilot program known as "Save as You Throw" that has been in place for cart customers for two years will be ending.

Starting Jan. 1, 2026, any standard commercial trash bag may be used for trash. Orange City-branded bags will no longer be required. Your trash bill will now be based solely on the size of your cart(s) and frequency of your pickups (no longer the number of bags you have in your cart.)

Please use up your remaining orange trash bags and do not buy more than you need for the rest of this calendar year.

When you run out, feel free to use any commercially available kind of trash bags. For the rest of the year, carts will be collected if they contain any type of trash bag.

The green food scrap bags will continue to be sorted out at the waste facility and sent to the bio digester until 12/31/25. Please see the website for organics diversion options after this date.Recycling carts (blue) are now being collected weekly.Please see the Sanitation District webpage for more information:https://ct-middletown.civicplus.com/1485/Save-As-You-Throw-SAYT-Trash-Reduction-Por contact the Public Works Department at 860-638-4850.