Green Waste Rules in Highland: What Your City Bin Will Not Take

You spent Saturday cutting back the oleander and pulling weeds along the block wall. Now there is a pile in the driveway roughly the size of a compact car, and the green cart holds maybe a fifth of it.

Then there is the other problem. Half the pile is not yard trimmings at all. There are palm fronds from the tree by the driveway, a wheelbarrow of dirt from where you leveled the side yard, and the broken sprinkler risers you dug out.

Some of that belongs in the green cart. Some of it will get your cart tagged and left at the curb. Here is what Highland and Burrtec actually accept, what they do not, and what to do with the rest.

Who runs green waste collection in Highland

The City of Highland contracts residential collection to Burrtec Waste Industries. Green waste goes out on your regular scheduled pickup day in the green cart.

Two numbers are worth saving. Burrtec customer service is 909-889-1969, and the City of Highland Public Services Division is 909-864-6861, ext. 271. Both are listed on the city's green waste page.

What goes in the green cart

The city lists these as accepted:

• Brush

• Grass clippings

• Shrubbery pruning

• Tree trimmings

• Twigs and small branches

• Weeds and leaves

• Food waste, placed inside a plastic bag inside the cart

Burrtec's Highland collection brochure describes a similar list and adds flowers, dead plants, prunings, untreated wood, and food soiled paper, with small branches kept under four feet.

That food waste line surprises people. Coffee grounds, vegetable trimmings and plate scrapings belong in the green cart in Highland, not the black one. That change did not come from the city. It came from Sacramento, and it is worth understanding why.

What the green cart will not take

The city's green waste page lists these as not accepted:

• Animal waste

• Cactus and other succulents

• Gravel or sand

• Palm fronds and palm tree parts

• Soil or dirt

Burrtec's brochure adds batteries, concrete, dirt, electronics, flammables, glass, hazardous waste, metal, oil, plastic and rocks to the excluded list.

The palm frond question

Here is a real conflict worth knowing about. The City of Highland's green waste page lists palm fronds and palm tree parts as not accepted. Burrtec's Highland collection brochure lists palm fronds among the accepted materials.

Both are current published sources. They disagree.

The reason palms are a problem is mechanical. Fronds are fibrous rather than woody, and the long strands wrap around grinder shafts at a composting facility. That is why many California haulers exclude them while others take them in limited amounts.

Do not guess on this one. If you have a palm, call Burrtec at 909-889-1969 and ask what the current rule is for your address before you fill the cart. A tagged cart that sits through a hot Highland week is worse than one extra phone call.

Dirt, rock and concrete

This is the most common mistake in the Inland Empire, and it is not close.

Soil, gravel, sand, rocks and concrete are excluded, and the reason is weight rather than contamination. Automated collection trucks lift carts on an arm rated for a limit. A cart packed with wet decomposed granite can exceed that limit badly enough to damage the truck, so drivers leave those carts alone.

If you regraded a side yard or pulled out an old walkway, that material needs a different route entirely. This is where dirt, concrete and construction debris hauling exists as a separate service from ordinary junk pickup. Heavy material is priced and handled differently because it goes to different facilities.

Things that were never yard waste

Broken sprinkler risers, drip tubing, plastic pots, nursery trays, chicken wire and old fence hardware all come out of the yard, and none of them belong in the green cart. Plastic and metal are both on Burrtec's excluded list. Animal waste is excluded too, which catches people with dogs and a habit of scooping into whatever bin is closest.

Why the rules changed: SB 1383

If Highland's organics rules feel stricter than they used to, that is accurate, and it is state law rather than a local decision.

California's Senate Bill 1383 targets greenhouse gas emissions from organic material breaking down in landfills. Burrtec's Highland brochure explains the law in exactly those terms. According to CalRecycle, the state agency that administers it, all jurisdictions must provide organic waste collection service to every resident and business and must recycle that organic material. The statewide goals set for 2025 were a 75 percent reduction in organic waste sent to landfills and 20 percent of unsold edible food redirected to food recovery organizations.

That is why food scraps now go in the green cart alongside grass clippings. Both are organic material, both generate methane in a landfill, and the state decided they should be composted instead.

For residents, compliance is simple: use the green cart for organic material, keep contaminants out, and do not overload it. Contamination matters most. One bag of plastic pots in a load of green waste can downgrade the whole batch at the composting facility.

What to do with the overflow pile

Even when everything you have is technically acceptable, a single cart on a weekly schedule does not absorb a serious yard project.

A few options, roughly in order of cost:

Spread it across weeks. If the pile is legitimate green waste and you are not in a hurry, fill the cart each week until it is gone. Free, slow, and it means the pile sits in your driveway through however many weeks that takes.

Self-haul to a county facility. You can take material to San Bernardino County disposal sites, but confirm what each site accepts and charges first. The Solid Waste Management Division answers at (909) 386-8701. Budget for the drive, the fee, the tarp, and a truck bed you will be sweeping out afterward.

Have it hauled. it hauled. This is what people usually mean when they search for yard waste removal Highland CA after a big cleanup weekend. A crew loads it, including the parts the green cart rejects, and it is gone in one visit.

The advantage of hauling is not just labor. It is that a mixed pile does not have to be sorted into four destinations. Palm fronds, dirt, broken concrete, old fencing and green trimmings can leave together. SNN Junk Removal prices single items starting at $25 and larger loads by the space they occupy in the truck, and covers Highland along with Redlands, San Bernardino, Yucaipa, Colton and Loma Linda.

One limit applies to every hauler: hazardous material. Paint, pesticides, gas and car batteries are excluded, and those need a household hazardous waste facility regardless of who does your hauling.

Frequently asked questions

Can I put palm fronds in my green cart in Highland?

Sources currently disagree. The City of Highland's green waste page lists palm fronds as not accepted, while Burrtec's Highland brochure lists them among accepted materials. Call Burrtec at 909-889-1969 to confirm the rule for your address rather than assuming either way.

Can I put dirt or rocks in the green waste cart?

No. Soil, dirt, gravel, sand and rocks are excluded, mainly because of weight limits on automated collection trucks. Heavy material sits outside ordinary yard waste removal Highland CA service and needs its own haul.

Do food scraps really go in the green cart?

Yes, in Highland. The city instructs residents to place food waste inside a plastic bag inside the green cart. This comes from California's SB 1383 organic waste requirements, which apply statewide.

What happens if my cart is overloaded or contaminated?

It typically gets tagged and left. That means the material sits at your house until the next collection day, and repeated contamination can create issues for the whole route at the composting facility.

When does Highland pick up Christmas trees?

The city describes a special curbside collection once a year, typically the week after New Year's. Exact dates are published in the Re-Pete Newsletter that arrives with the November or December solid waste bill.

The short version

Green trimmings, grass, leaves, weeds, small branches and bagged food waste go in the cart. Dirt, rock, gravel, concrete, plastic and metal do not. Palm fronds are genuinely unsettled between the city's page and Burrtec's brochure, so call 909-889-1969 and ask.

For anything the cart rejects, or for a pile that would take two months of weekly collection to clear, hauling it in one trip is usually the difference between a finished yard and a driveway you keep walking around. SNN Junk Removal handles household and yard debris pickup, heavier material like dirt and broken concrete, and full property cleanouts and trashouts when a project runs past what one weekend was supposed to cover.

To get a quote or schedule a pickup, call (909) 258-9604.