Garbage, Recycling and Yard Waste Pickup in the Southwest Suburbs (and How Much Garbage Pickup Costs)

Every town out here picks up your garbage once a week. Every one of them takes your recycling. Almost all of them run a yard waste season that starts in spring and ends when your leaves are done.

Here's the part that changes the day you move.

In Manteno, you pay nothing for it. The village covers your whole bill. Thirty miles north in Tinley Park, the same service costs you $31.78 a month. That's about $380 a year on a line item most people never actually look at.

When does yard waste pickup end in the southwest suburbs?

For most towns out here, November 30. But not all of them, and the exceptions are bigger than you'd think.

Here's what each town's own page says, verified as of September 2026:

Look at the top and the bottom of that list.

Channahon runs about six weeks longer than Palos Park. Six weeks. Move from Frankfort to Lockport and you pick up two extra weeks of leaf collection that nobody mentions at closing. Go the other direction and you'll drag a pile of bags to the curb in the first week of December that just sits there until spring.

Two of those aren't fixed dates at all. Manhattan says "the second Monday in December." Lockport says "the first full week of December." Those roll every year, so don't write one down and reuse it next fall. Your village page is the only thing that settles it.

How much does garbage pickup cost, and who's actually billing you?

This is where it stops being uniform.

What you get is close to identical town to town: a cart for garbage, a cart or bin for recycling, weekly pickup, yard waste in season. What changes is who bills you and how. Three models run inside this footprint, and the one your town uses decides whether you ever see the number at all.

1. The village or city bills you on your utility bill. This is most of the footprint. Frankfort, Mokena, Beecher, Minooka, Palos Heights, Palos Park, Manhattan, Lockport, Channahon, Joliet and Orland Park all fold refuse into your water, or your water-and-sewer bill. Manhattan puts it plainly: "Utility Bills include Water, Sewer, Garbage/Refuse and Capital Improvement Fee." Most of these run monthly. Beecher bills every two months, Orland Park every two months, and Palos Heights and Palos Park run six-month cycles. You'll rarely see refuse as its own number on the envelope.

2. The hauler bills you directly, and you open the account yourself. New Lenox, Homer Glen, Peotone, Lemont and Tinley Park all work this way, usually quarterly. If you're new and nobody tells you, you can go a while before you find out there's an account you were supposed to set up.

3. The village just pays it. That's Manteno. The village's own language: "The garbage fee is being paid for our residents by the village," under a moratorium on the monthly garbage fee that's been in place since July 1, 2018. It's the only town out here where the answer to "what's my garbage bill" is nothing at all, and it's one of the quieter reasons people end up moving to Manteno, IL and staying.

Not one town out here puts refuse on your property tax bill. If you've been assuming it's buried in there somewhere, it isn't.

Here's what the published rates look like where a town prints both the number and the date it took effect:

A few things worth pulling out of that.

Tinley Park waives the fee entirely for 100% disabled veterans. That's on the village's own page, and it's the only one like it in this whole sweep. If that's you, it's worth knowing before you pick a town.

Senior discounts exist almost everywhere, and they're small. Palos Heights knocks off $2.79 a month. Minooka takes off $2.00. Nice, not life changing.

Channahon does something none of the others do. It tells you what next year costs. Its page prints the rate as effective May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027, then says plainly that rates go up every May 1. That's a small thing. It's also the only town out here you can actually budget against.

And the spread from Manteno to Tinley Park is roughly $380 a year for the same weekly truck.

Two rates are missing on purpose. Palos Park lists "$22.50 for six months" with no effective date, which would make it the cheapest town out here by a mile, and that's almost always a sign the page is old. Homer Glen lists $62.77 a quarter on what reads like an announcement page, also undated. You'd rather have a hole here than budget against a number that's three years stale. If you live in either town, your village hall settles it in one phone call.

The rules that quietly cost new residents money

The fee is the part people look at. These are the parts that get them.

Minooka publishes a full sticker list, and it bites. A white goods sticker runs $25.00 each and you have to call two days ahead. Bulk stickers are $5.50. Extra refuse stickers are $2.15. Drag a dryer to the curb without the $25 sticker and it stays on your driveway. That kind of detail is easy to miss when you're weighing a move to Minooka, IL and looking at everything else.

Palos Hills gives it all away. Call ahead and they'll take your refrigerator, air conditioner, water heater, mattress, carpet, passenger car tires, televisions and computers. No sticker, no fee. It's the most generous appliance and bulk policy in this entire sweep and it isn't close, which is a genuinely underrated perk of moving to Palos Hills, IL that nobody puts in a listing.

Lemont won't take appliances at the curb at all. The village's wording: household appliances, air conditioners, heat pumps, water heaters, furnaces and boilers "have been banned from landfills." You're told to arrange it with an appliance business yourself. Same county, opposite policy from Palos Hills.

Manhattan charges you $40 for up to two white goods per trip, then $20 per item after that. It also runs two unlimited clean-up days a year, May 11 and October 19 in 2026. If you've got a garage purge coming, timing it to one of those is free money you'd otherwise hand over.

Lockport doesn't charge you for yard waste bags. Straight from the city: yard waste can go in brown paper bags, "no sticker necessary." Mokena charges you $3.45 a sticker. Thirty bags of leaves is a normal fall in either town. That's $103.50 out of your pocket in one and nothing in the other.

Mokena's toter changes jobs by season. Yours takes yard waste only from April through November, then garbage only from December through March. Fill it wrong in October and it doesn't get emptied.

Joliet hands out free bagsters, while they last. Waste Management gave the city 100 of them, one per household, at City Hall. They run about $30 at a hardware store. You still pay for the pickup, roughly $176, but your bag is free. Call Building Inspections first and make sure there are any left before you drive over.

What will they take for bulk pickup, and is it free?

Mostly one item a week, and mostly yes, as long as you follow your town's rules.

Channahon takes two a week, which is double most of the footprint. It's also the only town publishing a weight ceiling: 50 pounds. That sounds generous until you try to put out a sleeper sofa. It's the kind of detail that makes Channahon, IL worth a longer look than most people give it, right alongside the fact that it sits in two counties.

Homer Glen has a conflict you should settle before you plan a cleanout. The village page promises take-all, unlimited refuse. The hauler's page says one large item each week. Those are two very different Saturdays. Call the hauler before you start stacking things by the curb.

Tinley Park caps e-waste at two TVs or monitors per household per year. You can blow through that on one move-in purge, clearing out what the old house left behind.

Several towns run their own e-waste program the hauler doesn't cover, and you have to go to it. Lockport Public Works takes it Tuesdays and Fridays, 6 to 11 a.m., and you'll need proof of Will County residency. Peotone does the first and third Wednesday, 5 to 7 p.m. Channahon runs quarterly collections through LRS with extra fees, and 2026's weeks are February 23, May 11, August 17 and November 9. Manteno sends you to Belson Steel Center Scrap in Bourbonnais, free.

For anything hazardous, you go through WM At Your Door in Joliet rather than the curb. Paint, cleaners, automotive products and garden chemicals will not get picked up with your garbage anywhere out here, no matter what town you are in.

What if you live unincorporated?

Then almost nothing above applies to you, and that catches people every year.

Your mailing address isn't your village. Your house can carry a Frankfort address and sit outside the Village of Frankfort, and Frankfort says so about as bluntly as a municipality ever says anything: "If you live in Frankfort Square, Frankfort Township, or Unincorporated Areas of Frankfort, your waste services and schedules are not the same as the Village of Frankfort."

It isn't just Frankfort. Manhattan's village contract is with Waste Management, but Homewood Disposal's own site says it serves unincorporated Manhattan. Two haulers, one town name. New Lenox tells unincorporated residents to set up individual service. Homewood's Orland Park page reads "services available in unincorporated areas only." Manteno, Mokena, Beecher, Homer Glen and Peotone all carry hauler-side language that service differs outside village limits.

So your address tells you where the mail goes. It doesn't tell you who hauls your trash, what you pay, or whether the village schedule above is yours at all.

The thing that settles it is your parcel number, which sits on your tax bill and in your county's property search. Same number, same boundary problem, that also decides your township and your school district.

A note on what I couldn't nail down

Every town on this list got checked against its own village or city page, or its hauler's own page. Nothing here came from an aggregator.

A few came up short. Monee's refuse details wouldn't load from the village site at all. Neither would Orland Park's yard waste dates.

Palos Hills is the biggest hole. The city hasn't published a rate since 2022, and nothing on the site says whether the city bills you or Republic does. Your village hall has the answer. You just won't find it here, because guessing would be worse than a gap.

Live in one of these towns and see something wrong? Tell me and I'll fix it. That's how this page stays worth reading next fall.

The Bottom Line

The garbage service you get out here is close to the same everywhere. What's different is your calendar, your bill, and the fine print, and all three change at the village line.

Yard waste is the one with a deadline on it. Most of the footprint stops November 30. Channahon, Manhattan, Joliet, Lemont and Lockport run into December. If you moved this year, check yours first, because the difference shows up as a pile of bags nobody takes.

The money is smaller than your tax bill, but it isn't nothing. Somewhere between zero and $380 a year, depending entirely on which town you're in. And if you're outside village limits, none of these village numbers are yours.

Frequently Asked Questions

What day is garbage pickup in my town?

Your address sets it, not your town, because haulers run routes by zone. Your village or city page lists the schedule, and if your hauler bills you directly, their site has a lookup by address. One thing that catches new residents: your recycling and yard waste usually run the same day as your garbage but at different times, so an empty street at noon doesn't mean they're done with you.

How much is garbage pickup in the southwest suburbs?

Anywhere from nothing to about $32 a month, depending on which town you're in. Manteno residents pay $0 because the village covers it. Tinley Park is $31.78. Most towns land in the $23 to $29 range. Whether you ever see your own number depends on the billing model, and if it's riding on your water bill, you can miss it entirely.

Is bulk pickup free, and what will they take?

Usually free for one item a week, and what counts varies more than you'd expect. Channahon allows two items a week under 50 pounds. Palos Hills takes appliances, mattresses, carpet and tires at no charge with a call ahead. Minooka charges $25 for a white goods sticker. Lemont won't take appliances at the curb at all. Check your own village's page before you haul something out there.

When does yard waste pickup start again in the spring?

Most towns restart April 1. Channahon goes earlier, the week of March 15, and Joliet resumed March 9 in 2026. If your town runs a seasonal toter like Mokena's, that's also the date it switches back from garbage duty to yard waste duty.

Does my property tax bill cover garbage pickup?

Not in any town out here. Your refuse is either on your utility bill, billed directly by your hauler, or paid by the village out of its general funds. It's a separate cost from your tax bill, so if you've been telling yourself it's already covered in there, it isn't.

I live unincorporated. Who picks up my garbage?

You arrange it yourself with a hauler, and you pay their rate rather than a village rate. Several towns out here say so explicitly, Frankfort most directly. The practical problem is that an unincorporated house usually carries the nearby village's mailing address, so nothing about your address tells you which situation you're in. Your parcel number does.

If your town's rules changed since this went up, or something here doesn't match what's actually happening on your street, send me a correction and I'll update the page.

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Most of what ends up here starts as a question somebody asks me about their own block. If you want the rest of it, I post the local stuff on Instagram over at @chicagolandhomeandmoney.

Brian Wittman | Blue Jean Broker
Real Estate | Mortgage | Life Insurance | Financial Literacy
Based in Manhattan, IL | Serving the Chicago Suburbs

Brian Wittman is a licensed real estate broker (Real Broker LLC), mortgage loan originator (NMLS #2646598, NEXA Mortgage, LLC, Equal Housing Lender), and life insurance producer (Levinson & Associates). For full disclosures, visit https://bluejeanbroker.com/disclosures.