Guide
Collection days, bag limits, tags, bulk items, and what changed in 2026.
Halton Region collects Oakville's waste. The Green Cart is collected every week, garbage and Blue Box every other week on the same day, with a three-bag limit before tags. Your day depends on your address; look it up on Halton's schedule tool.
It depends on your address. Halton Region's schedule tool shows your personal calendar for garbage, Green Cart, Blue Box, yard waste and bulk items, and can email or phone you reminders. There is no single Oakville-wide day.
Put everything at the curb by 7 a.m. on your day, and no earlier than 5 p.m. the evening before.
Green Cart (food and organic waste): every week on your collection day. Garbage: once every other week. Blue Box: every other week. Bulk items: every other week with your garbage. Yard waste: from the first week of April to the second week of December, on your regular garbage day.
For the 2025–26 holidays Halton moved collection one day later for Thursday and Friday routes after Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and left Monday to Wednesday routes unchanged. After Christmas you may put out up to three extra untagged garbage bags on your first garbage day. Real Christmas trees are collected in the two weeks after New Year's.
Holiday changes are announced each year. Check the schedule tool for your own address rather than assuming last year's pattern.
Report a missed collection to Halton Region through its missed-collection form or by calling 311. For a missed Blue Box since 1 January 2026, call Miller Waste at 1-855-752-4020, because recycling is now run by Circular Materials Ontario rather than the Region.
Three bags or cans every other week without tags. Anything over three needs a $2 garbage tag, and the most you can put out is six (three untagged plus three tagged). Cans must be 125 litres or smaller, under 23 kg, with no large wheels or permanently attached hinged lid.
These are the rules before wheeled carts arrive. From April 2027 for the first phase of households, and spring 2028 for the second, collection moves to Region-supplied carts and the limits change.
Tags cost $2 each and are sold in sheets of five for $10, ordered online from Halton Region or bought at the Halton Waste Management Site in Milton. Every bag over the three-bag limit needs one.
Yes. Up to three bulk items are collected every other week with your garbage, at no charge. Mattresses must be wrapped in plastic, and bulk items must not be put out in cardboard boxes. Metal items and appliances are collected separately, by appointment, and can take two to three weeks from the request.
The Green Cart is collected weekly and can weigh up to 23 kg (50 lb). Line it with certified compostable bags, paper or newspaper, not plastic. Put it out by 7 a.m.
From the first week of April to the second week of December, on your regular garbage day, in paper yard waste bags or a rigid container with a Halton yard-waste label. Grass clippings are not accepted. Oakville also has a bulk brush call-in collection through 311, and the Town runs a separate loose-leaf collection in the fall.
Since 1 January 2026, Circular Materials Ontario oversees residential Blue Box recycling in Oakville and the rest of Halton, with Miller Waste as the collector. Halton Region no longer manages it, and Blue Boxes are no longer handed out at the Halton Waste Management Site. Collection days did not change with the transfer.
In two phases. Phase One, about 95,000 households, receives carts between January and March 2027 and starts using them in April 2027. Phase Two, about 85,000 households, starts in spring 2028. Each household gets a 240-litre garbage cart and a 120-litre organics cart, and households cannot opt out. Bags beside the cart will need tags, to a maximum of three.
Which phase your street is in has not been published by address. Halton says it will notify households before delivery.
The Halton Waste Management Site is at 5400 Regional Road 25 in Milton, open Monday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The minimum fee is $10, paid by credit or debit only. Household hazardous waste is free, up to 20 litres a day. It is closed on statutory holidays.
No. Halton's sorting guide puts polystyrene foam in the garbage. Use the guide's search to check any other item.
Halton Region
Waste Collection ScheduleHalton Region
Curbside Collection and Waste Sorting GuideHalton Region
Missed CollectionHalton Region
Garbage Bag Tag FormHalton Region
Metal and Appliance CollectionHalton Region
RecyclingHalton Region
Wheeled Cart Waste Collection ProgramHalton Region
Halton Waste Management SiteThe OakvilleIQ Brief
Town and Region decisions that change how Oakville works, once a week.