If Orange County picks up your garbage, your collection days are changing.
The system-wide adjustment, which starts Monday, Dec. 29, affects all 235,000 residential households served by the county’s contract waste-haulers — Waste Pro, Waste Management, FCC Environmental Services and new hauler, Green For Life Environmental Services.
The collection-day shift is part of reoriented approach that will move garbage and recycling pickups to separate days and be accompanied by a 33 percent hike in fees.
“There will be no reduction in services,” said Jamie Floer, spokesperson for Orange County Utilities, which twice mailed notices of the upcoming schedule changes to customers. “Once-a-week recycling, yard waste, garbage, and large item collections will continue.”
Since 2016, once-a-week curbside garbage collection in Orange County has been handled by contract haulers with fleets of trucks, powered by natural gas and equipped with robotic arms to lift 95-gallon roll carts and dump the contents into an opening in the truck’s covered bed.
Floer said it will be more efficient to collect recycling materials in blue-top roll carts and yard waste on a separate day from the collection of garbage in green-top roll carts and large items like appliances and furniture. She said the strategy is intended to limit the number of roll carts at a curb, especially in front of townhouses and in cul-de-sacs, where clusters of carts can impede a garbage truck’s robotic arm.
Carts should be spaced at least three feet apart to allow for efficient function of the robotic arm.
To check your collection day, visit ocfl.net/CollectionSchedule.
If you can’t find your new collection days, call the Solid Waste Hotline at 407-836-6601 for help or email Solid.Waste@ocfl.net.
In June, county commissioners agreed to raise the customer fee for curbside collection by $100 to $400 a year.
The board’s unanimous vote followed a presentation by David Gregory, manager of the solid waste division, who attributed the higher fee to changes in the marketplace and additional contract provisions requiring haulers to have spare trucks in case of breakdowns.
The contracts were competitively procured, he said.
“These trucks all have GPS (tracking) devices so we know that they went down every road they’re supposed to and fitted with cameras so we can also check whether the roll cart was out or not when the truck drove past,” Gregory said, citing additional requirements.
Gregory said Orange County’s fee is in line with those of other urban Florida counties. Miami-Dade ( $697), Palm Beach ($486.27) and Hillsborough ($477.87) counties all charge more, according to Gregory who listed their 2025 fees, while Osceola ($381.98) and Broward ($370) counties charge less.
Orange County’s updated customer cost is also now higher than the sanitation annual fees charged in 2025 by Orange County’s largest municipalities: Orlando ($270.56), Apopka ($277.56), Winter Garden ($291.84), Ocoee ($306.65) and Winter Park ($342).
Though hiccups might be expected, haulers were supposed to perform practice runs on their routes to be ready to go Dec. 29.
shudak@orlandosentinel.com