
Each garbage collection facility that you build in Cities: Skylines comes with its own fleet of garbage trucks. These trucks drive around your streets collecting garbage from zoned buildings and service buildings, then bring it back to waste facilities for processing or storing.
The different garbage facilities each spawn different numbers of trucks:
Building | Unlocked at | Build Cost (₡) | DLC | Number of Trucks |
---|---|---|---|---|
Landfill Site | Little Hamlet | 4,000 | none | 15 |
Recycling Center | Little Hamlet | 16,000 | Green Cities | 15 |
Incineration Plant | Big Town | 30,000 | none | 27 |
Waste Disposal Unit | Big Town | 30,000 | Modern Japan | 27 |
Waste Transfer Facility | Grand City | 20,000 | Sunset Harbor | 20 |
Wate Processing Complex | Grand City | 100,000 | Sunset Harbor | 15 |
Ultimate Recycling Center (Monument) | Megalopolis | 750,000 | Green Cities | 100 |

Note: The garbage trucks from the Waste Processing Complex are an exception in that they do not collect trash from the rest of your buildings. They only collect garbage from landfills and waste transfer facilities.
Why Aren’t The Trucks Reaching Some of My Buildings?
Garbage trucks in the game can travel very long distances. However, each truck has a limited capacity.
Once a garbage truck is full, it will automatically turn back to its origin facility to deliver the garbage.
Because of this, it’s possible that some of your buildings that are farther away from your facilities might not be getting their trash collected; the trucks might be full before they can reach those places.

If this is the case, the solution is to simply build an additional garbage facility a little closer to the problem areas.
Managing Garbage Truck Traffic
The fleets of your garbage facilities are somewhat large, and can potentially cause a lot of traffic as they pull into and out of their buildings. It’s always a good idea to keep these buildings away from busy intersections and roundabouts.
It’s best if you give your garbage buildings their own access road, away from other buildings.
How To Adjust the Number of Garbage Trucks
The number of trucks that can be spawned by a garbage management building depends on the budget.
Early in the game, when you have a fairly small population, you likely won’t need all 15 trucks of the landfill site or the recycling center
It can be a good idea at this point to lower your garbage budget, as this will allow you to cut back on upkeep.
Simply raise the budget back up incrementally as your population grows.

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Cities: Skylines
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