Legal Services

	"We've got some scrap materials from a recent project that isn't worth anything. Do we have to treat it as salvage property, or can we just skip all that and recycle it?"

Does the county have authority to discard materials as waste?

Local Government Code §263.151 defines “salvage property” as personal property, other than items routinely discarded as waste, that because of time, accident, or any other cause is so worn, damaged, or obsolete that it has no value for the purpose for which it was originally intended. A commissioners court has implied authority to use recycling programs for the disposition of routinely discarded county waste. See AG Opinion No. KP-0420 (2022). Whether the scrap material in question is “routinely discarded as waste” is a factual determination made by the commissioners court and the county attorney.