Baltimore County officials first angered residents when they didn’t send out a printed trash and recycling pickup schedule. They further annoyed residents when they sent out one with incorrect holiday collection dates.

According to the online — and correct — schedule, the county recognizes seven holidays: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. If your trash or recycling pickup falls on one of those days, it slides to the next day. So, if Christmas falls on a Tuesday, and that’s your trash day, you’d put out your refuse for pickup on Wednesday.

The printed schedule mailed out last year, though, included three sliding holidays that don’t actually slide. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day, county work crews in fact collect trash as scheduled.

So some county residents did not put out their trash on Monday, believing that no one would come to pick it up. And the trucks that did rumble through neighborhoods to collect trash were not making as many stops as usual due to the dearth of cans and recycling bins on the curb.

Ron Snyder, a spokesperson for the Baltimore County Department of Public Works and Transportation, said the agency has tried valiantly to get the word out that crews are in fact collecting trash on those three holidays despite what the printed schedule said — several Facebook posts, a note in bold on the website, and a lot of outreach to communities so their leaders can broadcast the correct dates.

Many did. “Just a friendly reminder that our regular trash collection is scheduled for tomorrow! This is a slight update from the printed schedule, so please make sure your bins are out,” the Campus Hills Community Association posted. The Ruxton-Riderwood-Lake Roland Area Improvement Association also reminded residents of the error in the printed schedule.

County Council members David Marks, of Upper Falls, and Izzy Patoka, of Pikesville, also posted on Facebook about the error and urged residents to consult the online calendar instead of the printed one.

Snyder is urging residents to view and print a corrected schedule from the website.

The department said in a news release that it apologized for the confusion and “understands the inconvenience and frustration this may have caused and regrets any disruption to residents’ regular service.”

The county’s mistake is a recycling, of a sort. Two years ago, Banner reporter Tim Prudente wrote a Seussian ode to Sept. 31 — a nonexistent date that nonetheless appeared on the city’s calendar; a day when all our urban dreams can come true.