Bulky items and furniture
Mattresses, sofas, appliances and other items too large for the cart, and the appointment, quota or fee that moves them.
How to Dispose of a Refrigerator or Freezer Safely
An old fridge still holds refrigerant. Book a city pickup, a store haul-away or a utility program.
How to dispose of a microwave: bulk pickup or drop-off
No federal rule covers microwaves. Minnesota bans them from the trash; cities use bulk pickup or drop-off.
Mattress disposal: how to get rid of one without guessing
A mattress is bulky. Stewardship drop-off exists in four states. Everywhere else the answer is local.
Bulky items rarely follow the weekly cart: a city books an appointment with a yearly cap, takes a quota of items set out with the cart, or sends the load to a transfer station that charges by weight. The guides here cover each item’s own rule, the stewardship programs that take some of them back, and the city editions where we have checked the local answer.
Where to start
Open mattresses for the four Bye Bye Mattress states and the local options everywhere else, microwaves for Minnesota’s trash ban and the bulky, appointment and drop-off routes in Saint Paul, Denver and Austin, refrigerators and freezers for why the refrigerant has to be recovered and the appliance pickups in Denver, Los Angeles and Chicago, and bulk pickup for what each pilot city does with a sofa, a pile of branches or an appliance. Phoenix books bulk by appointment, Saint Paul takes twelve items a year with the cart, Middlebury weighs the load. The Mattress Recycling Council listing explains the drop-off program, drop-off locations lists the sites we have checked, and dump near me searches the landfills and transfer stations by ZIP code.