Five things bulk pickup will not take in Chicago

Before the list: check your own page

Chicago, Evanston, Oak Park, Berwyn, Cicero and Skokie each write their own bulky-item rules, and they update them. There is also a split inside the city: whether your building is on municipal service or a private scavenger contract usually depends on how many units it has, and a larger building is outside the municipal program altogether.

So read your own municipality's current bulky-item page before you plan anything. What follows is the shape of the exclusions, which is remarkably consistent across the region, plus the published price for handling each one the other way.

1. Televisions, monitors and computers

Electronics are handled separately from household waste in Illinois, which means they are not simply a heavy item that a bulky route picks up. They are their own stream, with their own drop-off arrangements that vary by municipality and county.

This is why the flat panel leaned against the alley carts is still there a week later, and why the tube television in the bungalow basement never went anywhere at all. A CRT is the worst case: it weighs more than a washer, it has a glass front, and it is at the bottom of narrow stairs with a turn.

2. Refrigerators, freezers and anything with a sealed refrigerant circuit

Refrigerant-bearing appliances need to be processed by someone set up to recover the refrigerant, which is exactly why bulky routes exclude them or attach conditions to them.

In Chicago this bites hardest because of where the second refrigerator lives: the garage off the alley, or the basement. A unit that has been the beer fridge since 2009 and finally died is not going out with the carts, and nobody should be cutting the lines in the alley to strip the compressor either.

Correct refrigerant handling is inside those prices. There is no refrigerant fee and no environmental fee.

3. Construction and renovation debris

Municipal bulky collection is for household goods. It is not for the output of a job site, and the metro is full of job sites, because this is a city that gut-rehabs its own housing stock continuously.

A graystone rehab in Logan Square or a two-flat conversion in Avondale produces cabinets, interior doors, drywall, lumber, tile, and a row of cast iron radiators in the side yard. None of that is a household bulky item, and a pile of it behind a building reads unmistakably as a contractor load, which is the version that gets pursued.

Concrete and masonry are priced separately from general debris for a simple reason: a quarter truck of brick weighs many times what a quarter truck of cabinets weighs.

4. Tires

Tires are excluded from ordinary collection essentially everywhere, and they are one of the most reliable objects in a Chicago garage. Winter takeoffs that nobody swapped back. The set that came off the car before it was sold. The one that has been leaning against the side wall since the previous owner.

A single tire at $22 is well under the $75 visit minimum, so this is a classic item to add to something else. If the garage is being cleared anyway, they go with it: four tires at $87 and a lawn mower at $65 is $87 + $65 = $152.

5. Paint, propane and household chemicals

Liquids and pressurised containers are excluded from bulky routes for obvious reasons, and they accumulate on Chicago garage shelves faster than anything else because nobody knows what to do with them.

Two of them we handle directly:

Genuinely hazardous household chemicals are a different matter, and they belong at a household hazardous waste collection rather than on a truck. Solvents, pesticides, pool chemicals, automotive fluids: hold those back and take them to a proper collection. Check your county's current household hazardous waste page for where and when.

The honourable mention: mattresses

Mattresses are not universally excluded, but they are universally conditional. Programs around the metro that accept them tend to require them sealed in plastic, set out inside a specific window, and sometimes requested in advance. The reason is bed bugs, and it is a good reason on a block where six buildings share one alley.

A queen mattress is $103, a twin is $82, a king is $114, a box spring is $92, and a mattress and box spring go together as a set at $143. If you are going to set one out instead, wrap it and keep it inside until the window opens.

Putting the excluded pile in one truck

The pattern behind all five categories is the same: they are the things that require a specific downstream handler, so a general route cannot take them. Which also means they tend to pile up together, in the same garage, waiting for the same decision.

Portage Park garage, everything the alley would not take. Four tires at $87, a 5-gallon bucket of paint at $52, a propane tank at $33: $87 + $52 + $33 = $172.

Avondale basement after a kitchen rehab. Full kitchen cabinet set at $293, two cast iron radiators at $123 each: $293 + $123 + $123 = $539.

Rogers Park apartment clear-out. A 55-inch TV at $68, a monitor at $58, a mini fridge at $115: $68 + $58 + $115 = $241.

If the pile has passed the point of being a list, the truck-fill steps take over: $241 for a quarter, $431 for a half, $732 for a full load.

Frequently asked questions