Five things Nashville bulk pickup will not take

Before the list: check your own address

Collection in Davidson County is not uniform. Whether Metro serves your address or a private hauler does under a building contract, what kind of building you live in, and the current set-out schedule all change the answer. Look up your current Metro bulky-pickup guidance before planning anything, and if you rent in a larger building, ask the office what the contract actually covers.

What does not vary much, anywhere, is the exclusion list. These five categories come off every bulk program for the same reasons.

1. Mattresses and box springs

The most commonly refused item, and the one people are most surprised by.

Mattresses jam compaction equipment. The springs wrap around the machinery, which is a real operational problem rather than a squeamishness one, and it is why they are excluded or separately restricted nearly everywhere. Add that Tennessee has no statewide mattress stewardship program funding recycling, and that no donation center in the metro will take used bedding, and the mattress ends up being the single hardest household item to get rid of here.

What it costs instead: twin $82, full $94, queen $103, king $114, box spring $92, or $143 for a mattress and box spring set.

2. TVs, monitors and screens

Excluded because of what is inside. Tube TVs carry several pounds of leaded glass in the picture tube, and older flat panels frequently use mercury-containing backlight lamps. Neither belongs in a compactor.

This catches a lot of people in the older neighborhoods, because the CRTs are all still out there in the basements of Green Hills and Belmont-Hillsboro houses and the detached garages behind East Nashville and Sylvan Park bungalows. Electronics recycling drop-offs and periodic collection events exist in the metro, but screens are frequently limited or carry a per-item charge, so check current terms before loading the car.

What it costs instead: TV under 42 inches $62, 42 to 65 inches $68, 65 inches and up $73, computer monitor $58, box of assorted electronics $77.

3. Anything with refrigerant

Refrigerators, freezers, window and portable air conditioners, dehumidifiers and outdoor condensers. Federal law requires the refrigerant to be recovered by certified technicians before the unit is scrapped, rather than vented, so these cannot go through a general bulk stream.

Nashville generates a lot of this category. Almost every postwar house in Donelson, Hermitage, Crieve Hall and Madison has a second fridge in the garage, because with no basement the garage is the only storage the house has. And the older duplexes across Inglewood and Woodbine that never got central air are still running window units hard from May through September.

What it costs instead: refrigerator $164, side-by-side or french door $183, chest freezer $146, upright freezer $149, window AC $87 small or $109 large, portable AC $85, outdoor condenser $115. Refrigerant handling is included and never a surcharge.

4. Construction and renovation debris

Bulk pickup is for household goods, not for the output of a project. Drywall, lumber, tile, cabinets, flooring, roofing and concrete are all typically excluded, and the reason is partly weight and partly that it is contractor waste rather than household waste.

This is a live problem across this city given how much renovation is going on. The bungalow kitchen gut-outs across East Nashville, Sylvan Park and 12 South, the tall-skinny builds in The Nations, and the basement finishing work in the older Green Hills and Woodmont houses all produce exactly this, and none of it is going out with the household set-out.

What it costs instead: construction debris $120, concrete and masonry debris $219 per quarter truck, contractor bag $41, 10 bags $132, 20 bags $259, carpet removal $71 per room, rolled carpet $68.

5. Hazardous material, fuels and pressurized tanks

Paint, solvents, pesticides, pool chemicals, motor oil, gasoline, car batteries, propane tanks and fluorescent tubes. Nobody takes these on a bulk stream and nobody should. Check your county's current household hazardous waste guidance, because these are collected through a separate channel entirely.

Nashville garages are full of this category for the same structural reason as everything else: no basements, so the garage absorbed thirty years of half-used paint and lawn chemicals. When you do a garage cleanout, separate these out before anything else, because they are the one thing a junk crew cannot take either.

We remove the rest of the garage. A half truck is $431 and three-quarters is $587.

The pattern behind all five

Bulk collection is designed for one thing: household goods that can be compacted and landfilled safely. Everything on this list breaks one of those conditions. It jams the equipment, it contains something regulated, it is too heavy, or it is not household waste at all.

Which means the exclusion list is stable. It is not going to change next year, and a program in another county will have roughly the same five categories on it.

What one visit looks like

The practical upside is that a single booking can take four of the five categories at once, which a bulk set-out never could.

A typical Donelson garage-and-basement clearout: garage fridge $164 + chest freezer $146 + tube TV under 42 inches $62 + 10 bags of debris $132 = $504. Against the ladder, five-eighths of a truck is $513 and a half is $431, so if it fits in half a truck the $431 bracket is the one to book.

The only thing that has to go a different route is the hazardous material, and that is worth separating onto a shelf before anyone arrives.

Frequently asked questions