Mattress disposal rules in Nashville: what you can and cannot do

The short answer

Three things decide what you are allowed to do with a mattress in Nashville: Metro's collection rules for your specific service address, your building's rules if you rent, and Tennessee's rules on illegal dumping.

What none of them give you is a free recycling route. A few states run mandatory mattress stewardship programs funded by a fee when you buy the bed. Tennessee is not one of them, so there is no state-run take-back here.

The flat alternative, carried out from any floor with disposal included: twin $82, full $94, queen $103, king or Cal King $114, box spring any size $92, mattress and box spring set $143.

What the rules actually depend on

People want a single citywide answer and there isn't one, because collection in Davidson County is not uniform. What applies to you turns on:

• Whether Metro collects at your address at all. Some properties, particularly larger multi-family buildings, are served by a private hauler under contract instead. If that is you, the building's contract sets the rules, not Metro's.
• What kind of building it is. Single-family and small multi-family are treated differently from apartment complexes with shared containers.
• The set-out window. Bulky items are collected on a schedule, not on demand, and putting something out outside that window is what turns a legal set-out into a codes complaint.

Look up the current Metro bulky-pickup guidance for your address before anything goes to the street. We are not going to print a schedule or a fee here, because it changes and a wrong number is worse than no number.

Bagging and encasement

The expectation almost everywhere is that a mattress going out for collection is bagged or wrapped in plastic. Whether it is phrased as a requirement or a request depends on who is collecting, but treat it as mandatory for practical reasons.

Wrapping does three things. It stops the mattress absorbing rain, which in this city is the difference between a two-person carry and a four-person one. It contains anything living in it, which is the actual reason collectors care. And it keeps a wet mattress from leaving a stain on the sidewalk that outlasts the mattress.

Wrap it in the bedroom, before it moves. Wrapping a queen on a narrow East Nashville sidewalk with one roll of plastic and no help is a job nobody enjoys.

Why the curb goes wrong here specifically

Even where set-out is permitted, Middle Tennessee weather makes the timing unforgiving.

A mattress put out on a Friday for a mid-week collection sits through whatever the weather does, and in this city between roughly May and September that includes afternoon thunderstorms and dew points high enough that nothing dries afterwards. A soaked queen gains serious water weight, starts to smell within a day or two, and becomes a mold problem in the seams by the end of the week.

Then there is the volume problem. In late July and the first week of August, when leases across Midtown, Hillsboro Village, West End and 12 South all turn at once and students arrive at Vanderbilt, Belmont, Lipscomb, TSU and Fisk, mattresses appear on curbs across those neighborhoods faster than anything can collect them. A set-out that would be fine in October sits for two weeks in August.

The routes that are closed to you

Save yourself the phone calls.

• Donation. Centers along Charlotte Pike, Nolensville Pike and Gallatin Pike do not take used mattresses. Resale of used bedding is tightly restricted and the bed bug liability is why. This is close to universal, not a local quirk.
• Consignment and resale shops. Same answer.
• The dumpster behind a business. That container is rented by somebody who pays by weight. Using it is illegal dumping, not a loophole.
• An apartment compactor you no longer live at. Also dumping, and easily traced back, because mattresses carry law tags and delivery labels.

The one free route that sometimes exists is retailer haul-away when a new bed is delivered. Arrange it when you order, not on delivery day, and expect it to be conditional on the new set being the same size.

Illegal dumping, and how people get caught

Abandoning a mattress on a roadside, a vacant lot or someone else's property is an enforced offense in Davidson County and across Tennessee. Check Metro's current illegal dumping information for penalties; we are not going to quote a figure that may be out of date.

The enforcement reality is worth knowing. The quiet stretches at the edges of the county are exactly where this happens and exactly where it gets watched. Dump sites get cleared and the contents get searched, and a mattress is one of the easiest things to trace, because every one carries a law tag and most still have a delivery label or a store sticker on the underside of the set.

What the flat route costs

Take the set price when both are going: $143, rather than $103 + $92 = $195 for a queen and its box spring. A full bedroom out: set $143 + frame $68 + dresser $126 = $337.

Carried from any floor, so a third-floor bedroom in a Nations tall-skinny is the same price as a ground-floor unit in Antioch. No stair charge, disposal included, and the per-visit minimum is $75, which every mattress size already clears.

What to do, in order

If a new bed is coming, arrange haul-away at the point of order. If not, check your current Metro bulky-pickup page for your address and find out whether you have a set-out option and when the window is. If you do, wrap the mattress in the bedroom and put it out the morning of collection, never days early.

If you do not have a set-out option, or the date is too far out, or the mattress is above the ground floor and there is nobody to carry it, book the flat price. A queen is $103 and it goes on a day you choose.

Frequently asked questions