Local Rules

Bulky Pickup: The Rules Are Oddly Specific

Every one of these rules exists because somebody put something out that hurt a crew member or broke a truck.

How it works

Moline collects bulky household items at the curb, placed at your regular garbage pickup location. The principle is simple: a neatly stacked pile, at the usual spot, with room around it.

Small items — clothes, dishes, toys — must be kept together in a bag, box or container rather than loose. Loose small items blow around, they cannot be picked up by hand efficiently, and half of them end up in a neighbour's garden.

What makes Moline's version worth reading is the preparation rules, which are more specific than most cities bother with.

⚠️ The three preparation rules

These three catch nearly everybody, and every one of them exists for a reason you can work out.

Carpet must be cut into 3-foot-wide sections, rolled, and secured.

A whole room of carpet dragged to the curb in one piece is enormously heavy, impossible to lift cleanly and liable to unroll across the street. Three feet wide, rolled, tied. Cut it as you pull it rather than afterwards — it is far easier while it is still flat on the floor.

Wood with nails or staples must have them hammered down or removed.

This is a crew safety rule and it is not negotiable. Anyone lifting a board with protruding nails is going to get hurt eventually. Take the two minutes with a hammer.

Railroad ties must be cut into 2-foot lengths.

Full-length ties are far too heavy to lift by hand and they are common here in old landscaping. Two feet.

Worth adding what the City does not have to say: railroad ties are treated timber, heavily so. They are not yard waste, they never belong in a green load, and if you have a lot of them they are usually a container job rather than a curbside one.

The clearance rule

The same three-foot clearance that applies to your carts applies here: leave at least 3 feet of clearance on each side of your cart, and keep the pile clear of parked vehicles, utility poles and mailboxes.

This is about the truck's arm being able to reach without hitting something. A cart pressed against a parked car cannot be serviced, and neither can a bulky pile wedged between a pole and a hedge.

Related, and worth repeating because it is the most common reason something gets left: waste piled on the ground around a container will not be picked up unless it is arranged the way the City describes. Putting extra bags beside a full cart does not work.

And carts go out by 6:30 a.m. with lids closed.

What it will not take

Bulky collection is for household bulk. It is not a renovation route, and the exclusions are real:

• Construction and demolition debris — drywall, timber, cabinetry, flooring, roofing
• Hazardous materials of any kind
• Televisions, computers and electronics — those go across the river to Iowa
• Tires — free county collection instead, 877-934-5378
• Appliances and white goods — free county collection, same number
• Dirt, sod and rock
• Yard waste — an entirely separate stream with its own rules

The first line is the one that matters for anyone renovating. A vanity, a run of cabinets or a stack of drywall is construction debris regardless of being furniture-shaped or household-sized.

East Moline says it plainly

Neighboring East Moline runs its own bulky service — up to four collections a year for a prepaid fee — and its guidance contains a sentence worth quoting because most cities leave it implied.

That is a municipality stating the boundary directly: curbside bulk is for the sofa and the mattress, and a house clearance is a different kind of job requiring a different kind of service.

East Moline's sticker system gives a useful sense of scale too — one sticker covers roughly two larger items and six bags or boxes, loose items must be bagged or boxed and under 50 lb, and carpet rolls must be no longer than 4 feet, rolled, tied and under 50 lb each.

Its rules are not Moline's, and each city we serve sets its own. But the underlying logic is the same everywhere in the Quad Cities.

Where the limits actually bite

The crossover is roughly a weekend's serious work, or any job that produces construction material at all.

Using it properly before you call us

We would rather you spent the free routes first and hired a smaller container.

• Book the free appliance and tire pickup if you are in Rock Island County — 4 appliances and 10 tires a year, 877-934-5378.
• Put genuine household bulk at the curb, prepared to the rules.
• Cut and roll the carpet as you lift it. Far easier than afterwards.
• Hammer the nails down. Two minutes.
• Sell or donate anything with life in it.
• Take the electronics and paint to Iowa on one planned run rather than three.
• Then size the container for what is genuinely left — usually less than people assume.

A pre-collection checklist

• Pile neatly stacked at the regular pickup location
• 3 feet of clearance each side, clear of cars, poles and mailboxes
• Small items bagged or boxed, not loose
• Carpet cut to 3-foot widths, rolled and secured
• Wood with nails or staples hammered down or removed
• Railroad ties cut to 2-foot lengths
• Carts out by 6:30 a.m., lids closed
• No construction debris, electronics, tires, appliances, dirt or sod
• Nothing extra piled loose around the cart — it will not be taken
• For a whole house, book a container from the start