Pricing

What Does a Dumpster Actually Cost in Moline?

The landfill is seven minutes away and half the free routes are in another state. Knowing where each stops tells you when you need us.

The honest answer up front

Most dumpster rentals around Moline land between roughly $340 and $610. A 10 yard for a bathroom renovation sits near the bottom. A 30 yard on a job site or a barn clearance sits near the top. Concrete, plaster and roofing push it higher because they are charged by weight.

That is a wide range, and anyone quoting a single number without asking what you are throwing away is guessing.

One genuine local advantage: the county landfill is seven minutes away in East Moline. An operator hauling out of the area carries that distance somewhere in their price.

What a flat rate should include

• Delivery to your address
• The rental period — the days it sits on site
• Collection when you are done
• Disposal at a permitted facility
• An included weight allowance, stated in tons before you book

If a quote does not cover all five clearly, it is not a flat rate. The usual omission is the weight allowance, and it is not an accident.

The five things that move the price

1. Container size

The obvious one, though much of the cost is the truck movement rather than the steel box.

2. What the material weighs

Disposal is charged by the ton. A 20 yard of brush might weigh under two tons; the same container of concrete could weigh forty and never leave your driveway. This is the biggest variable there is — and in winter, snow is part of it.

3. The material stream

Clean segregated material disposes more cheaply than mixed waste. Clean concrete and masonry have their own route, clean brush has its own, and scrap metal has positive value.

4. How long you keep it

The standard period is built into the flat rate; extensions run at a modest daily rate. Ask what it is.

5. Distance and access

A Moline or East Moline driveway is quicker to serve than a run out to Geneseo or up to Port Byron. And on a narrow older street or a steep river-village drive we may quote a smaller container with a swap — that is us pricing what will actually work rather than turning up and failing.

What is already free around here

The Quad Cities gives residents more free disposal than most places, and we would rather you used it.

• Free appliance and tire collection for Rock Island County residents — up to 4 appliances and 10 passenger tires a year, on 877-934-5378. Not available in Henry County or across the river in Scott County.
• Free paint disposal at the Scott Area Landfill in Davenport, Iowa — oil-based and latex, no charge.
• Electronics, gas containers and pesticide cans — also the Scott Area facilities.
• Free sharps containers for Rock Island County residents at the Scott Area Recycling Center.
• Drop-off recycling at Scott County sites, open to Rock Island County residents — one of them around the clock.
• Free yard waste stickers in two windows a year — roughly two weeks in spring and eight in autumn. Detail here.
• Bundled brush collected free on your regular garbage day.
• Curbside bulky pickup for genuine household bulk.

Working through that list costs nothing and handles a great deal of a small job.

Where the free routes stop

Three hard edges.

Construction and demolition debris is not a curbside item. Bulky collection takes household bulk; drywall, plaster, cabinetry, flooring and roofing are a different stream and need the landfill or a container.

Unbundled brush is prepaid by volume — $30 for the first 2.5 cubic yards and $40 for each additional 2.5. On a tree job that climbs past container pricing faster than people expect, and the container takes the trunk sections and stumps that brush collection will not touch at all.

Four things are barred by Illinois law from any non-hazardous landfill, and therefore from our containers: hazardous waste, whole tires, white goods and anything containing free liquids. Detail here. Every one of those has a free local route instead, which is the good news.

Where the extra fees come from

The dry run is the only genuinely avoidable one, and around here it is usually snow, grade or a narrow older street that causes it.

Broker pricing, and three local tests

A broker owns no trucks and no containers. They run a website that ranks, take your booking and your card, then sell the job to a local hauler for less than you paid. The gap is their margin.

Three questions that sort it out quickly.

• Ask what the brush prepayment is. $30 for the first 2.5 cubic yards, $40 for each additional. Customers ask about it constantly, so anyone local knows it.
• Ask which county gets the free appliance pickup. Rock Island County — not Henry, not Scott. Getting that right requires actually working here.

Ways to genuinely reduce the cost

• Book the free appliance and tire pickup first if you are in Rock Island County.
• Take the paint and electronics to Iowa on one planned run. Free, and they cannot go in a container anyway.
• Time yard work to the free sticker windows — spring and autumn.
• Bundle the brush. Bundled is free; unbundled is prepaid by the cubic yard.
• Separate the concrete and masonry. Cheapest route, heaviest material, biggest single saving.
• Pull the scrap metal. Cast iron plumbing from an older house is worth real money.
• Cut green waste down. A tree loaded whole takes three or four times the space of the same tree cut into lengths.
• Keep it dry. Ask for a cover in winter — snow and rain are weight you pay for.
• Tell us about the drive, the grade and the snow. It costs nothing and prevents the one genuinely avoidable fee.