Rules

What Can and Cannot Go in a Dumpster: The Local List

Four things are barred by state law rather than by us — and all four have a free local route instead.

The short version

If it came out of a building, a yard or a household and it is solid, non-hazardous and not under pressure, it can almost certainly go in the container. If it is liquid, toxic, pressurised, electronic or contains refrigerant, it cannot.

That covers about ninety-five percent of questions. The rest of this is the other five percent, which is where the money and the headaches live.

What you can put in

Household and furniture

Sofas, armchairs, bed frames, mattresses, tables, wardrobes, bookcases, desks, carpet and underlay, rugs, window coverings, toys, books, paperwork, kitchenware, patio furniture, grills with the propane tank removed, exercise equipment and general clutter.

Construction and renovation debris

Drywall, plaster and lath, timber, plywood and sheet goods, doors, windows, trim, kitchen cabinets, countertops, tiling, laminate and vinyl flooring, insulation, siding, soffit and fascia, guttering and fencing.

This is the main reason our containers go out here, because none of it is a curbside item.

Concrete, brick and masonry

All fine, all extremely heavy. Slab, footings, brick, block and pavers belong in a 10 yard, part-filled, and kept clean — clean material has a cheaper route.

Roofing

Composition shingle, felt and underlayment, flashing and decking. Weight is the constraint, not acceptability.

⚠️ The four Illinois law bars outright

These are not our rules and no fee gets round them. Illinois non-hazardous waste landfills are prohibited from accepting them, so our containers cannot take them either.

Hazardous waste — paint, solvents, pesticides, fuel, pool chemicals. Every one has a free route across the river.

Whole tires — free county collection, up to 10 passenger tires a year.

White goods — fridges, freezers, washers, dryers, ranges. Free county collection, up to 4 a year. This is the one that surprises people most, because an old washer looks like exactly the sort of thing a container is for.

Free liquids — anything that would pour if the container tipped. A half-full paint tin, an undrained water heater, a partly full drum. Dried-out paint in an open can is generally fine; liquid is not.

The good news is that all four have a free local route, so the restriction costs you nothing but a phone call.

Everything else that is prohibited

• Batteries of every kind, lithium especially — a real fire risk in a loaded container and on a tipping floor
• Propane, gas and pressurised cylinders, including "empty" ones, and aerosols
• Electronics — televisions, monitors, computers
• Refrigerant-charged equipment that has not been professionally evacuated
• Asbestos-containing material — the landfill accepts it under proper handling, but it never goes in a general container
• Medical and infectious waste, including sharps
• Contaminated soil — pre-approval at the landfill, not a container
• Fluorescent tubes and older ballasts
• Dirt, sod and rock in any quantity without telling us — extremely heavy

The free local routes

Nearly everything above has a proper destination nearby, and most of it is free — though half of it is in another state. The full explanation is here, but in short:

• Paint (free), electronics, gas containers, pesticide cans → Scott Area Landfill, Davenport, Iowa
• Sharps → free rigid containers and returns at the Scott Area Recycling Center, 5640 Carey Avenue, Davenport
• Appliances and tires → free Rock Island County collection, 877-934-5378, 4 appliances and 10 tires a year
• Old gas tanks → a local auto salvage yard, not either landfill
• Drop-off recycling → Scott County sites, open to Rock Island County residents
• Yard waste and bundled brush → City collection in season
• Scrap metal → positive value, and a real trade here

If you are in Henry County — Colona, Geneseo, Orion — the county services differ, so check locally rather than assuming the Rock Island County arrangements apply.

Treated timber and railroad ties

Worth its own section, because it costs people money on almost every outdoor project here.

Clean untreated wood and green waste — branches, brush, prunings — has its own cheaper route.

Treated timber does not. Pressure-treated lumber, painted or stained wood, laminated products and anything with a finish are excluded from the clean stream.

Railroad ties are the local version of this problem. They are everywhere in older landscaping around here, they are heavily treated, and they are extremely heavy. The City's curbside rule requires them cut into 2-foot lengths — which tells you how they are meant to be handled. A retaining wall of them is a container job, not a curbside one.

Tell us which kind of wood you have. A clean load and a treated load go to different places, and mixing them turns the cheap one into the expensive one.

⚠️ Basements are where the problems hide

Nearly every house here has one, and it is where the prohibited items accumulate.

A typical basement in a long-held Quad Cities house holds: paint from four decades of redecorating, fuel for the mower, motor oil, an old chest freezer, a workbench with solvents and adhesives, batteries in tools nobody has used in years, fluorescent tubes from a shop light, and often a second fridge.

Four things that matter:

• Clear the chemicals first, before anything else moves. Once boxes are stacked in front of a shelf, the shelf gets forgotten and the fuel can ends up loaded.
• The freezer and the second fridge are white goods — barred by state law, free county collection instead. Book it early; it is scheduled, not on-demand.
• Check for damp damage. River-city basements take water, and anything that sat wet is heavier and may need different handling.
• Look behind and under everything. Fuel cans and battery packs are small enough to be loaded without anybody noticing, and both are genuine fire risks.

Old boiler and furnace insulation is worth a specific mention too: in a pre-1980 house it may contain asbestos, and it is exactly the sort of thing that gets torn out in a basement clear-out without a second thought.

A pre-load checklist

• Walk the basement, garage and shed and pull every chemical before anything else moves
• Check for batteries: power tools, garden equipment, e-bikes, emergency lights
• Pull out propane cylinders and aerosols, including "empty" ones
• Set electronics aside for the Iowa run
• Book the free appliance and tire pickup — 877-934-5378 — and check for the second fridge
• Drain anything holding liquid, including the water heater
• Decide whether your wood is clean or treated — and keep them apart
• Railroad ties and landscape timber go in the container, not the brush pile
• Separate concrete, masonry and plaster into their own container
• Pull the scrap metal, including cast iron plumbing
• Keep dirt, sod and rock out unless you have told us
• Load flat and heavy first, bulky on top, and stop at the rail