How to get rid of a mattress in Gunnison, CO.

Companies that come to your home and carry the mattress out, so you need no vehicle. The prices below are starting prices unless stated — stairs, box springs and extra items add to them.

Most charities will not take a used mattress. These are the ones we checked, including the ones that say no.

• The Salvation Army (satruck.org): accepted-items list includes 'Mattresses' and beds; also says local ordinances and need vary by location and to call 1-800-SA-TRUCK to confirm what a local center accepts. Source
• Doesn’t take mattresses. Habitat for Humanity national ReStore guide: 'Mattresses and box springs are not accepted.' Source

Policies vary by branch. Call before you carry one over — we asked each of the big three directly: Goodwill, the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity.

What we established about this city in particular — including where it runs nothing of its own and residents have to look elsewhere.

• Not an option: Gunnison is one of the few towns in this part of Colorado that still collects its own trash: "The City of Gunnison provides residential trash and recycling collection services on a once-a-week schedule", billed on the monthly utility bill. Rates are $41 a month for a 64-gallon cart, $51 for a 96-gallon cart and $32 for a 64-gallon cart collected every other week. Containers must be out no earlier than 6:00 a.m. and no later than 8:00 a.m. on collection day and taken in by 8:00 p.m., with six feet of clearance on all sides; an overfull container whose lid will not close is subject to a $38 overfill fee. The City's list of prohibited items covers exactly what a mattress is: "liquids, motor oil, tires, paint, car batteries, pesticides, weed killer, building materials, rocks or other large items." Yard waste goes to the City Tree Dump rather than into the cart. For anything the cart will not hold the City says to call Public Works at 970-641-8020 to arrange a special pickup. Source Not confirmed: The City refers to special item pickup rates set in its fee schedule but publishes no per-item price online, so what the City charges to collect a mattress - and whether it will collect one at all - is not established.
• Gunnison Municipal Code Chapter 12.60 both compels the use of the City system and excludes a mattress from it. Section 12.60.040 requires all residential users within the city to use the City's collection system unless the public works director finds service cannot safely be provided. Section 12.60.130 then lists what may not be put out: "Prohibited items include: electronic items, tires or wheels, metal, furniture items, construction debris including lumber and pallets, motor oil ... and any hazardous waste", and makes it unlawful to deposit any prohibited item for disposal by the City - so furniture, and with it a mattress, cannot go in the cart or beside it. The same section makes it unlawful to overfill or pile trash on or around the City container, to accumulate refuse in the right-of-way longer than the interval between pickups, and "to deposit any refuse in such manner that it may be carried or deposited by the elements upon any street, sidewalk, alley, sewer or other public place or onto private property within the city". The route out is Section 12.60.060: "Any pickup beyond the approved container may be subject to a special pickup fee as determined by the city's fee schedule. The director reserves the right to refuse any special pickup that is not considered reasonable or would require additional labor or equipment." Section 12.60.050 sets the set-out window - containers placed in the right-of-way no earlier than 6:00 a.m. and no later than 8:00 a.m. on collection day, removed and secured against animals by 8:00 p.m. - requires a clear six-foot radius and a path cleared through snow, allows bearproof containers at the user's expense, and requires any locked container to be unlocked by 8:00 a.m. or face an additional pickup fee. Section 12.60.030 requires an owner or occupant to remove rubble at their own expense within seven days and states that "The regular collection service provided for herein shall not remove rubble". Source
• Not an option: There is nothing mattress-specific in Gunnison or Gunnison County. Colorado runs no statewide mattress recycling program, and the County's 2026 landfill rate sheet treats a mattress purely as a disposal item - a $33 handling fee plus scale weight - while listing recyclable metal at $0 per ton as the only free diverted stream. Neither the County's solid waste pages nor the City of Gunnison names a mattress recycler, a manufacturer or retailer take-back, or a Bye Bye Mattress collection site anywhere in the valley. The nearest published mattress recycling is at the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center near Aspen, which is roughly 160 miles away over two passes - not a realistic trip from Gunnison. A Gunnison mattress goes in the landfill. Source
• Not an option: The Six Points Thrift Store in Gunnison, run by Six Points Evaluation and Training as a resource for clothing and household goods for low-income and at-risk residents of the valley, will not take a mattress. Its donation page lists among the items it does not accept "Large Appliances", "Mattresses or Box Springs", "Metal Bedframes" and "Incomplete/Stained/Damaged Furniture", along with televisions other than flat screens, computer equipment, cell phones, cassette tapes, baby items with safety concerns, exercise equipment, helmets and incomplete toys. Other furniture is accepted only by prior arrangement: the store asks donors to call first at 970-641-3081 and email photographs before bringing furniture in. Donation hours are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 10-3 and Saturday 10:30-2:30. Both the mattress and the bedframe are therefore refused, which rules out the obvious reuse option in Gunnison. Source

• Resources page still labels its rate link 2023 Gate Rate Sheet, while the separate Disposal Rates page links a PDF explicitly titled 2026. Preserve the link-label discrepancy rather than interpreting every resource as current. Source
• CDPHE list of residential materials prohibited from Colorado solid waste sites: lead-acid batteries, free liquids, used oil, waste tires, electronic devices/computers. Mattresses not listed. No statewide mattress stewardship program or landfill ban found on CDPHE pages as of 2026-09-22; mattress disposal is handled by local governments. Source