How to get rid of a mattress in Steamboat Springs, 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.

• Steamboat Springs runs no trash collection of its own and offers no city bulky-item or large-item pickup. The City's Recycling page answers the question of who collects by listing private licensed companies instead: under "Residential and Commercial Curbside Services" it names "SRC Recycle and Refuse" and "Apex Waste Solutions", and separately lists "Aces High, Fox Haulers, LLC, JB Junk Solutions" as on-demand haulers and "See Me Compost" for food waste. The page states that "Chapter 19 of the Steamboat Springs Revised Municipal Code (Solid Waste)" requires collectors providing curbside services to provide recycling to residential and commercial customers, and that collectors must be licensed by the City and report tonnage quarterly. The only city-listed drop-off sites are the "Apex SHIFT Center, located at 2701 Downhill Drive", which "accepts electronics and other hard-to-recycle items and recyclables Monday through Friday 9am to 1pm", and the "Steamboat Eco Center, located at 20650 County Rd 205", which "accepts recyclables and electronics Monday through Friday, 8am to 3pm"; both are closed weekends and holidays. Neither drop-off is listed as taking a mattress. The page gives 970-879-2060 for questions. Source Not confirmed: The page publishes no fee for any of the named private collectors, so what a Steamboat resident pays to have a mattress taken is not established from a city source. Not confirmed: The page does not say whether any licensed collector will take a mattress at all, or on what terms.
• The curbside guidelines published by Apex Twin Enviro - Steamboat, one of the two residential collectors the City names, exclude mattresses from curbside collection outright. Under "Not Acceptable in Curbside Trash" the list runs: "Paints, Stains, Paint Thinner, Fuel, Gasoline, Oil, Pesticides, Chemicals, Aerosol Cans, Lead Acid Batteries, Volatile & Flammable Waste, Mattresses, Large Items, Large Metal Pieces", alongside electronics, tires, ink cartridges, fluorescent lightbulbs, refrigerators and hazardous material. The same sheet sets the curbside rules a Steamboat household is held to: "Please have your containers out by 7:00 a.m. on your service days"; "If you miss the driver, you can request an out-of-route service for an additional $25 per trash"; "All waste must be within the container. Additional materials will incur a $20 charge if the material is excessive or above the lid line of the container. The initial $20 charge for excessive material is for the first 2 empties of the container. Each additional empty of container is $10."; and "Be aware that you must comply with Steamboat Springs Bear Ordinance No. 2751 Chapter 19." Multiple bins must be left "at least a 3-foot space between cans". The sheet gives the operator's address as "20650 Cnty. Rd. 205, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487" and its phone as 970-879-6985. Source Not confirmed: The guidelines say a mattress cannot go out at the curb but do not say what the operator will do instead, or at what price. Not confirmed: No equivalent published guideline sheet was established for SRC Recycle and Refuse, the other collector the City names, so its mattress policy is unverified.
• The nearest landfill to Steamboat Springs is the operator's own Steamboat Landfill, described on the Apex Waste Solutions page as serving "residents and businesses throughout the area". The page says "We accept general municipal solid waste, which includes common household and commercial items that do not fall under special or hazardous waste categories", and that "No appointment is necessary for dropping off general waste", asbestos excepted. The only published price on the page is for organics: "We offer organic disposal for $55/ton." The refused list is "Electronic goods containing a circuit board, Tires, Lead acid batteries, Items containing freon, Small engine machines, Anything containing gas or oil, Fluorescent light bulbs or tubes, Aerosol cans, TENORM (radioactive material)" - mattresses are not on the refused list. Recyclables are taken only in designated dumpster units and "there is no public access to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)" at what the same page calls "the Milner landfill". Contact is 970-879-6985. The operator's own curbside guidelines give 20650 Cnty. Rd. 205, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487 as its address, which is the same address the City's Recycling page gives for the Steamboat Eco Center. Source Not confirmed: The landfill page publishes no mattress or box-spring price, no minimum load charge and no per-ton rate for household waste, so what it costs to take a mattress there is not established. Not confirmed: The page publishes no opening hours for public drop-off and no street address of its own. Not confirmed: The page does not state whether a mattress left there is landfilled or recovered.
• Chapter 19 of the Steamboat Springs Revised Municipal Code, rewritten by Ord. No. 2899 of February 14, 2023, is what actually governs putting anything out at the curb here, and it is stricter than most. Sec. 19-103(b): "Non-valet customers with curbside solid waste collection service shall place wildlife-resistant containers at the curb, alley or public right-of-way on the morning of scheduled collection no earlier than 6.00 a.m. After collection, all containers must be removed from the curb, alley or public right-of-way on the same day." Sec. 19-101(b) requires that any solid waste container left outside a house, garage or other enclosed building which is accessible by wildlife and receives attractant waste be a wildlife-resistant container, a wildlife-resistant dumpster, or enclosed by a wildlife-resistant enclosure; Sec. 19-1 defines a wildlife-resistant container as one "certified to be bear-resistant by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC)". Sec. 19-102(a) requires containers, dumpsters and enclosures to be "closed and secured when attractant solid waste is not being deposited". Sec. 19-104(a) makes it unlawful for an owner or person in charge of a property "to permit the accumulation on the property of solid waste attractive to or edible by wildlife", and 19-104(b) says such a property "may be deemed to be a nuisance as defined in section 15-2 of this Code and treated accordingly". Sec. 19-107(a) provides that "The municipal court is hereby authorized to establish a penalty schedule for violations of this article", with mandatory minimum fines that "may increase for repeat and multiple offenders", and 19-107(b) preserves the court's power to impose a greater fine up to its jurisdictional limit. Chapter 19 also sets the collector-side fines - $250, $500 and $999 for first, second and third violations under Secs. 19-28(d) and 19-30(a). Source Not confirmed: Chapter 19 contains no mattress-specific rule and no bulky-item or large-item provision at all: it regulates containers, attractants and collectors, not furniture set-out. Not confirmed: The code delegates the actual fine amounts for resident violations to a municipal court penalty schedule that is not published in the code, so the dollar figure a resident would face is not established.
• LiftUp of Routt County, the main local reuse charity in Steamboat Springs, will not take a mattress. Its Donation Center page, for the site at "2125 Curve Court / 970-879-3374", open "Tuesday & Thursday 10 AM - 4 PM" and "Saturday 11 AM-3 PM", lists "Mattresses/box springs" among the items it does not accept, alongside ammunition, antifreeze, chemicals, cleaners, building supplies, cabinetry, car seats, computer equipment, electric blankets, helmets, cribs, large appliances, large plumbing fixtures, motor oil, paint, phones, propane tanks, textbooks, typewriters, CRT televisions, "Used bed pillows", VHS tapes and cassettes. Furniture is otherwise taken case by case - dining tables, exercise equipment, recliners, bed frames, chairs, shelves, TV stands, bicycles and patio furniture are named - so a bed frame can be donated here even though the mattress on it cannot. Drop-off is capped at "6 boxes or 6 bags per household, per day", clothing must be bagged and hard goods boxed, and items must be free of "holes, stains, broken zippers, worn elastic or missing buttons". Source
• There is nothing mattress-specific in Steamboat Springs. Colorado runs no statewide mattress recycling program, and the two recycling drop-offs the City itself directs residents to take neither mattresses nor box springs: the Apex SHIFT Center at 2701 Downhill Drive is described as accepting "electronics and other hard-to-recycle items and recyclables" Monday through Friday 9am-1pm, and the Steamboat Eco Center at 20650 County Rd 205 as accepting "recyclables and electronics" Monday through Friday 8am-3pm. No mattress recycler, no Bye Bye Mattress or MRC collection site and no take-back program appears anywhere on the City's own solid waste pages. Source Not confirmed: The City page lists what the two drop-offs accept but does not publish an explicit refusal of mattresses, so this is an absence from a published list rather than a stated exclusion.

• 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