How to get rid of a mattress in Decatur, GA.

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.

• Sources disagree: Two official pages disagree about who collects a mattress in Decatur, and which one is right changes both who a resident rings and whether they pay. DeKalb County's Department of Solid Waste Management names Decatur as one of its customer cities in its own words: it serves "unincorporated DeKalb County and the cities of Brookhaven, Decatur, Dunwoody, Lithonia, Pine Lake, Stonecrest, Stone Mountain, and Tucker", and its Bulky Items page heads the list "Bulky Items (Fee Required)", names "Mattresses and box springs" on it, assesses the item on site and takes payment before collection. The City of Decatur, on the other hand, publishes its own sanitation service on four collection days from Public Works at 2635 Talley St., and its Pay As You Throw page states that "Residents pay a nominal annual fee for trash, yard waste, recyclables, bulky item collections, and street sweeping" - a fee rising from $350 to $360 a household on July 1, 2026. On that reading a Decatur household's bulky collection is already paid for and the county's fee does not arise. Neither page mentions the other, and nothing published says whether DeKalb operates the route Decatur bills for, whether the county's service-area list is out of date, or whether the two run in parallel. Both routes are listed on this page for that reason. A Decatur resident should start with the city, because the city is the body that bills them and names bulky collection in what the bill buys. Source Not confirmed: Whether DeKalb County Solid Waste operates the bulky collection that Decatur's annual fee pays for, or runs a separate chargeable route alongside it, is published nowhere. Not confirmed: No figure is published for an ordinary bulky item on the county route: the county's fee table begins at the heavier Special Collection tier ($115 minimum), so what a Decatur household would be charged if the county route applied could not be established.
• Decatur's Pay As You Throw page says what the annual fee buys: "Residents pay a nominal annual fee for trash, yard waste, recyclables, bulky item collections, and street sweeping." So bulky-item collection is part of the annual sanitation fee and is not billed per pickup, and the only per-use charge is the PAYT bag ("Residents purchase special PAYT trash bags from local stores and markets"; the price per pack of ten includes the bag, sales tax and landfill tipping fee). Current bag prices on the Solid Waste Collection page: 8-gallon $4.86, 15-gallon $8.64, 33-gallon $18.36 per ten-pack. Source Not confirmed: The page does not name a mattress among the bulky items. Not confirmed: No allowance or limit on bulky items is published, so 'included in the annual fee' cannot be read as 'unlimited'.
• A May 1, 2026 City release says the single-family residential sanitation fee "will increase from $350 to $360 per household for the upcoming fiscal year", approved by the City Commission on March 2 and effective July 1, 2026, funding "pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) garbage collection, yard waste pickup, commingled recycling, and separate glass recycling" and community services including electronics recycling, document shredding and "neighborhood cleanup events". PAYT bag prices and commercial fees stay the same. Households with the S-2 homestead exemption keep fee offsets for solid waste and stormwater. The release does not mention bulky items. Source Not confirmed: The release says nothing about bulky-item collection or mattresses.
• Decatur holds an annual Neighborhood Cleanup event, each street assigned one Saturday. The spring 2026 cleanup days began on March 7, 2026. Per the City's page: "Residents can dispose of bulky materials during the annual Neighborhood Cleanup event", items are to be "placed at the curb no later than 7:30 am", and "Items set out later risk not being collected". Acceptable items: "Yard trimmings & building materials not from the work of private contractors", "Tires", "Furniture", "Appliances not containing Freon" and "Trash not normally placed in pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) bags". Not collected: liquids, dirt, bricks and blocks, stone, rocks or concrete, and motor vehicle batteries or parts. A mattress is on neither list. Source Not confirmed: A mattress is named neither as accepted nor as refused in the cleanup lists; 'Furniture' is the only nearby category. Not confirmed: The 2027 cleanup dates are not published on the page reviewed.
• Decatur's Code of Ordinances, Chapter 82 (Solid Waste), sets the rules. Sec. 82-34(e): the occupant must put containers out "at or before 7:30 a.m. or prior to the arrival of the collectors", not "before 5:00 p.m. on the day prior to collection day", and "Yard trimmings, furniture and appliances shall be placed at the curb as close as practical to the next collection day"; 82-34(f) requires containers removed "not later than 12:00 midnight on the day the contents are collected". Sec. 82-32(2): "large items such as furniture shall be set on the curb separately from yard trimmings and metal appliances". Sec. 82-33(g): a commercial container holding "Bed springs and mattresses" (among furniture, appliances, tires and other items) "shall not be emptied until such items are removed", the only place the code names a mattress. Sec. 82-34(b)(5) says "The city shall not be responsible for collecting or hauling discarded building material, dirt, rock or discarded furniture and appliances from private property" and heads the paragraph "Collection on special fee basis"; Sec. 82-37 says when the sanitation director authorizes collection of refuse that does not meet the chapter's standards the special charge is "based upon the actual time required at the rate as set forth in the schedule of fees and charges" and is a lien on the property. Sec. 82-38(b): "It shall be a violation of this chapter for any person, not approved by the city, to collect and haul any refuse or recyclables other than that arising from said person's own accumulation. All areas are serviced by the city." Sec. 82-3: any violation is punishable "according to the provisions of section 1-12". The litter article's Sec. 82-55(c) adds cost recovery for removal, discretionary court-ordered clean-up of up to one mile of road and publication of the offender's name, and likewise sets the punishment by section 1-12. Inspectors may issue a summons to municipal court (82-2). Source Not confirmed: The fine and jail term in Sec. 1-12 were not read, so no dumping penalty figure is given. Not confirmed: The code speaks of a 'special fee basis' for discarded furniture from private property, while the City's web page says bulky items are collected free with regular sanitation; the schedule of fees and charges that would reconcile them was not found. Not confirmed: The code sets no limit on how many bulky items a household may put out.
• Not an option: Atlanta Habitat for Humanity's ReStore donation page lists "Mattresses & Box Springs*" under "Items That We DO NOT Accept" (the asterisk: "Conditional acceptance is possible if the item is BRAND NEW ONLY"), and adds elsewhere: "we are unable to accept non-working appliances, used batteries, electronics, florescent lighting, mattresses, or paint". Its two ReStores are at 271 Chester Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30316 and 5626 Old National Hwy, College Park, GA 30349, open Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Atlanta Habitat, not Decatur Area Habitat, which is a different organization in Alabama.) A used mattress will be turned away. Source Not confirmed: Whether a brand-new mattress is accepted is left to a call to the store.
• Not an option: Goodwill of North Georgia's "Items We Do and Don't Accept" page lists "Mattresses" and "Box springs" under "ITEMS WE CANNOT ACCEPT", alongside bedframes, cribs, car seats, water-soaked or stained items and large appliances. A used mattress will be turned away at its donation centers. Source

• Georgia EPD recycling resources page sends residents to Earth911's ZIP-code locator and the Georgia Recycling Coalition. It notes scrap tires are banned from Georgia landfills but lists no mattress rule. No statewide mattress stewardship program or landfill ban found on Georgia EPD pages as of 2026-09-22; mattress disposal is handled by local governments. Source