How to get rid of a mattress in Alton, IL.

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.

• Alton's set-out window is 24 hours, front and back, and it is in the ordinance rather than in a hauler leaflet. Sec. 5-2-2(B): "No resident shall place or permit any garbage or refuse to be placed in the front yard of a residence more than twenty four (24) hours prior to the regular scheduled trash pick up by the city. Further, no resident shall place or permit any garbage or refuse to be placed in the rear yard or side yard between a residential structure and an adjacent street more than twenty four (24) hours prior to the regular scheduled trash pick up by the city." Sec. 5-2-4 repeats it for containers and adds the other half: they "shall not be put into place more than twenty four (24) hours prior to the regularly scheduled trash pick up by the city and shall be removed therefrom within twenty four (24) hours after the regularly scheduled trash pick up by the city," and must be "at the curb of the abutting street of the dwellings, or at the alley alongside or at the rear of the dwellings, in such a position as to be readily accessible to the garbage collector." Sec. 5-2-2(A) forbids letting decayed garbage stand longer than is reasonably necessary given the collection frequency, and Sec. 5-2-1, a 1941 definition never modernised, treats "GARBAGE" as "All animal, fruit and other vegetable matter, all organic refuse resulting from the preparation of food; and also to include ashes, tin cans, glassware and crockery" - a definition that does not reach a mattress, which is why bulky items ride on the separate Republic Services bulk program rather than the weekly route. Sec. 5-2-3 still requires "a garbage can or cans made of substantial galvanized iron or other nonrusting metal", one per family in flats and apartment houses, and Sec. 5-2-6 requires collection vehicles to be watertight, covered and closed while moving. Source Not confirmed: Chapter 2 sets a 24-hour set-out window for garbage and refuse generally but says nothing specific about bulk items, so whether the Republic Services bulk sheet's "by 6 a.m. on your scheduled bulk collection day" or the ordinance's 24-hour window governs a mattress is not settled in writing. Not confirmed: The chapter carries no penalty section of its own; fines for a garbage violation are not published in Chapter 2.
• Alton's littering ordinance names bedding as trash, which is what makes a dumped mattress an enforceable offense rather than an eyesore. Sec. 5-1-4(A) defines "RUBBISH" as "Nonputrescible solid wastes consisting of both combustible and noncombustible wastes, such as paper, wrappings, cigarettes, cardboard, tin cans, yard clippings, leaves, wood, glass, bedding, crockery and similar materials," "REFUSE" as "All putrescible and nonputrescible solid wastes (except body wastes), including garbage, rubbish, ashes, street cleanings, dead animals, abandoned automobiles and solid market and industrial wastes," and "LITTER" as "Garbage, refuse and rubbish, as defined herein, and all other waste type materials." Subsection (B) bars throwing or depositing litter "in or upon any street, sidewalk or other public place within the City except in receptacles from which the litter may not be wind blown"; subsection (F) bars depositing litter "on any occupied private property within the City, whether owned or occupied by such person or not," except in authorized private receptacles; subsection (G) extends the ban to "any open or vacant private property within the City whether owned by such person or not"; and subsection (I) makes it an offense for an owner or occupant to "allow, suffer or permit any lot or parcel of land, or that public property adjacent thereto and abutting upon a public street or public sidewalk, to contain litter." Subsection (C) requires any vehicle to be "so constructed or loaded so as to prevent any load, contents or litter from being blown or deposited upon any street" - the covering rule for anyone hauling a mattress themselves. Enforcement runs through Sec. 5-1-5: a police officer or inspector may serve a notice describing the violation and setting "a reasonable time limit for the abatement thereof... not less than two (2) days, nor more than ten (10) days after service," served in person, by regular mail or by posting on the property; any owner or occupant who allows a nuisance to exist "shall be fined as in this Code provided; and any person who shall neglect to abate and remove such nuisance after notice thereof, shall for each twenty four (24) hours thereafter during which said nuisance continues, be subject to a like penalty as that originally incurred." Removal costs become "a lien upon that underlying parcel," superior to all liens except tax liens, if noticed in the Madison County Recorder's office within a year. Source Not confirmed: Sec. 5-1-5 sets a daily repeating penalty but the dollar amount is fixed elsewhere in the code and is not stated in the littering or nuisance sections, so the fine for dumping a mattress in Alton cannot be quoted.
• Alton residents have no municipal place to take a mattress, and the one city facility they might think of is expressly closed to them. The Street Department page states, and repeats for emphasis, "Residents living in City limits are not permitted to bring yard debris to the city dumpsters. This includes tree limbs, grass cuttings, leaves, recycling, or any trash." Residents are sent instead to Republic Services for curbside yard waste, "available year-round" with "weekly collection, scheduled on your regular trash day pickup" and one yard waste cart per household on request, at 618-656-6883; the Public Works FAQ adds that Republic provides "1, 95-gallon yard waste container at no cost" or accepts biodegradable bags and personal carts marked with a red "X", and that there is no collection on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas. The city's own recycling drop-off, behind the Arturo Galvan Sr Development Center at 416 S Alton Blvd and open daily 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., takes containers and paper, not furniture. The city runs no transfer station, no landfill, no residents' clean-up day and no bulky-waste drop-off of any kind; combined with code Sec. 5-2-9, which makes curbside collection by the contractor the "exclusive method" of disposal for one- to four-family homes, the four free bulk pickups are not merely the easiest route in Alton, they are the route the city provides. Source Not confirmed: A free bulk drop-off day at Alton's former city landfill was reported in the local press some years ago; nothing on the city's current pages announces or schedules such an event, so it cannot be treated as a live option. Not confirmed: No landfill or transfer station serving Alton publishes a household gate rate or a per-mattress price.
• Alton Township does not run the kind of free twice-yearly large-item pickup that Nameoki Township provides in Granite City, so the township route that works for one Madison County city does not work here. Alton Township's own Resources page lists the services and numbers it points residents to, and the single entry touching waste is "City of Alton (Trash billing) 618-463-3550" - a referral back to the city, not a township program. No township bulk pickup, clean-up day, dumpster program or highway-department collection is named. Taken with Edwardsville Township, which likewise names none, the Nameoki arrangement looks particular to that township rather than a Madison County pattern. Source Not confirmed: Alton Township publishes no separate highway department page, so a service offered only by telephone would not be visible; the finding rests on the township listing none.
• Nothing in Alton recycles a mattress. The city's Bulk Item/E-Waste/Hazardous Waste page splits household disposal into exactly three streams - "Need to Dispose of Large Bulk Items click here for more information", "Need to Dispose of E-Waste click here for more information" and "Need to Dispose of Hazardous Waste click here for more information" - and the bulk stream is the Republic Services collection, a disposal run with no mention of dismantling or diversion. No dedicated mattress recycler, MRC or Bye Bye Mattress site, retailer or manufacturer take-back, or city or county mattress program is named by the City of Alton, by Alton Township or by Madison County. Illinois is not a mattress-stewardship state and runs no statewide mattress program, and no Illinois mattress recycler with a street address and published household terms has been established in any of the seventy-five Illinois cities researched so far. City Hall is at 101 E. Third St, Alton, IL 62002, 618.463.3500, and Public Works at 618.463.3530, Monday through Friday 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM. Source Not confirmed: Whether mattresses collected on Alton's bulk pickups are landfilled or diverted is not published by the city or by Republic Services.

• Residential body says Saturday 8–2; same-page footer says 9–1. Both show weekdays 8–4. No Saturday schedule selected. Source
• Locator retains Landfill 33 Saturday 7 a.m.–11 p.m. exactly as printed; implausible closing time requires confirmation. Two Columbus District Office cards are distinct OH and IN addresses, not duplicates. Source
• Illinois EPA recycling page offers a 'Beyond The Bin' ArcGIS map of recycling locations, an Earth911 ZIP locator and the Recycle Coach app (statewide partnership since 2025). No mattress stewardship program mentioned. No statewide mattress stewardship program or landfill ban found on Illinois EPA pages as of 2026-09-22; mattress disposal is handled by local governments. Source
• There is no state mattress recycling program in Illinois, and the absence is worth stating plainly because the four states that have one give residents free drop-off. The Mattress Recycling Council, which runs the Bye Bye Mattress collection network, lists its programs on its own Programs page as operating in California, Connecticut, Oregon and Rhode Island. Illinois is not among them. Three things follow for an Illinois resident: no recycling fee is charged on an Illinois mattress sale, there is no MRC-funded free drop-off anywhere in the state, and nothing obliges a retailer, hauler or municipality to recycle a mattress rather than landfill it. Recycling in Illinois is therefore a private arrangement wherever it exists at all — the drop-offs and recyclers listed on this page are businesses and charities choosing to do it, not a program a resident is entitled to. Source