How to get rid of a mattress in Champaign, 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.

• Champaign runs no municipal refuse collection at all, and this is the fact that decides every mattress question in the city. The City Recycling Programs page states flatly: "Remember, the City does not collect trash or recycling. Licensed private haulers manage all solid waste in Champaign." What the City does run is recycling policy on top of those private contracts: per City ordinance, a household in a single-family home, duplex, triplex or four-unit building gets curbside recycling "included with your regular trash service at no extra cost", provided by whichever hauler the resident has signed up with, no sorting required, plastics #1-7, all glass, corrugated cardboard, boxboard, paper bags, magazines, newspaper, mixed paper, cartons, tin, steel and aluminum cans and clean foil. Buildings of five or more units, including fraternities and sororities, are served by the City's own multifamily program, Feed The Thing, which gives participating properties free 95-gallon blue recycling containers; the property owner is assessed $3.20 per month per apartment, or $1.60 per resident for group housing based on the facility's capacity. Recycling questions go to recycling@champaignil.gov or 217-403-4780. None of this touches a mattress: there is no City bulk-item, large-item or furniture collection to book, and no City fee schedule for one. Source Not confirmed: The City does not publish what any individual licensed hauler charges for a bulky item or a mattress; those terms sit in each resident's private contract.
• The only collections the City of Champaign itself puts on the street are seasonal yard waste runs, and they exclude everything a mattress is. The 2026 Fall Yard Waste Collection Program runs October 26 through December 11, 2026 and is "available to all residential properties within the city limits", with three collection dates per zone; the City also runs a spring collection and a holiday tree collection. Bags must be out by 6 a.m. on the scheduled collection day, and "only bags containing leaves, grass clippings, and plant materials will be collected". Public Works (217-403-4700) handles missed collections. There is no City-run bulky-waste, furniture or mattress equivalent to this program. Source
• Champaign Municipal Code Chapter 15 (Garbage Collection and Disposal) sets the rules a resident actually has to obey. Section 15-16(c) makes private hauling compulsory: each owner, agent and occupant must have receptacle contents removed "at least once each week", and "Each owner or owners' agent or occupant of a residential land use shall be required to use the services of a commercial hauler, licensed in accordance with the requirements of this Chapter". Section 15-19(c) is the set-out window: trash containers for single and two-family dwellings "shall not be placed on the City right-of-way except during the following times: from 3:00 p.m. on the day preceding the day of scheduled garbage pick-up for said containers until 8:00 p.m. on the date of said scheduled pick-up." Section 15-17 makes it unlawful to dump or deposit refuse on another person's property or in their trash receptacles without permission, or on any City right-of-way "except in a container reasonably intended for such deposit". Section 15-18 bans accumulations of garbage, refuse, trash or debris and declares them a nuisance; the code's definition of trash expressly includes "discarded furniture". Enforcement is by the Public Works Director (15-2), who may issue a failure-to-comply ticket (15-4); under 15-5 that is settled by paying $25.00 within seven days or $50.00 after, with repeat violations at the same address inside twelve months at $100.00 for a second offense, $200.00 for a third and $400.00 for a fourth, and unsettled tickets going to the Circuit Court under Section 1-21. Section 15-52 makes it unlawful for anyone to collect or transport waste for a fee in Champaign without a commercial hauling license. Source
• Not an option: There is nothing mattress-specific in Champaign. Illinois has no statewide mattress recycling program - the Illinois EPA's recycling pages describe no mattress stewardship program, and no state, county or city source reviewed here names one - and the City of Champaign's own Mattresses entry offers only two routes: donation of a good-condition mattress, or disposal for a fee at the Republic Services transfer station in Urbana. The City names local recycling operators for other streams - Illini Recycling at 420 Paul Ave., Champaign for cardboard and metals, Mervis Recycling at 3008 N. Cunningham Ave., Urbana and Mack's Twin City Recycling at 2808 N. Lincoln Ave., Urbana for scrap - but none of them is listed for mattresses. The City co-hosts a biannual Champaign County residential electronics collection and an annual IEPA-sponsored household hazardous waste event; neither takes mattresses. No MRC or Bye Bye Mattress collection site exists in Illinois. Source
• Not an option: Habitat for Humanity of Champaign County's ReStore, at 1914 Glenn Park Drive, Champaign (217-359-0507), will not take a mattress, and says so in its own words. Its Items to Donate page accepts "Bed frames and hardware" but adds in brackets "(we cannot accept mattresses due to bed bug laws)", and notes bed frames are drop-off only - they will not collect them. The ReStore otherwise takes working gas and electric appliances, furniture with no rips, tears, stains or broken parts, windows (double pane) and doors, garden supplies, cabinets, working electronics including flat-screen TVs, exercise equipment, lamps, tools and household goods; used textiles including bedding are refused, and only brand-new textiles in original packaging are accepted. Donation hours are Tuesday 10am-6pm, Wednesday-Friday 10am-2pm and 5-6pm for drop-off and pick-up only, and Saturday 10am-4pm, at the drive-up donation area at the back of the building. Driving a mattress here is a wasted trip. Source
• Not an option: Champaign-Urbana's big move-out reuse event will not take a mattress either. The University YMCA's Dump & Run, which it says "keeps over 30 tons of used, quality goods out of Champaign-Urbana's dumpsters and landfills each year", collects at the U of I Stock Pavilion, 1402 W Pennsylvania Ave, Urbana, and runs free curbside pickup of large furniture and bikes for Champaign-Urbana-Savoy residents on two Saturdays in August, first come first served, large items only. Its published list of what it does not collect includes "Mattresses, sleeper sofas, foam mattress pads", alongside CRT televisions and monitors, filing cabinets, full-size fridges, stoves, washers, dryers, large exercise equipment, car seats, cribs and helmets. The dates published for the next cycle are drop-off collections at the Stock Pavilion Mon Aug 2 noon-4pm, Tues Aug 3 to Fri Aug 6 and Mon Aug 9 to Fri Aug 13 9am-4pm, Saturdays Aug 7 and Aug 14 9am-1pm, with free curbside furniture and bike pickup on Saturdays Aug 7 and Aug 14 9am-4pm, and the Big Sale on Aug 21-22. The Y refers people it cannot help to Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill, PACA, Salt and Light and the Salvation Army. Source
• The University of Illinois runs its own move-out diversion program, which matters in a city where the student calendar drives the disposal peak, but it is a donation pod program rather than a mattress route. Facilities & Services coordinates two Dump & Run collections: undergraduate move-out in May, with pods placed near the residence halls, and a graduate program in July at Orchard Downs and Ashton Woods, started in 2025. In May 2026 F&S collected 68 gaylord boxes and 97 loose pieces of furniture from eight pods during the week of May 11-16, an estimated 15,000 pounds, all collected by Land of Lincoln Goodwill Industries and taken to the Champaign store; in July 2026 the graduate program collected 39 boxes and 44 loose pieces from five pods, an estimated 10,000 pounds. The donations go to local non-profits. The F&S page does not list accepted or excluded items and does not mention mattresses at all, and the pods serve students moving out of University housing rather than the general public. Contact is recycling@illinois.edu or 217-333-4336. Source Not confirmed: The F&S Dump & Run page publishes no accepted or excluded item list, so whether a mattress may be left at a donation pod is not established from the University's own page.

• 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