How to get rid of a mattress in Cicero, 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.

• Cicero is a town that bills for refuse itself and contracts the trucks out, and Chapter 78 of the Code of Ordinances is the only place the arrangement is written down. Article III (Municipal Garbage Collection) section 78-77(a) levies "a fee of $42.15 per residential unit per two months ... against every dwelling unit in the Town, except those owned or occupied by senior citizens and disabled persons, for the purposes of paying and defraying the costs of collection and disposition of garbage and rubbish for any residence or apartment of four dwelling units or less"; 78-77(b) and (d) levy no fee at all on units owned and occupied by senior citizens (defined at 78-76 as 62 or older) or by disabled persons, on proof filed with the water department, and 78-77(g) puts the charge on the water bill. Section 78-78 says "The Town may contract with one or more duly qualified waste haulers for the collection, removal of and disposal of ashes, landscape waste, and recyclable waste", and 78-79(a) makes it the duty of the owner of any residence or apartment building of four dwelling units or less to "Utilize the refuse containers designated by regulation of the superintendent of public works" and to "Utilize the waste collection and disposal services offered by the town under contract to its licensed waste haulers", with a fine of $50.00 to $250.00 for breach. Anything larger is on its own: section 78-43 requires that "Every person owning or controlling any commercial, industrial or residential property containing more than four residential units must provide private scavenger service for that property", and 78-43a sets collection at twice a week for four-to-seven unit buildings and three times a week for eight or more. Nothing in Chapter 78 creates a bulky-item, large-item, furniture or special pickup, sets an allowance or a per-item fee, or mentions a mattress; the superintendent of public works is simply authorized by 78-82 to "adopt such rules and regulations as may be reasonable and necessary for the efficient storage, placement, pickup and disposal of all wastes", and those rules are not published. Source Not confirmed: Chapter 78 creates no bulky-item or large-item collection and sets no per-item fee, allowance, booking route or wrapping rule for a mattress, and the superintendent's rules and regulations made under section 78-82 are not published anywhere the Town links to. Not confirmed: The code authorizes the Town to contract with waste haulers but does not name the current contractor, and the Town publishes neither the contract nor the hauler's name.
• Not an option: Cicero's ordinance settles where refuse may and may not be put, which matters because the Town runs no drop-off for bulky waste. Section 78-4(c) requires the head of every household to place the garbage vessel "upon the edge of the sidewalk adjoining the premises or on the rear of the premises" and states that "It shall be unlawful for any person to place any such vessel in any alley within the town". Section 78-4(e) makes it unlawful for anyone other than "a scavenger employed or licensed by the town" or the occupant "to deposit any article or thing in such vessel or to remove, displace, injure, deface, destroy, uncover or in any manner disturb such vessel or any portion of its contents". Section 78-10(a) forbids depositing garbage, trash or "refuse or waste or thing which by its decomposition could or would become offensive" on any vacant lot without the permission of the building commissioner and the commissioner of public health. Section 78-45 bars a private scavenger from disposing of collected matter "in any public dump or public place within the town", and section 78-7 shows the only municipal dumping ground the code contemplates is for licensed trade waste, not residents. The Town operates no transfer station, landfill or residents' drop-off of its own. Source Not confirmed: Cicero publishes no self-haul site of any kind for a mattress, and names no county or regional facility for residents to use instead.
• Not an option: The Town of Cicero's Public Works page describes the only recycling infrastructure the Town publishes, and it does not reach a mattress. The page says the Town "launched its recycling program twelve years ago" and that officials "introduced the Blue Bag Program. This program provides residents with blue bags for recyclables, free of charge." Residents are asked "to use the provided blue bags for recycling purposes only", with acceptable items listed as "Aluminum", "Paper" and "Plastic", and glass to be placed in cardboard boxes "to prevent injury to our garbage workers ... placed separately from regular trash cans". The one drop-off point the Town names is a container: "Additionally, we have a recycling bin conveniently located at the corner of 25th Street and 50th Avenue. Feel free to drop off any recyclables there." The rest of the page covers graffiti removal, tree trimming and street signs. Neither a mattress nor any bulky item appears, and no mattress recycler, take-back or special collection is named. Public Works is at 1620 South Laramie Avenue and the recycling contact is 708-656-3600 ext. 217. Source Not confirmed: The blue-bag program and the 25th Street and 50th Avenue bin take household recyclables only; the page sets no hours, no attendant and no terms for the bin, and nothing on it suggests a mattress or furniture may be left there.
• Not an option: Habitat for Humanity Chicago's ReStore, the nearest Habitat resale store to Cicero, will not take a mattress. Its donation page lists what it turns away in plain terms: "The main items we DO NOT accept are: Clothing | Mattresses | Televisions | Used Doors & Windows | Paint | Sleeper Sofas | China Cabinets". Mattresses are named outright, so a Cicero resident hoping to donate one to the ReStore should not load it into a car. Source Not confirmed: The page names mattresses but not box springs, and does not say whether a box spring or a bed frame would be taken.
• Not an option: The Town of Cicero's own TRASH & RECYCLING page, linked from the site's main navigation at thetownofcicero.com/trash-recycling/, publishes nothing. Driven in a browser and given time to render, the page returns only the site header (Town President Larry Dominick, Basement Flood Relief Program, Know Your Rights, Smart911, Contact Us), the email-signup block and the footer with Town Hall at 4949 West Cermak Road, Cicero, IL 60804, (708) 656-3600, open Monday through Friday 8AM-6PM. There is no body content at all: no collection day map, no hauler name, no set-out time, no container rules, no bulky-item or large-item terms, no sticker program and no mention of a mattress. The site's tag archive for refuse removal at thetownofcicero.com/tag/refuse-removal/ is likewise empty of posts. For a town of 81,858 people this is the whole of what Cicero publishes about how a resident gets rid of a large item: the answer has to be read out of Chapter 78 of the municipal code instead. Source Not confirmed: Cicero publishes no bulky-item terms of any kind: no allowance, no fee, no booking route, no notice period and no wrapping rule, and no hauler-side Cicero page exists to fall back on.

• 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