How to get rid of a mattress in East St. Louis, 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.

• East St. Louis publishes nothing at all about household refuse collection, and the department that would run it does not mention waste. The city's Public Works page describes a department "responsible for the overall direction and coordination of many essential services" which "oversees the activities and coordinates manpower for the Sewer and Streets and Roads in addition to maintaining the City's physical holdings", and lists "managing the designing, constructing, operating and maintaining roads" and "providing general engineering and building regulation services". There is no bulk item, large item, special pickup, clean-up day or drop-off program named anywhere on the page, no hauler named, no fee and no booking route. The only contacts given are Director Tim Lockett at 618-482-6743 and administrative assistance at 618-482-6737, plus the city's general Request a Service form. This is not a page that has gone stale - it is a page on which residential refuse has never appeared. Source Not confirmed: The city publishes no hauler name, no collection day, no monthly refuse charge and no bulk item route anywhere on cesl.us, so how an East St. Louis household lawfully disposes of a mattress could not be established from the city's own site. Not confirmed: Whether the city's residential collection contract is currently in force, and with whom, is not published; a July 2025 council exchange reported by a third party said the Waste Management contract was up for review, which is not a primary source and is not recorded here as fact.
• The department East St. Louis's own ordinance creates to run refuse collection does not appear on the city's list of departments. Sec. 94-32(a) of the city code says "There is created the department of sanitation, headed by a sanitation manager who shall be appointed by the city manager with the approval of the city council." The city's Departments page lists three: City Manager ("The day-to-day business of operating the City is the responsibility of the City Manager, the chief administrator of the City appointed by the Mayor and City Council"), Finance ("Find information regarding accounts payable, payroll, and annual reports") and Human Resources ("The mission of the Personnel Department is to provide a full range of human resource management services for City of East St. Louis departments and employees"). There is no department of sanitation, no sanitation manager and no board of sanitation commissioners listed, although Sec. 94-31(a) creates the board too. Administration is at 301 River Park Drive, East Saint Louis, IL 62201, 618-482-6600, Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Source Not confirmed: The page does not say whether the department of sanitation and the board of sanitation commissioners created by Chapter 94 still exist under another name or have lapsed; only that neither is listed.
• East St. Louis's sanitation code is the reason a mattress cannot simply go to the curb here, and it contains a consequence for non-payment that almost no other city imposes. Chapter 94 is "the East St. Louis Sanitation Code" (Sec. 94-1). Its definition of "Refuse" is broad and names bedding explicitly: "all putrescible and nonputrescible combustible and noncombustible solid wastes, including, but not limited to, garbage, ashes, paper, wrappings, cigarette and cigar butts, cardboard, cans, wood scraps, loose glass in any form, bedding, metal, household items, crockery, plastics, industrial wastes, prunings, grass clippings, weeds, leaves, general yard and garden wastes, cut or fallen trees and shrubs, and loose lumber." "Prohibited refuse" - material that may not be put out for the city's collection at all - covers "major appliances, including but not limited to refrigerators, freezers, stoves, ovens, dishwashers, microwave ovens, air conditioners and television sets", tires, motor oil, batteries and yard waste, but it does not name mattresses or furniture. The catch is Sec. 94-61(b): "All refuse outside a structure shall be stored for collection in a refuse container as provided as provided in this section. Storage of refuse in containers not authorized by this section, such as cardboard boxes or paper bags, is prohibited." The only authorized residential container is a "Plastic, rubber or metal nondisposable trash container" of "not less than 20-gallon capacity and not more than 32-gallon capacity", loaded weight no more than 75 pounds, at least 22 inches high and 19 inches in diameter, with tightfitting handles and lids and the address painted on the side; plastic bags "of a sufficient thickness and strength to prevent tearing" are also allowed. A mattress fits none of those, and Chapter 94 contains no bulk item, large item or special pickup provision whatsoever. The set-out window is Sec. 94-61(g): "No such refuse container shall be placed on a public right-of-way before noon on the day preceding the day on which the refuse is scheduled to be collected. No such container shall be placed or left on the public right-of-way after 11:00 p.m. on the day on which the refuse is collected." Violating Sec. 94-61 "shall be guilty of a petty offense and shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $500.00". Scavenging from any refuse container is prohibited. Sec. 94-61(a) puts the duty on the owner: "All owners of real estate shall provide suitable refuse containers as provided in this section and, in the absence of a citywide or neighborhood contract for curbside or alley refuse pickup, shall arrange for such pickup no less than weekly by a private hauler who has received a permit under this article." On billing, Sec. 94-31(b) authorizes the city manager "to let bids and recommend fees for residential garbage collection within the city", Sec. 94-31(d) provides that "Upon the execution of the contract, all owners of residential units shall pay for such service under the contract in the amount specified by the city", and Sec. 94-31(g) is the sanction: "If any owner is more than 60 days delinquent in the payment of fees, the occupancy permit for the delinquent premises shall be revoked." A tenant "may pay the collection fees and deduct the amount of the fees due from the rent otherwise due the owner", and continuing to lease or to occupy premises whose occupancy permit has been revoked is a petty offense fined up to $500. Haulers need a permit and a $25.00 per-vehicle annual inspection fee (Sec. 94-62(h)); collecting or hauling refuse without one is fined up to $500 for a first offense and $750 afterwards. Source Not confirmed: Chapter 94 sets no bulk item, large item or special pickup service, so the ordinance provides no lawful curbside route for a mattress at all - only the container rule that excludes it. Not confirmed: The ordinance does not name the contracted hauler or state the residential collection fee; Sec. 94-31 leaves both to a bid and a council contract that is not published online. Not confirmed: No wrapping, bagging or mattress-specific requirement appears anywhere in Chapter 94.
• East St. Louis backs its dumping rule with vehicle seizure and a bounty, which is unusual enough to be worth knowing before anyone leaves a mattress on a curb here. Sec. 94-91(a) makes it unlawful to "dump, deposit, drop, throw, discard or leave, or cause or permit the dumping, depositing, dropping, throwing, discarding or leaving of, litter upon any public or private property in the state", with exceptions only for a site designated for litter disposal, a receptacle intended by the owner for litter, the owner or tenant in lawful possession or someone with their consent, a "person acting under the direction of proper public officials during special cleanup days", and emergencies. "Litter" is defined in Sec. 94-2 to include "furniture" by name, along with construction material, abandoned vehicles and "anything else of an unsightly or unsanitary nature which has been discarded, abandoned or otherwise disposed of improperly". Sec. 94-91(b) adds that no person "shall transport, by any means, any garbage or refuse from any dwelling, residence, place of business, farm or other site to, and deposit such material in, around or on top of, trash barrels or other receptacles placed along public highways or at roadside rest areas". The penalty in Sec. 94-91(c) is "a fine not to exceed $750.00", and subsection (d) allows any vehicle used in the violation to be impounded and "held as security, in addition to any such fine or cost that may be assessed, to further secure the cleanup and removal cost"; subsection (e) then lets the city publish a notice of sale and sell the impounded vehicle to satisfy the removal costs. Sec. 94-92, added in 2005, offers a reward: "any citizen reporting an act of illegal dumping within the city limits of the City of East St. Louis which directly leads to a conviction of the person engaged in illegal dumping, shall be entitled to receive a reward of up to $250.00 from the City of East St. Louis for their assistance", paid once the offender has pleaded or been found guilty and paid the fine, "at the sole discretion of the city manager". Source
• The code East St. Louis points its own residents to has not been updated in over a decade, which matters because it is the only published statement of how refuse works here. The city's City Regulations link redirects to the Municode library, where the landing page reads "Code of Ordinances - Supplement 2 - Online content updated on March 24, 2015" and "CODE - City of EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS - Codified through Ordinance No. 14-10034, enacted June 12, 2014. (Supp. No. 2)", with the standard warning that "This Code of Ordinances and/or any other documents that appear on this site may not reflect the most current legislation adopted by the Municipality." The table of contents does carry a full Chapter 94 - SOLID WASTE, along with Chapter 50 - ENVIRONMENT and Chapter 62 - HEALTH AND SANITATION. So East St. Louis does have a sanitation code; what it does not have is any published evidence that the code still describes the arrangement in force, and the city site carries nothing that would update it. Source Not confirmed: Any ordinance passed after June 12, 2014 - including any current refuse collection contract, fee or bulk item program - is not reflected in the published code, and the city publishes no supplement or ordinance index online.
• The nearest thing East St. Louis has published to a clean-up event is a volunteer litter pick, not a bulk waste collection, and it is now well over a year old. The city's news flash, posted May 1, 2025 and archived after May 17, 2025, reads: "Let's Clean Up East St. Louis! Join us for Neighborhood Cleanup Day on Saturday, May 10, 2025 from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM at 82nd & State - Southeast Corner. We're calling on all residents and contractors - especially those with heavy machinery - to come out and help us beautify our community. All volunteers must be in place by 9:00 AM. Let's create a cleaner, stronger East St. Louis together!" It is a single-corner volunteer event asking residents to bring labor and machinery, not a service that takes a household's mattress. Nothing published since - the city's news through September 2026 covers a township kitchen renovation bid, a proposed sale of the wastewater collection system, a stormwater meeting, a festival and an EV charging station - mentions household waste at all. Source Not confirmed: The notice does not say whether dumpsters or roll-offs were provided, whether residents could bring furniture or mattresses, or whether the event recurs.
• Not an option: The township model that gives Granite City residents a free twice-yearly large item pickup through Nameoki Township does not repeat in East St. Louis. East St. Louis Township's own site, run from 6755 State Street, East Saint Louis, Illinois 62205 at 618-515-2150, lists its services under "EXPLORE OUR SERVICES" as exactly four: "Public Safety", "Employment", "Facility Rental" and "Online Payments", with a further "Event Space Rental Available" block. The Supervisor's welcome describes the township as "continuing to provide support to the seniors and individuals/families within the community that we serve" and focuses on the Senior Building. There is no clean-up day, no large item pickup, no dumpster day and no drop-off site of any kind. Office hours are Monday, Tuesday and Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Source Not confirmed: The township site has a Documents section that was not enumerated; no waste program appears in its navigation, services list or events calendar through the end of 2026.
• The nearest place an East St. Louis resident can take a mattress is inside the city: Waste Management's Milam Landfill at 601 Madison Rd., East St. Louis, IL 62201. WM's own facility page lists it as a "Management Facility (Disposal)" and publishes its acceptable materials as non-hazardous only - "Asbestos-Friable, Asbestos-Non-Friable, Auto Shredder Fluff, Biosolids, CERCLA Waste, Construction & Demolition Debris, Municipal Solid Waste, NORM/TENORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material), Oilfield wastes (E&P Exempt), Oilfield wastes (Non E&P Exempt), Sludges - Industrial (Non regulated/Non RCRA), Soils - Clean, Soils - Contaminated (Non Haz)" - with the note "This facility does not accept hazardous waste." A household mattress falls inside "Municipal Solid Waste" and is on no published exclusion list. Published hours are Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., closed Saturday and Sunday, and the site accepts credit or debit cards and credit accounts. The rule that matters for anyone arriving in a car rather than a truck is stated on the same page: "Credit Card Customers and Customers who are unloading by hand must be to the Milam Landfill at least 60 minutes before closing. These customers will not be able to enter the site after 3:00 p.m Monday - Friday and 9:00 a.m. on Saturday." The site holds both a St. Clair County permit (1630450001) and a Madison County permit (1194655050) under IEPA permit 1991-152-LFM, has a truck tipper and takes vehicles up to 48 feet. Source Not confirmed: WM publishes no gate rate, no minimum charge and no per-ton price for Milam, and no mattress-specific fee, so what a resident would pay to drop one off is not established. Not confirmed: WM publishes no proof-of-residency or county-of-origin rule for Milam; nothing on the page restricts it to St. Clair County residents, but nothing confirms open public access either. Not confirmed: The Saturday reference in the hand-unloading note conflicts with the same page's own hours table, which shows Saturday closed; and the St. Clair County Health Department publishes different hours again (Monday through Friday 3 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 5 a.m. to noon), so the hours a resident should rely on are not settled.
• St. Clair County publishes the short answer for every household in the county that has no curbside route: two landfills, named with addresses and hours, and one sentence about what Illinois landfills refuse. The Health Department's Pollution Prevention page, which runs the county's IEPA-delegated landfill monitoring and open dumping program, tells residents first "Contact your City Hall or Village Hall to find out if they offer trash service in your area. Otherwise you may have to contract with a private hauler for weekly trash pick up." It then states the acceptance rule: "Illinois landfills will not accept tires, white goods (water heaters, refrigerators etc.), household hazardous wastes or liquid paint. If you are unsure if your item will be accepted please contact the landfill to inquire before dropping it off." Mattresses are not on that refusal list. The two sites it names are "Milam Recycling & Disposal Facility, 601 Madison Road, East St. Louis, IL 62201, Hours: Mon.-Fri. 3 am- 5pm, Sat. 5 am- 12pm, (618) 271-6788" and "Cottonwood Hills Recycling & Disposal Facility, 10400 Hillstown Road, Marissa, IL 62257, Hours: Mon.-Fri. 5 am-4 pm, (618) 295-2809". Complaints about dumping go to the Health Department at (618) 233-7769 or SCCHDinfo@co.st-clair.il.us. The same page lists the county's other disposal routes - a prescription drug drop-box at the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department, 700 N 5th St, Belleville, open daily 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and seasonal Christmas tree recycling - neither of which takes furniture. Source Not confirmed: Neither landfill's gate rate is published by the county or by its operator, so the cost of a self-haul mattress in St. Clair County is not established. Not confirmed: The county does not state whether either landfill accepts walk-in residential customers without an account, nor whether proof of residency is required. Not confirmed: The county's published hours for Milam (Mon-Fri 3 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat 5 a.m. to noon) conflict with the operator's own published hours (Mon-Fri 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Saturday).
• St. Clair County's own fact sheet defines the offense an East St. Louis resident commits by leaving a mattress out, and lists five agencies that will take the report. "Open dumping is the improper disposal of any waste including household trash, garbage, tires, barrels, demolition/construction waste, appliances, shingles, pipes, metal, or any material which will rust, rot, or burn." On where: "Whether it occurs on an open lot or pasture, down a ravine, along the roadside, in rural or urban communities, open dumping threatens the health and safety of everyone around it--especially children and older adults. It is also against the law." The sheet tells residents to protect themselves by "Restricting access to open fields or lots; Cleaning up dump sites immediately, (small sites quickly become big sites); Alerting your neighbors to problems; and Notify the Health Department, local law enforcement agencies, or the Illinois EPA", and adds "If you observe someone open dumping, contact your local law enforcement agency. Write down vehicle descriptions, license numbers or any other information that identifies the dumper." Reports go to the St. Clair County Health Department at (618) 233-7769, the St. Clair County Sheriff at (618) 277-3500, the Illinois EPA regional office at (618) 346-5120, the Illinois State Police at (800) 255-3323 or the Attorney General at (888) 288-9436. The same sheet notes that burning household waste is not an alternative: only landscape waste may be burned, on the premises where it was generated, and "Rules may vary among municipalities, contact your Village/City hall for requirements in your community." Source Not confirmed: The county fact sheet sets no fine amount; the penalty for open dumping in East St. Louis comes from Sec. 94-91 of the city code rather than from the county.

• 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