How to get rid of a mattress in Harvard, 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.

• Harvard contracts its collection out and publishes almost nothing about it. The City Clerk's Common Codes and Policies page is the only plain-language statement of the arrangement: "Garbage/Refuse - The City of Harvard has contracted with a private disposal firm to collect garbage in residential areas inside the city limits. Recycled glass, paper and aluminum are also collected on your regular garbage day. Call MDC for more information (888) 775-3691." Leaves are handled the same way: "The City has contracted with a private disposal service for the curbside collection of leaves in the fall in residential areas inside the city limits. Leaves are to be raked to the curb (not in the street). The schedule for leaf pickup varies from year-to-year depending on weather conditions." The same page records that open burning is prohibited city-wide and that vehicle stickers are not required. Nowhere on the page - or anywhere else on the City's site that could be read - is there a bulky-item allowance, a sticker price, a mattress rule or a monthly refuse rate. The City's news page for the "MDC Disposal Agreement" (July 22, 2023) links only two attachments, an "Information Sheet" (72.38 KB) and "Disposal Agreement 2022 - 2026" (11.61 MB). Source Not confirmed: Both documents that would carry Harvard's bulk-item terms - the MDC Information Sheet and the 2022-2026 Disposal Agreement - are served as file downloads behind the City's bot protection and could not be read in a browser or fetched, so Harvard's bulk allowance, sticker price and mattress rules remain unestablished. Not confirmed: The City publishes no monthly refuse rate and no senior rate.
• MDC Environmental Services' own City of Harvard page describes the residential program without ever pricing a bulky item. "MDC Environmental Services provides Harvard residents with a 95-gallon waste container, specifically designed to accommodate the needs of larger families... Overage or extras can be placed in bags or personal cans not exceeding 32 gallons or 50 pounds and will be billed at $25/per cubic yard" - the only household price MDC publishes for Harvard. Recycling is a 65-gallon toter, loose not bagged, cardboard broken to 3 ft x 3 ft. "A senior discount is available where the head of household is 65 years of age or older. Please contact us for details and to apply." Yard waste is a subscription or per-sticker service whose price is withheld - "Please contact us for annual subscription rates and individual sticker fees" - with stickers sold "at City Hall, Heyer True Value, and Sullivan Foods" and sign-up compulsory: "you must call our office to sign up for yard waste collection service." Leaf vacuuming runs eight weeks each autumn and once in spring. MDC's general Bulk Trash Pickup page lists "Mattresses" among items that "Bulk Items May Include" but prices nothing and disclaims uniformity: "Bulk trash item pickup availability varies by location", "Acceptable items and schedules vary by location", "Confirm the pickup date before placing items at the curb." MDC is a Waste Connections company, and no Harvard-specific bulk or mattress rate card is published. Source Not confirmed: MDC publishes no bulk-item allowance, sticker requirement or mattress price for Harvard; the bulk rules and sticker counts published for MDC's other McHenry County communities cannot be assumed to apply here. Not confirmed: The yard-waste subscription rate and sticker fee are withheld pending a phone call.
• What Harvard does publish is its rulebook, in Chapter 11 (Nuisances) of the Municipal Code, and it is stricter than most. Sec. 11.13(F) sets the set-out window and the storage rule: "Garbage receptacles shall be stored no closer to any street than the front elevation/building line of the front yard (which is the street address) of the building and within four feet of the building on corner lots. Garbage receptacles shall be fly and vermin proof, made of a weather proof material with a tight-fitting lid, and free of dirt, grime or other offensive debris. Residential garbage receptacles may be placed at the curb after 6 p.m. on the day before garbage is collected; such receptacles shall be removed from the curb by 7 a.m. on the day after garbage is collected." Sec. 11.13(A): "No garbage or refuse of any kind shall be deposited in any street, alley or public way... No such refuse shall be so placed that it can be blown about or scattered by the wind." Sec. 11.13(B) is the provision an out-of-town relative should read before hauling a mattress in: "No person who does not reside within the City and no firm or corporation which does not maintain an office within the City shall deposit garbage or refuse of any kind within the City limits. No such person, firm or corporation shall utilize garbage pick-up or storage facilities within the City. This prohibition is applicable at all times and extends to and includes official clean-up days." Sub-paragraphs (C) and (D) forbid using anyone else's container or any City dumpster or park bin. Sec. 11.13(G) makes recyclables at the curb "the sole property of the Collector" and makes removing them unlawful. Sec. 11.03(K) lists "The deposit of garbage, rubbish or any offensive substance on any street, sidewalk or public place, or on any private property, except as may be permitted by ordinance" as a public health nuisance, and 11.03(R) covers abandoned refrigerators and similar equipment. Sec. 11.14: "any person, firm or corporation violating any provision of this chapter shall be fined not less than $25.00 nor more than $500.00 for each offense, plus reasonable attorney fees incurred by the City. A separate offense shall be deemed committed on each day", with abatement costs collectable as a debt and a lien. Source Not confirmed: Harvard's code has no garbage and refuse chapter of its own beyond these nuisance provisions: it sets no bulky-item allowance, no mattress wrapping rule and no refuse rate, all of which sit in the MDC agreement instead.

• 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