How to get rid of a mattress in Homewood, 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.

• Not an option: Driving the mattress to the dump yourself is not a real option around Homewood, and Homewood Disposal says so in its own words. Its two Illinois transfer stations are the nearest sites - "East Hazel Crest Transfer, 17450 S. Laflin Ave., East Hazel Crest, IL", open "Monday-Friday: 5:30am - 5pm" and "Saturday: 5:30am - Noon", and "Park Forest Transfer, 25 South Street, Park Forest, IL", open "Monday-Friday: 8am - 4:30pm" with Saturday and Sunday closed - and both are sold by the ton with a floor: "The minimum charge is for 1 ton. Please call for rates." The page then rules out the household trip outright: "Yes, homeowners and businesses can use the transfer station to drop off large loads of waste material. Material is usually brought to the transfer station in trailers and trucks. We often serve roofing companies, trucks from local villages, landscaping companies, and building contractors. You pay for the amount of material you drop off. Waste is charged by the ton. We are not setup to accept small loads of household waste." The minimum is charged whatever you bring: "Customers may drop off loads weighing less than the minimum, but the applicable minimum charge will still apply." A mattress weighs a fraction of a ton, so a resident who went anyway would pay a full ton's gate rate for it. Payment is "cash, check or credit card", "hard hats and safety vests are required when outside of your vehicle", and the site cannot take tires, electronics, liquids, engines, oils, hazardous waste or any battery. Source Not confirmed: The per-ton rate is not published - "Please contact our transfer stations for current charges per ton" - so the cost of the one-ton minimum cannot be quoted. Not confirmed: Neither station publishes a mattress-specific fee or a statement that a mattress is accepted at all; mattresses are covered only by the general "general waste" category.
• Not an option: There is nothing mattress-specific in Homewood. The Village's own Waste Disposal page is the complete published list of special-material routes it offers or points to, and mattresses appear on none of them: leaves go to "an IEPA-approved composting facility" during the three-week autumn free leaf program, branches are chipped once a year at Public Works (17755 Ashland Avenue, first Saturday of October, 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., "Only tree limbs are accepted"), used motor oil and antifreeze go to "Pep Boys (oil only) - 18024 Halsted Street" or to the state's "Year-Round Household Hazardous Waste Drop-Off Facilities for Illinois Residents", and everything else is left to the private hauler the household hires. The Village runs no mattress collection, funds no mattress recycling, and names no mattress recycler. Homewood Disposal, the hauler most households use, treats the mattress and box spring as one bulk refuse item for disposal and claims no recycling for it. Source Not confirmed: No operator with a street address and published household terms recycles mattresses anywhere near Homewood; the Village names none and neither does its hauler. Not confirmed: Neither the Village nor the hauler says what happens to a collected mattress, so whether any part of it is diverted cannot be established.
• Giving the mattress away in Homewood means one narrow route and a lot of refusals. The Salvation Army's Chicago Family Stores put "*Mattresses & Box Springs" on their "No Thank You" list, alongside box springs listed separately, bean bags, assembled furniture, dishwashers, water softeners, metal office furniture and upright pianos, and they explain why the mattress is there: "Unfortunately, we can no longer provide a free pickup and dump service for used mattresses or electronics that require a responsible 'end of life'." The single exception is precise, and it is a drive-in only: "There is (only) one exception to this policy: If a you are in possession of a mattress considered to be in pristine condition, you are encouraged to drive it to any of our stores where it will be inspected for condition, stains and bed bugs by the manager on duty, before it is unloaded. Please be aware that, should the mattress be refused for any reason, we will NOT be providing a free disposal service and you will be required to remove the item from our property. Further, A box spring is NEVER accepted without the inspected and accepted mattress it is paired with." So: no collection, no box spring on its own, inspection before unloading, and you take it home again if it fails. The nearest stores to Homewood are the Chicago Heights and South Holland Family Stores, both already on this page. No thrift shop or furniture bank in Homewood itself publishes a mattress policy. Source Not confirmed: The Salvation Army does not define "pristine condition" beyond condition, stains and bed bugs, and the decision rests with the manager on duty, so acceptance cannot be predicted before the drive. Not confirmed: No charity or reuse organization with a Homewood address publishes a mattress policy of its own.

• 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