How to get rid of a mattress in Palos Hills, 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: Taking the mattress to a dump yourself is not just impractical in Palos Hills, it is prohibited. Sec. 8.12.050(A) of the city code requires every single-family household to use the city's contracted hauler for "household and kitchen waste, recyclable materials, yard waste and bulk items", and then says so in terms: "The removal of these items from the premises by an individual resident of the single-family home or by any other waste hauler in order to avoid the obligation of this section is prohibited", with a fine of "$80.00 per week for each week the violations occur". Sec. 8.12.040(A) reinforces it: "No person other than a city refuse collector or a private scavenger duly licensed by the city shall collect or remove garbage, refuse or ashes from any premises in the city." The city runs no residents' drop-off of its own, and the nearest transfer station of any kind is WM's Chicago Metro Transfer Station at 11601 S. Austin Ave., Alsip - a trade site with no published household rate. Since the contracted collection takes bulk items at no cost anyway, the self-haul question in Palos Hills resolves to: don't, and you don't need to. Source Not confirmed: The code does not say whether a resident driving their own mattress to a licensed landfill outside the city would breach Sec. 8.12.050; the prohibition is written against removal "in order to avoid the obligation of this section", and the city publishes no guidance on that distinction. Not confirmed: The city publishes no drop-off site, recycling center or transfer station of its own, and no fee for one.
• The City of Palos Hills Public Works FAQ is where a resident would look for bulk-item guidance and it contains none, which is worth knowing before the search. What it does answer is branches and stumps: "A schedule is created at the beginning of each year for branch pickup. The town is divided into seven sections. Please check the schedule before putting branches out as pick-ups are done according to that schedule"; "Long lengths are preferable, 6 or 7 foot long. Branches shorter than 4 foot will need to be put in your yard waste container, broken or standing upright. Also, branches can be bundled in 4 foot lengths and laid next to the yard waste container for your refuse pick-up"; and for a felled tree, "Cut the stump in 18-24 lengths and call to request log pick-up. A fee of $5.00 per log will be added to your water bill. If there is a root ball a fee of $10.00 will be added to the water bill." Public Works is reached on 598-3400 x1106; City Hall is 10335 South Roberts Road, Palos Hills, Illinois 60465, telephone (708) 598-3400. Every other answer on the page is about water meters, water bills and street lights. The bulk-item terms that actually govern a mattress are in the scavenger contract letter the City publishes separately, not here. Source Not confirmed: The FAQ publishes no bulk item, furniture or mattress guidance, no booking route for a bulk collection and no fee. Not confirmed: It does not state the current monthly refuse rate or how refuse is billed.
• Not an option: Nothing in Palos Hills is mattress-specific, and the contract letter is the proof: it enumerates every extra the City bought from Republic Services - unlimited carted household trash, carted recycling, yard waste April 1 to November 30, 96-gallon carts at no charge, bulk items at no cost, Christmas trees collected through late December and January, dead animals removed from city streets on a call from the City, "passenger car tires or smaller tires at no additional cost", street sweeping twice a year, and "free curbside collection of E Waste on normal pickup days" pre-scheduled at (708) 385-8252 - and a mattress recycling route is not among them. The City runs no mattress program, names no mattress recycler, and there is no state program for Illinois residents to use. The mattress is collected free as a bulk item and the contract says nothing about where it goes. Source Not confirmed: Neither the City nor Republic Services says whether a bulk item collected in Palos Hills is landfilled or recycled, so no diversion can be claimed. Not confirmed: No dedicated mattress recycler with a street address and published household terms serves Palos Hills.
• The nearest charity to Palos Hills that will look at a mattress is the Salvation Army Family Store at "Oak Lawn: 8732 S Cicero 60453", one of the Chicagoland "Stores & Donation Centers" open "10am - 6pm", roughly three miles east. It will not collect a mattress and does not accept them as a rule; the published exception is that a mattress "considered to be in pristine condition" may be driven to any of the stores, where "it will be inspected for condition, stains and bed bugs by the manager on duty, before it is unloaded", a refused mattress must be taken away by the donor, and "A box spring is NEVER accepted without the inspected and accepted mattress it is paired with." No thrift shop, shelter or furniture bank with a Palos Hills address publishes a mattress policy of its own. Source Not confirmed: Acceptance is decided at the gate by the manager on duty and "pristine condition" is not defined further. Not confirmed: No reuse organization inside Palos Hills publishes a mattress policy.

• 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