How to get rid of a mattress in Urbana, 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.

• Urbana runs no municipal refuse collection at all: there is no city bulk-item pickup, no sticker and no fee schedule, because each household buys garbage service from a privately licensed hauler. The City's own new-resident page puts trash with the utilities: "Waste Haulers - Garbage and Yard Waste", listing "Licensed Garbage Haulers that Provide Totes for pickup - ABC Sanitary Hauling 217-356-0909, Chris' Service Company 217-684-2465, Dale Levitt Disposal 217-344-3000, GFL Environmental 217-893-3675, Mel's Disposal 217-346-2660, Republic Services 217-367-2278" and "Licensed Garbage Haulers Resident Supplied Tote - ABC Sanitary Hauling, Chris' Service Company, Dale Levitt Disposal". Yard waste is offered by ABC Sanitary, Chris' Service Company, Dale Levitt Disposal and Republic Services. The page links a "PRICING LIST" of the licensed haulers' filed rates, and separately points residents to the City's own recycling (U-Cycle, curbside recycling collected under contract) and to the Landscape Recycling Center for yard waste. What a mattress costs in Urbana is therefore set by whichever hauler the household happens to use, not by the city, and the city publishes no bulk-item allowance or charge of its own. Source Not confirmed: The City's linked hauler "PRICING LIST" is served as a file download rather than a web page, so the filed rates - and whether any hauler publishes a bulk-item or mattress charge - could not be read. Not confirmed: No licensed Urbana hauler publishes a mattress or bulk-item price on its own site; Illini Recycling, for example, publishes monthly can rates and says only that bulk items "are subject to additional charges" arranged in advance.
• Urbana's rules sit in Chapter 10 (Solid Waste Management) of the city code, and they regulate the haulers rather than provide a service. Sec. 10-20: "No person shall engage in the collection of municipal waste, landscape waste, or recyclable materials within the city without having a valid hauler business license issued by the city", with an exemption for "Any person that self hauls municipal waste... from property owned or managed by that person" - so a resident may legally haul their own mattress. Sec. 10-29 fixes the floor of service: haulers "are required to offer and provide a basic service level consisting of once-per-week backdoor and/or curbside collection of one (1) thirty-two-gallon container of municipal waste" - a mattress is not in the basic service. Sec. 10-30 requires every hauler to file a rate schedule with the director of public works each year, kept "on file and available for public inspection or copying", and requires that "The rates of all service levels to all customers shall be based upon the quantity of municipal waste collected and shall include a volume-based price differential" - which is why extra-volume items such as mattresses are charged extra. Sec. 10-28: "It shall be unlawful for any person to dispose of, transfer, or store municipal waste, landscape waste or special wastes in any place within the city, unless such location meets the requirements of federal, state or local law", and licensed haulers must deliver to an IEPA-licensed facility. The code's definition of "Rubbish" expressly covers "discarded furniture or furniture not designed for or modified to withstand the elements and outdoor use". Penalties under Sec. 10-39 are "not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00) nor more than two hundred dollars ($200.00) for a first offense and... not less than two hundred dollars ($200.00) nor more than five hundred dollars ($500.00) for any subsequent offense." Source Not confirmed: Chapter 10 sets no set-out window (no earliest or latest hour for putting an item at the curb) and no wrapping requirement for mattresses; those are left to each hauler's own terms, which are not published.
• Urbana Public Works keeps the most specific mattress-reuse list of any city in this wave, on its "Where Do I Recycle Additional Items?" page, under its own heading "Mattresses and Box Springs": "Mattresses and box springs must be in very good to excellent condition. These sites do not accept mattresses or box springs with rips, tears, stains, odors, or bed bugs. *Must call ahead*", followed by three named takers - "Empty Tomb 217-356-2262", "Immigrant Services of Champaign-Urbana 217-800-5725" and "Restoration Urban Ministries 217-355-2662". The same page rules out the obvious alternatives by name under "Furniture and Household Items": "Habitat for Humanity ReStore, 1914 Glenn Park Drive., Champaign, 217-355-6460 - Please call for a list of acceptable items - no mattresses or box springs"; "Goodwill, 1201 Savoy Plaza Ln., Savoy - no mattresses or box springs or cribs"; "Goodwill, 912 West Anthony Drive, Champaign - this site does not accept mattresses/box springs or cribs"; and "Salt & Light, 1819 Philo Road, Urbana, 217-355-5654 - This site does not accept mattresses/box springs or car seats." The city also warns that the list "does not constitute any company endorsement" and asks residents to "call locations for further instructions, fees, and hours". Source Not confirmed: The city lists only phone numbers for Empty Tomb, Immigrant Services of Champaign-Urbana and Restoration Urban Ministries - no addresses, hours, or whether they collect or require delivery - and none of the three publishes a mattress intake policy of its own.
• The self-haul answer for this whole metro area is inside Urbana's own city limits, and its price is unpublished. Neighboring Champaign's public works recycling page - the page that sends Champaign residents out of town because Champaign collects nothing - states: "For a fee, you can take items to the Republic Services' Transfer Station, 921 Saline Ct., Urbana", with the phone number 217-384-2274, and adds that if a mattress "is not in good/reusable condition" residents should "contact your garbage hauler for disposal options". The same page gives the Champaign reuse address for one of the takers on Urbana's own list: "Empty Tomb, 301 N. Fourth St., Champaign", which "may make arrangements to pick up items in good condition". Republic Services publishes nothing of its own for this transfer station - no gate rate, no per-item mattress charge, no hours and no residential self-haul rules - so the fee Champaign refers to cannot be established from any primary source, and the hours in circulation (8am-5pm Monday through Saturday) appear only in third-party directories. Source Not confirmed: Republic Services publishes no rate card, mattress fee, hours or self-haul rules for the Urbana Transfer Station at 921 Saline Ct; the only published statement about cost is Champaign's phrase "for a fee". Not confirmed: Whether the Urbana transfer station accepts walk-in residential loads at all, or only contracted haulers, is not published by the operator.
• Not an option: There is nothing mattress-specific in Urbana beyond reuse. The city's own item-by-item disposal list has a dedicated "Mattresses and Box Springs" heading, and every entry under it is a charity that resells or re-homes a mattress in "very good to excellent condition" - no recycler, no dismantler, no take-back and no collection event. The list's other headings show what a mattress-specific option would have looked like had one existed: named recyclers appear for scrap metal (Mack's Twin City Recycling, 2808 North Lincoln Avenue, Urbana; Mervis Recycling, 3008 North Cunningham Avenue, Urbana), paint (Sherwin-Williams and Niemann Ace Hardware stores), and landscape waste (Landscape Recycling Center, 1210 East University Avenue, Urbana, which takes organic yard waste only). Illinois is not an MRC state and runs no statewide mattress program, and no Illinois mattress recycler with an address and published household terms has been found in the 24 cities researched before this batch; Urbana adds none. Source

• 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