How to get rid of a mattress in Wheaton, 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.

• The City's own FAQ confirms the sticker mechanics and the five-sticker rate for bulky items. "The City's program only uses stickers for yard waste/leaves/organics, bulk items, excess garbage that won't fit in your garbage cart, e-waste, and bulk items. All of these types of items use the same kind of sticker. There is no limit to the number of excess garbage bags that will be collected." Asked about large pieces of garbage, it answers: "Yes. Bulk items are items that are too large to fit into your plastic cart", with carpet rolls limited to 4 feet by 18 inches and stickered individually, and a toilet needing "the 5 required stickers" placed on one piece after separating bowl from tank. White goods containing CFCs, mercury switches or other hazardous components are collected by a separate truck at the end of the day. Do-it-yourself construction or demolition debris is "$16.50 per one (1) cubic yard with a $23.00 pickup charge", in 35-gallon containers or stacks under 50 pounds. Carts are billed by RFID chip, so a household pays only for the weeks it sets a cart out, and old stickers from previous haulers are not accepted. Source Not confirmed: Neither the City nor LRS states in writing that a mattress is a five-sticker bulk item by name; the five-sticker rate is published for bulk items generally, with mattresses named as bulk items in the same LRS section.
• Wheaton Code of Ordinances Chapter 54 (Solid Waste) sets the rules, and its set-out window is worth reading beside the City's web page because the two differ. Section 54-5(b) provides that garbage, organic waste and recyclables, stored in containers or otherwise appropriately secured, "may be placed on the parkway after 6:00 p.m. on the evening preceding solid waste collection service, and emptied containers, in addition to anything not collected by the solid waste hauler, shall be removed from the parkway by 7:00 p.m. on the day of solid waste collection"; anything missed may return to the parkway after 6:00 p.m. the evening before the planned re-collection. Section 54-5(a) allows material on the parkway only to facilitate removal by a solid waste company and requires it to be secured so that debris is not scattered by weather or animals. Section 54-4 prohibits depositing garbage, trash, recyclable, organic or yard waste on the property of another, "including deposit inside containers, dumpsters, trash cans, bags, carts, or barrels, intended for the deposit of those items by occupants of the property". Section 54-6 makes uncovered piles of waste unlawful, 54-7 bans placing waste where the wind can blow it about, 54-10 makes stealing a sticker unlawful and 54-11 bans tampering with the RFID system. Sections 54-41 and 54-42 require a city contract or license to collect waste in Wheaton and cap residential contracts at one. Section 54-9 protects the sticker price: no one may sell stickers "for an amount greater than specified in the most recent waste collection and disposal agreement between the city and waste hauler", and businesses may not force customers to buy them in multiple allotments. Homeowner-supplied garbage containers are capped at a 33-gallon bag or a 35-gallon can, each under 50 pounds when full (54-2). Source
• Not an option: There is no public drop-off in DuPage County that takes a mattress, so Wheaton residents have the sticker route and nothing else. The County's own recycling page publishes four programs, none of which covers furniture: free electronics recycling at municipal and township sites, including Wheaton's own second-Saturday-of-the-month collection at 820 W. Liberty Drive from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and an annual Wheaton Recycling Extravaganza at the DuPage County Fairgrounds, 2015 Manchester Rd.; free paper recycling through Midwest Paper Retriever; latex and oil paint recycling at listed locations; and the Household Hazardous Waste facility in Naperville, "open and available to all residents of Illinois at no charge" on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with no appointment, which takes cleaning and maintenance chemicals but not business waste. DuPage County has no public landfill or transfer station for residential self-haul, and its Recycle Coach guide is offered for anything not covered. Source
• Not an option: The ReStore that serves Wheaton refuses mattresses in writing. DuPage and Chicago South Suburbs Habitat for Humanity runs donation doors at 858 Rte 59, Naperville, IL 60540 and 15441 S Cicero, Oak Forest, IL 60452, both Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 4pm, and its Donate Items page lists "Mattresses" among "Items we cannot accept", alongside cribs, textiles (clothing, curtains, bedding, linens), used ladders, hazardous or toxic chemicals and broken items that cannot be resold. It does accept bed frames, along with bookshelves, tables, nightstands, desks, chairs, sofas, sectionals and TV stands, working appliances, kitchen cabinets, doors, windows, tools, lighting and flooring, and offers free pick-ups for heavy or large items left in a garage or other weather-protected outdoor structure, since "we cannot enter your home to retrieve your items". Staff may decline anything that does not meet the guidelines. Source
• Not an option: Nothing in Wheaton or DuPage County recycles mattresses. Illinois has no statewide mattress recycling program. LRS, the City's contracted hauler, publishes detailed recycling guidance for containers, paper, yard waste and food scraps, and a separate sticker program for landfill-banned electronics, but treats a mattress purely as a bulk item requiring five stickers, with a plastic cover requested for crew safety rather than for processing. DuPage County's own recycling programs cover electronics, paper, paint and household hazardous waste only, and the county has no public drop-off for furniture. The honest answer for a Wheaton resident is that a mattress set out with five stickers is being taken away for disposal, not for recycling. 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