How to get rid of a mattress in Wheeling, 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.

• Wheeling residents are required by ordinance to put household waste through the Village system, which is why there is no do-it-yourself alternative inside the village. Section 5.30.020(a): "All persons owning or occupying residential real estate within the corporate limits of the village shall dispose of system waste though the municipal solid waste system. All system waste shall be collected by or on behalf of the village pursuant to the terms of this Chapter and shall be delivered to a transfer station as directed by the agency and the village". The "agency" is defined in 5.30.010 as "the solid waste agency of Northern Cook County" - SWANCC - so a Wheeling mattress set at the curb is contractually routed to SWANCC's transfer station. Section 5.30.030(a) closes the loop on private haulers: "No person shall collect, transport or dispose of system waste without a license issued pursuant to the Chapter 5.32 of the Wheeling Municipal Code." Source Not confirmed: The code does not say whether a resident taking their own mattress to a transfer station in their own vehicle is caught by the required-use provision.
• Wheeling runs no drop-off of its own, and the Village's ordinance points residents' waste at SWANCC, of which Wheeling is a member community - the Agency's own head office is at 77 W. Hintz Road in Wheeling, but the place a resident can actually take a mattress is the transfer station in Des Plaines, about seven miles away. The Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) runs the Glenview Transfer Station at 3 Providence Way, Des Plaines, IL 60016 - "on the east side of Des Plaines River Road, just north of Central Road, directly across Des Plaines River Road from the Maryville Academy". SWANCC states that "Residents may also bring refuse and debris to the transfer station. You will be required to unload your own vehicle." Its rate card, dated March 1, 2026, prices the awkward item separately from tonnage: "Mattresses and Futons $75.00 per item (box springs charged as regular waste, by weight)", against "Commercial and Residential Waste $100.00 per ton ($25.00 minimum for 500lb. or less)". Access is not limited to member communities for waste - only the Saturday electronics collection is "available ONLY to residents of SWANCC member communities". The practical constraints are the hours and the unloading: Monday through Friday 6-10 AM and 2-3:30 PM, Saturday 6 AM to 12 PM, closed Sunday, because the site "is extremely busy weekdays between 10 am and 2 pm and is CLOSED to residents and contractors during this time". A high-visibility reflective safety vest is required and sold at the scale, payment is by credit card only, and the site is closed on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Source Not confirmed: SWANCC does not publish a wrapping or bagging rule for a mattress brought to the scale.
• Not an option: Illinois has no statewide mattress recycling program and nothing mattress-specific serves this village. The Mattress Recycling Council, which operates the Bye Bye Mattress network, lists its program states on its own programs page: California, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon and Rhode Island. Illinois is not among them, so there is no state-funded collection site, no recycling fee paid at purchase and no free drop-off to send anyone to. Twenty-four Illinois cities researched before this one turned up no Illinois mattress recycler with a street address and published household terms, and a fresh search for one serving the north-west Cook County suburbs again produced only national junk-removal brokers quoting per-item haul-away prices, which is a removal service rather than a recycling facility and is out of scope. The honest answer for a resident here is that the mattress goes out with the village collection and is landfilled. Source
• Not an option: The nearest Habitat ReStore to Wheeling refuses used mattresses outright, and says so on its own acceptance sheet. Habitat for Humanity of Northern Fox Valley runs ReStore Arlington Heights at 955 E. Rand Road, Arlington Heights, IL 60004, about six miles from Wheeling and open for donations Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00am - 5:30pm. Its materials acceptance sheet has a "WHAT WE CANNOT ACCEPT" column whose first entry is "Used mattresses". The store does take "All furniture", with upholstered pieces required to be "in excellent condition-no stains, rips, holes", so a bed frame is donatable even though the mattress is not, and the ReStore reserves a general right to decline: "if we feel that we cannot sell an item, we reserve the right to decline the donation, so that ReStore profits are used to build homes, and not pay for disposal fees." 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