How to get rid of a mattress in Garfield, NJ.

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.

• Garfield is the city in this group that publishes no bulk or furniture collection at all, and its own itemized rules are what establish it. The City's Recycling Rules & Regulations work through the special categories one by one and set a booking step for each: "APPLIANCES: Appliances will be picked up one day per week BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. Please call 973-546-2200 to set up your appliance pick up. Set out your appliance AFTER 6:00 pm the day before your pickup." Televisions are the same, by appointment at 973-546-2200. Used car tires are the same, and may also be dropped at the DPW Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM, reporting to the front office first. Electronic scrap is accepted at the DPW Monday through Friday, 7:00 am to 2:00 pm, again reporting to the front office first. Branch pickups run April through October by appointment, bundled and tied and not over 4 feet. Leaves and grass go in recyclable paper bags from the DPW. Recyclables must be placed at the curb after 4:00 PM the day before the designated collection day. Across that whole itemized document, and across the City's Public Works page, which covers the same categories plus white goods and metals by appointment on Thursdays booked by the Wednesday, there is no bulk item program, no furniture collection, no large-item run, and the words mattress and box spring do not appear. A Garfield resident with a mattress is not told by the City what to do with it. Source Not confirmed: The City publishes no bulk item or furniture collection and names mattresses nowhere, so whether one may be set out with household garbage, booked as a special pickup, or must be removed privately is not established — the absence of a rule is not permission Not confirmed: No fee is published for any household collection, so nothing is established about what a mattress would cost Not confirmed: The City's printed collection calendar is mailed to residents the first week of March and is not published in readable form online, so any bulk provision it might carry could not be read Not confirmed: The DPW yard at 413 Midland Avenue takes electronics and tires at the gate but the City does not say whether anything else may be brought there
• What Garfield does publish, and in unusual detail, is what it will fine you for. Chapter 164 of the City Code, Garbage, Rubbish and Refuse, makes the property owner responsible for anything "placed at the curb/sidewalk area in front of and/or on the side of his/her/their properties for disposal or pickup prior to 4:00 p.m. of the day before said pickup is scheduled", and sets a four-step ladder: a $150 fine for a first offense, $250 for a second within twelve months, $500 and a mandatory court appearance for a third, with the Municipal Judge able to impose eight to 30 hours of community service, and for a fourth and each after it "a fine of not less $1,000 and not greater than $2,000 and a mandatory court appearance", with 100 to 200 hours of community service available to the Judge. A parallel section pitched at commercial properties starts higher, at $500, then $750, then $1,000, then the same $1,000 to $2,000 band. The storage and placement rules amended by Ordinance No. 3035, adopted May 21, 2024, carry the same $150 / $250 / $500 / $1,000-to-$2,000 ladder and require that refuse awaiting collection sit in covered containers kept upright and regularly disinfected, and not be stored in front of or beside a building between collections except in a fully enclosed structure. Ordinance No. 3086, added July 22, 2025, bars scavenging: "No person shall remove or disturb any garbage, receptacles, recyclable materials, refuse and/or rubbish placed out for collection unless he/she is the owner thereof or has authority from the owner or the City of Garfield." The chapter is enforced by the Construction Code Officer, the Police Department, the Sanitation Officer and the Property Maintenance Officer. Its definition of "rubbish" sweeps in "papers, wrappings, cigarettes, cardboard, tin cans, yard clippings, leaves, wood, glass, bedding, crockery, building materials and similar materials" — the only place bedding is named anywhere in Garfield's published material, and a definition rather than a collection rule. Two 2026 amendments to the chapter, Ordinance No. 3121 of March 10, 2026 and Ordinance No. 3156 of June 23, 2026, deal with commercial dumpsters and bar, restaurant and tavern waste, and change nothing for a household item. Source Not confirmed: Chapter 164 nowhere addresses bulk items, furniture or mattresses, and the appearance of the word bedding inside the chapter's definition of "rubbish" does not establish that bedding is collected or how Not confirmed: The chapter sets no fee for any collection

• NJDEP County/Municipal Recycling Coordinator Locator lists municipal (updated August 2026) and county (updated July 2026) coordinator contacts. No statewide mattress stewardship program or landfill ban found on NJDEP pages as of 2026-09-22; mattress collection is handled by counties/municipalities. Source