How to get rid of a mattress in Cleveland Heights, OH.

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.

• Cleveland Heights is unusual in handling an early set-out as a civil penalty with a published price list and an appeal, rather than as a criminal citation. Section 1351.991 lets the Mayor, through the Housing Commissioner, "assess a civil penalty against the owner of property if trash, yard waste, rubbish, garbage or other debris or litter are left on the tree lawn, gutter, street, tree well or planter or sidewalk in front of the owner's premises at times other than those permitted by Section 1351.14 'Rubbish and Garbage Disposal'." The amounts are in 1351.991(c): "fifty dollars ($50.00) per occurrence if paid within thirty days of the notice being issued, and one hundred dollars ($100.00) if paid more than thirty days after the notice is issued. The charge for a repeat offense within thirty days of a prior offense shall be one hundred dollars ($100.00) if paid within thirty days of notice being issued and one hundred fifty dollars ($150.00) if paid more than thirty days after the notice is issued. Each day of violation shall be considered a separate offense." Notice is served in person, left conspicuously at the premises or mailed, and it must tell the owner "the amount of the civil penalty, the permissible method of payment and the right of the owner to appeal the assessment to the City's Nuisance Abatement Board of Review within fourteen days of delivery of the notice." For a reader with a wrapped mattress on the tree lawn, the practical rule is that the city's published set-out window - 7pm Sunday to 7am Monday of the route week - is backed by a $50 ticket that doubles if it is ignored for a month, and that there is a named body to appeal to. The section rests on Ordinance 89-2009, passed September 21, 2009, as amended by Ordinance 153-2021, passed December 6, 2021. Source Not confirmed: Section 1351.14, which sets the permitted times the civil penalty is measured against, was not read in the current code; the set-out window recorded here comes from the city's own bulk items page
• Cleveland Heights expressly permits a neighbor to take usable furniture off a tree lawn, inside a stated window - the exact opposite of Parma's rule a few miles away, and worth knowing before a usable mattress goes out. Section 527.15(b) prohibits scavenging generally, "provided, however, that nothing herein shall prohibit any person from taking for his own personal use and not for resale, usable furniture, appliances, or building materials which are placed on a treelawn for collection on a collection day or the preceding evening and which are not in a garbage bag, box or other container. Any person removing usable furniture, appliances or building materials may do so only prior to 9:00 p.m. on the evening preceding collection day, and after 6:00 a.m. on the day of collection." The limits are real: personal use only, not resale, and not if the item is bagged or boxed - which sits awkwardly beside the city's own requirement that a mattress be wrapped in plastic. Dumping is handled separately and expensively. Section 527.16(a) bars dumping litter or solid waste on public or private property or in a public trash receptacle anywhere not licensed or designated for it, and 527.16(b) gives the city a remedy with a multiplier: after written notice to remove illegally dumped debris, "If the violator fails to comply with this order within three days, the City may remove the debris. The violator shall be liable for a civil penalty equal to three times the cost of such removal services." Under 527.99 a dumping violation is a misdemeanor of the fourth degree rather than the minor misdemeanor that covers most of the littering chapter, as is unlawful scavenging under 527.15(b). Source Not confirmed: The code does not resolve whether a mattress wrapped in plastic as the city requires is still available to a taker under 527.15(b), which excludes items in a garbage bag, box or other container Not confirmed: Section 501.99 sets the dollar amounts for a minor misdemeanor and a fourth degree misdemeanor and was not read, so the fine for illegal dumping in Cleveland Heights is not established beyond the triple-cost civil penalty

• Primary names Harvard Avenue Transfer Station at 3227 Harvard Ave, Newburgh Heights OH 44105; district calls it Harvard Road at 3227 Harvard Road. Same number, city and operator support an identity candidate, but street suffix discrepancy retained. Source
• Hamilton municipal FAQ says transfer-station large-item intake Monday–Saturday. Existing Rumpke operator-locator staging record 07c7c0690194a830d775d57e lists Monday–Friday 8am–3:45pm at the same 1000 N Third Street address and phone 513-867-8661. This is an hours discrepancy, not grounds to merge unrelated branches. Source
• Ohio EPA Solid Waste Management District Locator (GIS app): select a county to see its Solid Waste Management District; the underlying layer covers all 88 counties. SWMDs are the local contact for recycling and disposal. Source
• Ohio EPA's "Where to Recycle" page names the three statewide tools it offers residents: the Ohio EPA Recycling Directory (a searchable directory of service providers who volunteered to be listed), the solid waste management district locator map, and the Ohio Materials Marketplace for businesses. It states that recycling and litter prevention activities are controlled locally through the county's solid waste management district, which "can help with information such as ... where to take hard to recycle items". Note the agency site now serves these pages under the /wps/portal/gov/epa/ path; the bare /divisions-and-offices/... URLs 404 when requested directly. Source
• The Ohio EPA Recycling Directory is hosted on RecycleSearch (Re-TRAC) and is searchable by free text or by pre-set material categories after setting a location. Its own text says results may include curbside recycling programs, drop-off recycling locations, reuse stores and other service providers, and that listing is not an endorsement. Its FAQ states the directory "is in the process of being populated" and that some areas of the state may have no information available, directing residents to their local solid waste management district instead. Listings are managed by Ohio EPA and the districts. Source
• No statewide mattress stewardship program or landfill ban found on Ohio EPA pages as of 2026-09-22; mattress disposal is handled by local governments and county solid waste management districts. The agency's own site search for "mattress" returns only 4 resources, none of them mattress-related (Revised Total Coliform Rule, Underground Injection Control, operator exam information and a Trauma Scene Clean-Up fact sheet). The Materials and Waste Management division pages cover solid waste, infectious waste, scrap tires and C&DD, with no mattress or bulky-item program. Source
• Mattress Recycling Council's Program States page names exactly four program states — California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Oregon. Ohio is not among them, confirming there is no MRC-run mattress stewardship program or Bye Bye Mattress free drop-off network in Ohio. Source