How to get rid of a mattress in Wooster, 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.

• Wooster's current rate sheet, headed "City of Wooster Residents, Effective 7-1-2025", sets a "Standard Trash Rate - $17.00 Per Month" and a "Senior Citizen Rate For Residents Age 65 and Above - $15.30 Per Month". Residential trash is collected once a week on the household's scheduled weekday, and if a major holiday falls on or before the collection day that week the service is delayed one day; the holidays Kimble observes are New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The set-out window is tight and stated exactly: "Trash may be put out no earlier than 4:00 PM the day before your scheduled collection day and no later than 6:30 AM the morning of your scheduled collection day." Trash must be placed at the curb in the rolling carts provided by the city's contractor. Construction-type materials "will NOT be picked up at the curb", the examples given being drywall, plaster, brick or block, concrete, doors, windows, steel or aluminum, or plumbing fixtures. Refuse collection questions go to Kimble at (800) 201-0005 and billing to Wooster City Services at 330-263-5228. Source Not confirmed: The rate sheet carries no bulk item line and no per-item charge of any kind, so it neither prices a mattress nor prices an extra bulk item beyond the monthly allowance Not confirmed: A monthly rate of $17.00 is the charge for the whole weekly service and is not a price for any single item
• Wooster's code classifies a discarded mattress by name, and it does not put it with the bulky waste. Section 945.01(k) of Chapter 945 defines "Rubbish" as "waste wood, wood products, chips, shavings, sawdust, printed matter, paper, pasteboard, rags, straw, used and discarded mattresses, used and discarded clothing, used and discarded shoes and boots, combustible waste pulp and other products such as are used for packaging or wrapping crockery and glass, ashes, cinders, floor sweepings, glass, mineral or metallic substances and any and all other waste materials not included in the definitions of 'bulky waste', 'construction waste', 'garbage', 'hazardous waste', 'infectious waste', 'recyclable material', 'refuse' or 'yard waste". Section 945.01(a) defines "Bulky waste" separately as "stoves, refrigerators, water tanks, washing machines, furniture and similar waste materials with weights or volumes greater than that for which storage in containers is possible", and 945.02(d) adds that "Bulky waste shall be placed at the collection location with any doors removed and rendered safe for collection". Under 945.03(a) "All residential solid waste shall be collected and disposed of by the City or its contractor", and 945.03(d)(1)A states that "No person shall place solid waste or recyclables for collection any earlier than 4:00 p.m. on the evening before the day of collection" and that nothing may be set out for collection that was not generated at that service address. Bins must be back at the place of storage within twenty-four hours of collection. Section 945.07 gives the Mayor or designee the power to set the service charge at a level sufficient to meet the cost of collection and allows unpaid charges to be certified to the County Auditor as a lien. The penalties in 945.99 are unusually sharp for a waste chapter: violating the illegal dumping provision in 945.03(d) is a minor misdemeanor, violating the hazardous waste or unlicensed hauling sections is a first degree misdemeanor, and "Whoever violates any other provision of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree", with each day a separate offense. The ordinance history runs to Ord. 2015-24, passed July 7, 2015, and the code is current through February 2, 2026. Source Not confirmed: The code places a used mattress in "rubbish" while the city's contract FAQ and the hauler's guide both treat a mattress as a bulk item against the one-a-month allowance. Neither document explains how the two classifications fit together, and the code sets no separate rule or charge for either Not confirmed: Chapter 945 sets no wrapping requirement for a mattress; the plastic wrapping rule comes from the contract documents rather than the ordinance

• 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