How to get rid of a mattress in Scranton, PA.

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.

• Scranton collects its own residential refuse and charges a flat annual fee for it. Chapter 400, Article II, § 400-11.A of the Code of the City of Scranton states: 'All City residential refuse accumulated in the City shall be collected, conveyed and disposed of by the City.' Subsection B draws the line on who is served: 'Commercial nonresidential enterprises or a residential enterprise of six or more EDU's in one building or residential clusters, must provide refuse removal by a private licensed hauler.' Section 400-12.B sets the fee: 'The annual fee for each EDU shall be $300', payable by the property owner for each equivalent dwelling unit owned, with a ten percent discount if the full amount is paid on or before April 15 (or two months after the tax notice carrying it, whichever is later). Under § 400-12.D the Director of Public Works may discontinue collection to a delinquent account, resuming only on payment of all accumulated fees, interest and penalties. Section 400-12.E requires anyone whose refuse is not collected by the City to file a notarised affidavit describing how they dispose of it instead. Section 400-14 sets the penalty for violating the article at a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $1,000, with up to thirty days in the county jail in default of payment. A vacancy exoneration under § 400-13 halves the fee for a six-month vacancy and removes it entirely for a full calendar year; Ordinance No. 38-2026, passed by Council on October 20, 2026 and effective January 1, 2026, rewrote § 400-13 to bar an exoneration where the unit's own refuse fee is delinquent or a code violation against it remains uncured, and left the $300 fee untouched. Source Not confirmed: Chapter 400 contains no bulky-item, large-item or mattress provision at all: neither Article I (Collection) nor Article II (Disposal and Fees) says whether a mattress may be set out, under what conditions, or at what charge. Not confirmed: The $300 figure is an annual fee per dwelling unit for ordinary refuse collection and is not a price for removing any particular item.
• Article I of Scranton's solid waste chapter governs how refuse is containerised, and nothing in it reaches a mattress. Section 400-4 requires every owner, tenant, housekeeper or occupant whose refuse the City removes to use tight receptacles of not fewer than three nor more than twenty-six gallons, each with a handle or handles and a tight-fitting cover, and forbids using more than one receptacle of under ten gallons. Section 400-5 requires garbage to be drained and wrapped in paper, and paper and other combustible refuse not in a receptacle to be securely bundled for easy handling. Section 400-6 requires receptacles to be placed by the occupant in the yard where collectors can easily reach them. Section 400-7 requires them kept covered at all times, § 400-8 forbids filling one within an inch of the top and requires the filled receptacle to be of a weight one man can easily handle, and § 400-9 bars the use of filthy, leaky or defective receptacles. Section 400-1 prohibits the continued keeping of trash, garbage, junk or refuse on residential, commercial or industrial property, and sets a fine of not more than $250 per vehicle for keeping trash or garbage in a truck, trailer or motor vehicle on any street, sidewalk or land in the City for more than one hour. Section 400-3 gives the Director of Public Works authority to make rules and regulations for collection and disposal, which is where any bulky-item rule would live. Source Not confirmed: The article is a receptacle code, not a list of accepted and refused items, so a mattress being absent from it establishes nothing either way about whether Scranton collects one. Not confirmed: The rules and regulations the Director of Public Works is empowered to make under § 400-3 are not published on eCode360 or on the city's website, so the operative bulky-item rules could not be read.
• Scranton's own residential recycling guide states the set-out window and confirms who the City picks up for. On timing it says: 'Make sure to set your bins out no more than 24 hours and prior to 6 AM the day of your pick up.' On eligibility it says: 'Living in a Multi-Residential Property with 5 residential units or less? The City still picks up your trash and recycling! Talk with your neighbors or landlord to see where your communal trash/recycling area is located.' On cost it says: 'As a resident of Scranton your refuse and recycling fee is already covered in your annual taxes and there are no extra costs to participate!' Residents without a recycling bin are told to contact the Department of Public Works at 570-348-4180, and that recycling may otherwise go in any bin of forty-five gallons or less. The guide lists what goes in the blue bin (glass, plastic, and aluminum, tin and steel bottles and containers) and the red bin (newspaper, magazines, unwanted mail, all types of writing paper, corrugated cardboard, paperboard, cereal and tissue boxes), and points residents with a hard-to-recycle item to ScrantonPA.gov/recycling. Source Not confirmed: The guide covers bins and recyclables only; it says nothing about mattresses, furniture or any other bulky item, and gives no bulky-item set-out rule. Not confirmed: The 'already covered in your annual taxes' line is about refuse and recycling collection generally; it does not say whether a bulky item is included in that or charged separately.
• Scranton's Department of Public Works does run bulk pickups, but the city publishes no rules for them. The city's Trash and Recycling page directs residents to call the Department of Public Works at 570-348-4180, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for leaf, grass, brush and bulk pickups, and sends recycling questions to recycle@scrantonpa.gov. Everything the page then sets out is about the ordinary service: red weeks are cardboard and paper, blue weeks are commingled, yellow days have no service; holiday and weather delays push pickups one day later for the rest of that week, ending on Saturday; garbage is often collected in the court or alley while recycling is always collected curbside at the front or side of the home; and bagged leaves go out in brown paper yard waste bags during red weeks on October 26–30 and November 9–14. The page links to the hard-to-recycle items list, the residential recycling guide and commercial recycling requirements. It names no bulky item, publishes no accepted or refused list for bulk pickups, and sets no fee for one. Source Not confirmed: The City publishes no fee for a bulk pickup, no limit on items, no notice period and no list of what a bulk pickup will and will not take; the only published route is the phone number. We did not call it, so none of those terms is established. Not confirmed: Whether a mattress is eligible for a Scranton DPW bulk pickup at all is not stated on any city page we read.
• Scranton's own Hard to Recycle Items list is itemized down to eyeglasses and mercury thermometers, and a mattress is not on it. The list routes car batteries to Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone, Kelleher Battery and Walmart; rechargeable batteries to Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe's; cell phones to Target, Lowe's and Staples; compact fluorescent lamps to Home Depot and Lowe's; computers and electronics to Best Buy, the Salvation Army (working only) and Waste Reduction and Recycling; eyeglasses to the Lion's Club and Walmart; household hazardous waste to Datom Products Inc., where fees apply; mercury thermometers to the Lackawanna County Environmental Office; microwaves to Fiegleman's Recycling Center, the PPL Recycling Program, Ben Weitsman of Scranton and the Salvation Army (working only); motor oil to Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone and Walmart; plastic bags to Lowe's, Target, Walmart and all grocery stores; refrigerators, freezers, dehumidifiers and air conditioners to Fiegleman's Recycling Center and the PPL Recycling Program; scrap metal to Anthracite Auto, Fiegleman's Recycling Center and Waste Reduction and Recycling; styrofoam to Anthracite Auto; tires to On Fire Tires and Auto and Waste Reduction and Recycling; and ink and toner to Best Buy, Staples and Walmart. Residents with an item not on the list are told to email recycle@scrantonpa.gov. Source Not confirmed: Mattresses and box springs appear nowhere on the list, as neither an accepted nor a refused item. That is an absence from the city's list, not a refusal, and the page gives no mattress destination. Not confirmed: The list gives no street addresses, and the only cost note on it is 'fees apply' for Datom Products Inc.

• Operator location page gives 219 Street Road, West Grove PA 19390; DEP permit 101069 directory gives 261 Street Road. Preserve both; no automatic address overwrite or branch merge. Source
• Seven facility cards distinguish YCRRC/Small Load Drop-Off at 2651 Blackbridge Road from management at 2700, recycling at 2685 Blackthorne Court, ash site, recreation and sanitary landfill. Operator ZIP 17406 differs from DEP YCRRC ZIP 17402. Source
• No statewide mattress stewardship program or landfill ban found on PA DEP pages as of 2026-09-22; mattress disposal is handled by local governments. Source
• PA DEP County Recycling Coordinators directory (select county) for local drop-offs and events; RecycleSearch for material-specific facilities; DEP Recycling Hotline 800-346-4242. DEP says bulky items go through your refuse hauler, or your county recycling coordinator if you have none. Source