Most of what I get asked in Salem is some version of the same question, which is whether the city will take an item or whether you need a truck. The honest answer is that the city will take more than people think, it just costs a little and you have to book it. Here is how it actually works, what it costs right now, and what the city will not touch no matter how you ask.
This page is Salem only. If you are in Marblehead, Beverly, Swampscott, Peabody, Danvers or Lynn, the rules and the prices are different, and those six have their own post.
Booking a bulk pickup in Salem
Salem’s curbside collection is run by Waste Management, and bulk items are not something you can just put out and hope for.
- Call Waste Management at 800-972-4545 and press 4, at least 24 hours ahead. You can also book it online through WM’s bulk pickup page.
- The fee is $20 per item, which has been the rate since July 1, 2025.
- Bulk items come on your recycling day, not on a regular trash day.
- Put it at the curb, not blocking the sidewalk, out by the morning of the pickup.
A toilet, a gas grill with the tank removed, a couch, a chair, that sort of thing is a normal bulk item.
White goods are a separate category
Appliances have their own category and their own day.
- Also $20, as of July 1, 2025.
- Collected once a month on a designated day rather than on your recycling day.
- Covers dishwashers, dryers, furnaces, hot water heaters, stoves, trash compactors and washers.
- Since July 2025 this includes anything with Freon in it, so refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners and dehumidifiers now go out as white goods at the same $20. That used to be the hard one, and it is not anymore.
- TVs and computer monitors were added to this list too, though they are also taken at the city’s E-Waste events.
Mattresses are the expensive exception
Mattresses and box springs are $55 per item, and they do not go through the normal bulk booking. Salem runs them through UTEC, which is the nonprofit that recycles them.
That is not the city being difficult. Mattresses were banned from Massachusetts trash disposal on November 1, 2022, along with textiles, so they legally have to be pulled out and taken apart for recycling rather than buried. Everybody who handles one pays for that, us included.
The part that decides it for most people: it is curbside only
Everything above only works if you can get the item to the curb yourself.
Waste Management will not come into your home or onto your property to get it, and neither will UTEC on the mattress side. They collect what is already at the curb. That is not them being unhelpful, it is what the service is, and the fee reflects that.
So before you book anything, ask yourself honestly whether you can carry the item out. A box spring down a turning staircase, a washer up from a basement, a sleeper sofa through a doorway, those are two person jobs and they are how people get hurt. If the answer is no, the $20 booking does not help you, because the item is still going to be sitting exactly where it is on collection day.
This is the single most common reason people end up calling us after they have already paid the city. If you are older, if you live alone, if your back is bad, if the item is upstairs or downstairs or the doorway is tight, the city option is not really available to you no matter what the fee is. Carrying it out is most of the work, and it is the part we are actually being paid for.
If $20 an item is a real problem
Salem has a hardship waiver for the bulk fee. You fill it out and submit it to the Waste Reduction Coordinator at the City Hall Annex, 98 Washington Street, second floor, Engineering. I mention it because almost nobody knows it exists and the people who most need it are the least likely to ask.
What the city will not take, at any price
This is the list that sends people looking for a truck. Salem’s curbside rules refuse:
- No tires.
- No fluorescent bulbs. Those go to 5 Jefferson Avenue.
- No TVs or computers in the regular trash. They go to E-Waste Day, which the city runs four times a year, or out as a white good.
- No propane tanks.
- No paint, chemicals, batteries, used motor oil or oils.
- No construction waste or demolition debris. No drywall, no lumber, no tile, no concrete.
- No cleanouts. Bulk pickup is built for an item or two. A garage, a basement or a house being emptied out is not what it is for, and they will not take it.
For the hazardous side of that list, the Board of Health runs a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day open to Salem and Beverly residents. You can reach them at 978-619-5654 for the dates. It is worth calling early, because those days come around a few times a year and if you just missed one you are waiting a while.
So when does the city make more sense than us?
Genuinely, most of the time, if you have one or two things and you are not in a hurry.
One couch through the city is $20 and a phone call. One couch through us is our $120 minimum, because the truck, the crew and the trip to the disposal site cost us the same whether we are picking up one couch or six. That is a bad trade for you, so book the city instead.
Where it flips:
- You have more than a few items. At $20 each, six pieces is $120 and three separate booking days, and you are still stuck with anything on the refused list.
- Anything on the refused list is in the pile. Construction debris and paint in particular. The city will not take those at all, and the hazardous waste day may be months out.
- There is a deadline. A closing, a lease end, a tenant moving in. Bulk pickup runs on the city’s calendar, not yours.
- It is a whole room or a whole house. That is not a bulk pickup question, it is a cleanout.
- You cannot get it to the curb yourself. Covered above, and it is the one that decides it most often. Neither WM nor UTEC will come inside for it.
What we do with the things the city refuses
We take the whole mix in one trip, which is most of the point. The mattresses, the TVs, the construction debris, the paint and the fifteen other things go on the same truck and get sorted afterwards.
Paint, chemicals and motor oil are worth calling out on their own, because that is the one people assume nobody will take. We do take them year round. They need special handling so they are quoted separately from the rest of the load, and you get that number before we start.
Anything still usable gets donated before any of it reaches a facility, mostly to Big Blue Bargains in Swampscott, More Than Words in Boston and The Salvation Army. Scrap metal goes to Turner Inc in Lynn. The rest goes to the Republic transfer station in Peabody, and on a long day we will use Pinto Recycling in Peabody or G. Mellow in Georgetown.
One thing that scares people more than it should
MassDEP has said openly that it does not generally enforce the disposal bans against individual households. Enforcement is aimed at haulers, businesses and municipalities moving large volumes. You are not going to get a fine for a mattress. The reason a mattress costs $55 instead of $20 is that somebody has to pay the recycler to take it apart, not that you are in trouble.
If you are not sure which one you need
Call or text 978-915-3399 with a photo and I will tell you straight whether it is a city job or a truck job. We are based here in Salem, we are licensed and insured, and we are often able to come same day. If the answer is that you should just call Waste Management and save the money, that is what I will tell you.