How Chelsea Handles Bulk Items
Chelsea takes furniture with the regular trash, but no more than two pieces a week, so a dresser, a couch, a table or chairs go out a couple at a time. Carpet has to be rolled up and tied in pieces under 4 feet long, and a window with broken glass goes in a box. Appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, stoves, dishwashers and water heaters, along with TVs and computer monitors, only go out with a white goods sticker bought at City Hall, and the doors come off a large appliance before it goes on the sidewalk by 7 on trash day.
Mattresses and box springs are a separate paid pickup on Mondays and Thursdays. You pay the city for a collection sticker first and then book the day. On that day the mattress goes out by 7 in the morning, wrapped in plastic with the sticker on it, and one left outside without a booking can be ticketed. Textiles, propane tanks, fluorescent bulbs, paint other than latex, dirt, rock, cinderblocks, cement, plumbing and any other construction debris are all on the city's list of things that cannot go in the trash. We take construction debris, mattresses and paint in Chelsea, and we take all of the furniture at once rather than two pieces a week.
We checked each rule above against the official page it links to in October 2026.