5 things St. Louis bulk pickup won't take

The short answer

The City's monthly bulky pickup, included in the $14 per month per unit solid-waste fee, will not take: anything over 100 lbs, anything over 6 ft long or 2 ft in diameter, a fourth item, railroad ties, or a refrigerator with its doors still on. It also will not come into your house. Those five are where most St. Louis alley piles go wrong. All of them can be picked up flat — sofa $126, upright piano $364, extra items priced one by one.

First, the rules themselves

For reference, here is what the City publishes for bulky pickup:

• Monthly, during your designated collection week.
• Out by 6:00 am on the Monday of that week.
• Alley residents put items in the alley behind the home; curbside residents at the curb.
• Up to three items per pickup.
• No piece over 100 lbs, 6 ft long or 2 ft in diameter.
• Refrigerator doors must be removed. Railroad ties are not accepted.

These apply inside the City limits only. County and Illinois rules are set by each municipality or trash district. If you live in Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Oakville or Florissant, none of the numbers above are your rules, and you should check with your own city or district hauler before putting anything out.

1. Anything over 100 pounds

This is the rule that catches the most furniture. Over 100 lbs means sleeper sofas, reclining and power sofas, solid-wood armoires and large dressers, china hutches, treadmills, gun safes, cast-iron tubs and pianos. Old St. Louis houses are full of exactly this kind of heavy, well-built furniture. Carondelet and Dutchtown houses went up mostly between 1880 and 1930, and St. Louis Hills homes in the 1930s to 1950s, so a lot of what is in their basements came in when the house was new and was built to stay.

Cast-iron radiators deserve a mention. They come out of brick flats during rehabs and they are far over the limit. No amount of dismantling gets one under 100 lbs.

2. Anything over 6 feet long

Six feet is shorter than it sounds. A typical three-seat sofa is about 7 feet. Queen and king mattresses are about 80 inches. A rolled 8-by-10 rug is longer than 6 feet. So is lumber from a deck tear-out, and so are sectional pieces from some larger sets.

You can cut some things down, but each piece still counts toward your three. Cutting a sofa in an alley is also slow, messy work with springs and staples. Flat prices instead: sofa $126, queen mattress $103, large area rug $68, lumber bundle $41, 3-piece sectional $185.

3. The fourth item (and the fifth, and the sixth)

Three items per pickup sounds generous until you clear a room. A bedroom is a bed frame, a mattress, a box spring and a dresser: four. A move-out from a South City flat is ten or twelve. At three a month, a twelve-piece move-out takes four months of collection weeks.

A real example, priced: queen set $143, metal frame $68, dresser $126, nightstand $57, and a recliner $98. That is $143 + $68 + $126 + $57 + $98 = $492, gone in one visit. For a bigger pile, compare against a truck tier: a half truck is $431, a 3/4 truck $587. Once a load passes roughly eight cubic yards of mixed stuff, the tier is usually the simpler way to price it.

4. Railroad ties

The City specifically does not accept railroad ties. They show up in St. Louis yards as old garden borders, retaining walls and steps, and they are heavy and treated. Many of them would fail the 100-lb or 6-ft limit anyway. If you are tearing out a landscape border, send a photo and ask before booking, so the crew knows how many ties and how heavy the load is before they arrive.

5. A refrigerator with the doors on

Refrigerators are collected through the City's BOAT-E program (batteries, oil, appliances, tires, electronics), but the doors must be removed first. Many people do not know that, put the fridge out whole, and it stays. Removing doors on a modern fridge means unplugging the water line, taking off hinge covers and unbolting the hinges. And the fridge still has to come up from the basement first.

Flat price: standard fridge $164, side-by-side or French door $183, carried out from any floor, doors on, no prep. Missouri bans major appliances from landfills, so it goes to recycling.

What working around the rules costs you

The other free-ish route for City residents is self-haul. The North and South transfer stations take resident loads Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 4:00, up to 12 loads a year. You bring ID and a water or solid-waste bill, and a load is what fits a half-ton pickup, up to 5 by 8 by 4 feet. No household hazardous waste, and no business or nonprofit waste.

That works if you own a pickup and can take a weekday off. If you don't, add a truck rental, a helper, the carry up a narrow basement stair and a trip during work hours. For a sleeper sofa and a dresser, the flat price is $149 + $126 = $275, carried out with nothing to rent and no weekday to burn. Compare that against your own time honestly before choosing.

How to use the City pickup well

None of this means the City's bulky pickup is not worth using. It is already paid for through the $14 per month per unit solid-waste fee, and for the right items it is the cheapest route there is. To get the most from it:

• Pick your three best candidates each month: light, short pieces like a dining chair, a small table, a lamp or a nightstand.
• Put them out on time, by 6:00 am on the Monday of your collection week, not days early.
• Use the alley if your block has one. The front curb is the wrong spot in alley blocks.
• Use BOAT-E for appliances, tires and electronics, following the City's instructions.
• Keep everything else inside until it has a route.

Then book a pickup for the pieces that fail the rules, ideally together, so one visit clears all of them. The City collects from the alley or curb; it does not carry anything out of your house. If the item is in a basement, on the third floor of a four-family flat, or at the back of a garage, getting it to the alley is on you. Crews carry from any floor with no stairs fee. Price it from a photo at the instant quote page.

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