Getting rid of a mattress in College Station and Bryan

If you live inside College Station city limits, your first stop is the curb. The city picks up brush and bulky items every week. It counts furniture and anything too big for the garbage cart as bulky, and a mattress is far too big for the cart. Bags of household garbage don't count as bulky, so keep those out of the pile.

Get the mattress to the curb in front of your home by 8 a.m. on your collection day. Keep it in its own pile, away from any brush. The city won't pick up a pile that mixes brush with bulky items.

Before you drag it out, look at the shape it's in. College Station asks residents to donate usable items to local non-profits before setting them out. A clean, newer mattress might have a second life. A stained or sagging one doesn't, and that's fine. The curb is there for it.

Bryan runs its own brush and bulky pickup once a week, Monday through Friday, for large household items like furniture. The rules are a little tighter on timing and spacing:

If you have a truck or trailer, you can take it out yourself. Twin Oaks Landfill sits in Anderson. College Station residents need ID and a utility bill showing they pay for garbage service, or Twin Oaks staff can check the city's list. Whatever town you're in, check current hours and fees on the Twin Oaks Landfill website before the drive.

Strap it down and cover it. A mattress catches wind like a sail on the highway, and a loose one is a danger to the car behind you.

Live in Navasota? The city has no curbside bulky pickup, but residents can bring up to four bulky items per load, mattresses included, to the Recycle Center at 501 Fifth St. on Saturdays, free. More on that town's options on our page for junk removal in Navasota.

A queen mattress isn't that heavy. It's floppy, and that's the problem. It folds in the middle, snags on stair rails and won't stay on a hand truck. Strip the bedding, stand it on its long edge, and walk it out with one person at each end. Slide the box spring out the same way, then break down the frame with a screwdriver or a hex key. Keep the bolts in a bag if anyone wants the frame.

Set the mattress somewhere dry until pickup day. A soaked mattress gets twice as hard to move, and nobody wants it after that.

Not that we could find. The mattress industry's Mattress Recycling Council runs state programs only in California, Connecticut, Oregon and Rhode Island, the states with mattress recycling laws. Texas isn't on the list, so there's no statewide drop-off network to look up.

That's why the local options above matter. In practice, your mattress goes out through city bulky pickup, a landfill trip, or someone who hauls it for you.

Some mattresses never make it to the curb on their own. A king set on the second floor of an apartment, a mattress in a complex where the city doesn't pick up, or a move-out where the truck is already packed. College Station sends apartments and properties outside city limits to private haulers, so plenty of renters don't have a city curb to use.

That's where ME3 Junk Solutions comes in. Eddie and Matthew carry it down, load it and haul it, along with the bed frame, box spring or anything else that's leaving. Text a photo to (214) 699-7855 and you'll get a range. You'll get one firm price before anything is loaded. See furniture and mattress removal in College Station for how that works.

Moving out at the end of a semester? The Texas A&M move-out guide covers timing. The Brazos Valley disposal guide lays out every city's pickup rules side by side.