Electronics recycling in Ottawa: where to take it, and what it costs.
The City of Ottawa does not collect electronics at the curb: not televisions, not computers, not printers. Getting rid of them is still free. Trail Road Landfill accepts electronic waste at no charge, four community drop-off events run in Ottawa between October and November 2026, and several depots take it year round, including the Electronic Recycling Association on Sheffield Road, Quantum Lifecycle Partners on Ages Drive, Heartwood House on McArthur Avenue and AIM Recycling on Bentley Avenue. The community events take electronics only and no household hazardous waste, so batteries, paint and solvent go a different route. Sign out, factory reset and pull the SIM or memory card before anything leaves the house, because nobody at the drop-off bin does that for you.
More than one carload?
Send a photo of what is going. We will tell you whether a Saturday at Trail Road does it, and what we would charge if it does not.
(613) 852-4059What the City counts as electronic waste.
The City publishes a list of items that are not picked up curbside. It is longer than most people expect.
Televisions. Desktop computers and terminals. Monitors. Laptops. Desktop printers. Fax machines. Disk drives. CD-ROM drives. Keyboards and mice. Amplifiers, stereos, speakers and receivers. Cameras and digital cameras. Copiers, fax machines and scanners. Pagers and PDAs. Radios. Telephones, cellphones and answering machines. VCR and DVD players.
The rough test is simpler than the list. If it has a cord or a battery and it is not an appliance, it is e-waste.
Trail Road takes it free.
Trail Road Landfill accepts electronic waste at no charge. You do not pay by weight for it and you do not pay the minimum load fee on it.
Tell the booth what you have when you arrive. Electronics go to a separate bin rather than the tipping face, and staff will point you there. That one sentence saves most people a lap of the site.
If you are going anyway with a truckload of other material, this is the easiest option by a wide margin. Our Trail Road Landfill guide covers the hours, the address and what the rest of a load costs.
Four free drop-off events this autumn.
Community organisations run e-waste collection days, and the City lists them. Four are published as of 2026-09-20: two on Saturday 3 October 2026, at the Ottawa Tool Library on Boyd Avenue and at the Pinecrest Recreation Complex parking lot on Torquay Avenue, then Saturday 24 October at the Walter Baker Sports Centre on Malvern Drive, and Saturday 7 November behind the Metro at 3310 McCarthy Road. Every address and time is in the table below.
One condition is worth reading twice: these events take electronics only, and no household hazardous waste. Do not arrive with paint, solvent, motor oil or batteries from the garage shelf and expect them to go in the same bin. That is a separate City programme with its own depot days.
Dates change and events get added. Check the City's electronic waste page, linked at the foot of this page, before you load the car.
Depots that are open year round.
If none of the dates work, several places take electronics on ordinary days. The Electronic Recycling Association is at Unit 13, 2760 Sheffield Road, on 613-518-4467, and it also handles business pickups. Quantum Lifecycle Partners is at 900 Ages Drive, Unit 700, on 613-723-3135. Heartwood House is at 404 McArthur Avenue on 613-241-5937, and individual drop-offs there are by appointment, so call first. AIM Recycling Ottawa West is at 120 Bentley Avenue in Nepean.
Ontario's producer-funded programme also runs a drop-off finder at Recycle My Electronics, linked at the foot of this page, which is where to check if you are closer to a retailer than to a depot.
Call ahead if you have something unusual or something large. Depots that mainly serve businesses do not always take a single household television, and the drive out to Sheffield Road is a long one to make twice.
Wipe it before it leaves the house.
Nobody at a drop-off bin is going to do this for you, and once the device is in the bin it is gone.
Sign out of accounts first, then factory reset. Pull the SIM card out of a phone and the memory card out of a camera. On a desktop tower, the hard drive is four screws and two cables, and taking it out is the only version of this that is certain. A reset laptop that still has its drive is almost always fine. A tower you are not sure about is worth thirty seconds with a screwdriver.
Old photos are the thing people actually regret. Copy them off before the machine goes.
Working gear is worth donating instead.
A laptop from 2021 that boots is not waste. Heartwood House refurbishes and redistributes working equipment, and the Electronic Recycling Association does the same. Both would rather have a working machine than another broken one.
Broken is broken, though. A cracked monitor or a television with a dead board is a recycling job, and there is no shame in taking it straight to the bin.
When it is easier to have it hauled.
Every option above assumes you can lift the thing and you have somewhere to put it.
A 60-inch television is a two-person carry and it will not go in a sedan. A basement cleanout produces a printer, two towers, a box of cables and a CRT monitor from a decade nobody misses, and that is a trip and a half to Trail Road. An office swapping out fifteen workstations is not a weekend job at all.
That is the work we do. We are an insured junk removal and cleanup crew, and we take the electronics out of the house along with everything else in the room. You point, we carry, and the e-waste goes where it is supposed to go.
It costs money, and the drop-off options above do not. If you can carry it and you have a Saturday, take it to Trail Road or one of the October events. If you cannot, or the job is bigger than the electronics, call us.
Getting a price, and the things we still cannot take.
Call (613) 852-4059 or email info@ottawasiterestoration.ca for an up-front price. Tell us what is going and roughly how much of it there is, and you get a number before anyone turns up.
We work across Ottawa, Kanata, Barrhaven, Orleans, Nepean, Gloucester and Gatineau. Same-day hauling when the truck has room.
Some things we genuinely cannot take, and electronics are not among them. Our guide to what junk removal will not take in Ottawa has the full list, and hazardous waste is most of it.
Every free drop-off in Ottawa, and what each one takes.
Locations, dates and rules from the City of Ottawa's electronic waste page and Ontario's Recycle My Electronics finder, read on 2026-09-20, and linked at the foot of this page.
| Where | When | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Trail Road Landfill, 4475 Trail Road | Public hours posted on the City's Trail Waste Facility page. | Free. No weight charge and no minimum load fee on electronics. Tell the booth what you have, because e-waste goes to a separate bin. |
| Ottawa Tool Library, 877A Boyd Avenue | Saturday 3 October 2026, 10am to 2pm. | Community e-waste drop-off run by the Ottawa Tool Library. Electronics only, no household hazardous waste. |
| Pinecrest Recreation Complex parking lot, 2250 Torquay Avenue | Saturday 3 October 2026, 10am to 4pm. | Run by Junk That Funk. Electronics only, no household hazardous waste. |
| Walter Baker Sports Centre, 100 Malvern Drive | Saturday 24 October 2026, 10am to 6pm. | Run by Junk That Funk. Electronics only, no household hazardous waste. |
| Metro Shopping Plaza, behind Metro, 3310 McCarthy Road | Saturday 7 November 2026, 10am to 4pm. | Run by Junk That Funk. Electronics only, no household hazardous waste. |
| Electronic Recycling Association, Unit 13, 2760 Sheffield Road | Open year round. Call 613-518-4467. | Also handles business pickups, and refurbishes working equipment rather than shredding it. |
| Quantum Lifecycle Partners, 900 Ages Drive, Unit 700 | Open year round. Call 613-723-3135. | Mainly serves businesses, so call before driving out with a single household item. |
| Heartwood House, 404 McArthur Avenue | By appointment. Call 613-241-5937 first. | Individual drop-offs are by appointment. Refurbishes and redistributes working equipment. |
| AIM Recycling Ottawa West, 120 Bentley Avenue, Nepean | Open year round. | Call ahead for anything unusual or large. |
| Participating retailers across Ottawa | Ordinary store hours. | Ontario's producer-funded programme lists them on its Recycle My Electronics drop-off finder. Ring the branch first: what a store accepts is not the same everywhere. |
| Batteries, paint, solvent and motor oil | Not accepted at the e-waste events. | Household hazardous waste is a separate City programme with its own depot days. |
| The black bin, the blue bin and the curb | Not collected. | The City does not collect electronic waste as part of curbside collection, and that covers every item on its list. |
No. The City does not collect electronic waste as part of curbside collection, and that covers all seventeen item types on its list, from televisions and monitors to keyboards, radios and DVD players. It has to go to a depot, a community drop-off event, or the landfill.
Trail Road takes it at no charge, and so do the community drop-off events listed above. There is no fee either way. The thing to plan for is not the cost, it is the carry. A large flat screen is a two-person lift and it will not go in a sedan.
Some retailers take back small electronics, and the City points people to participating retailers rather than naming them. Ontario's producer-funded programme runs a drop-off finder at recyclemyelectronics.ca, linked at the foot of this page, and that is the place to check which store near you takes what. Ring first if you are making a trip for one item, because what a branch accepts is not the same everywhere.
Not at Trail Road, and not at the community events. Depots that mainly serve businesses may charge or may decline household quantities, which is the reason to call before driving out.
Not at the e-waste events. The City is explicit that no household hazardous waste is accepted at those drop-offs, and batteries fall under that heading. They go through the household hazardous waste route instead, which runs on its own depot days.
No. Whatever is on the drive when it goes in the bin goes with it. Sign out, factory reset, pull the SIM and the memory card, and take the hard drive out of a tower if you are not certain.
Sources
Got a room of it to clear?
Call or text for an up-front quote. Same-day and next-day service across Ottawa and Gatineau.