Mattress disposal in Ottawa.
In Ottawa a mattress goes out at the curb, and it costs nothing. The City lists mattresses among the large bulky items it picks up, and a bulky item counts as one of the three garbage items a household is allowed. The catch is the cycle: those three items are collected every two weeks, a mattress and a box spring is two of them, and a mattress cannot be put in a City yellow bag, so it cannot go out as a fourth item at all. That is the arithmetic that sends people looking for a truck. If you would rather not wait, the Trail Waste Facility takes a load under 250 kg for a flat $43.20 at the 2026 rate, and a crew is what you pay for when the mattress is one of a dozen things, when it has to be gone before a closing date, or when it will not come down the stairs on its own.
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(613) 852-4059The curb takes it, and it takes it for free.
The City of Ottawa's special items page is short and unambiguous on this: large items such as sofas, mattresses and furniture are picked up at the curb, and the item should be out before 7 am on your collection day. There is no sticker to buy, no call to make and no fee.
That answer is missing from almost every page selling mattress removal in this city, and it is the first thing a resident should know. A single mattress, on a week when nothing else is waiting, is a solved problem.
What makes it complicated is the rest of the household's garbage, and that is a counting problem rather than a mattress problem.
Three items, every two weeks, and a mattress is one of them.
The City introduced a three-item garbage limit on curbside collection in 2024, and its own page states that three items of garbage are collected every two weeks. Recycling and the green bin stay unlimited, so this is a garbage-only count.
A garbage item means one bag, or one bin or container up to 140 litres and under 15 kg with a removable lid, or one bulky item. The City's own wording is that bulky items such as furniture each count as one item. So a mattress is one, a box spring is another, and a bed frame is a third. A bed on its own is your entire fortnight.
Set out after 6 pm the night before and no later than 7 am on collection day. Anything above the three items has to be in a City-branded yellow bag, and anything over the limit that is not in one is left at the curb with a courtesy tag explaining why.
Why a mattress cannot be your fourth item.
This is the rule that strands a bedroom clearance, and it is easy to miss because the yellow bag looks like the answer to every over-limit problem. It is not, and the City says so directly: large bulky items and furniture cannot be bagged, and a bag cannot be attached to the item.
So there is no version of a fourth mattress that goes out this cycle. It is not a matter of buying more yellow bags. The mattress waits two weeks for its turn in your three, or it leaves by vehicle.
For one spare bed that is an inconvenience. For a bedroom set, a guest room, a student move-out or a house being emptied before a sale, the wait is measured in months, and that is the point at which a vehicle or a crew stops being a luxury.
Taking it to Trail Road yourself.
If you have a vehicle it will fit in and a free morning, the City's Trail Waste Facility on Trail Road takes residential garbage by weight. Its 2026 rate card charges $172.70 per tonne, with a flat minimum fee of $43.20 for any load under 250 kg, which is 551 pounds. One mattress is nowhere near that threshold, so $43.20 is the number that applies.
The scale house takes Interac, Visa, Mastercard and Amex, and the City notes that landfill fees other than potting soil are exempt from HST.
So the honest comparison is $43.20 plus your fuel, your time and a vehicle that will take a mattress, against free at the curb if you can wait for your next collection day and have an item to spare.
Before you throw it out, check whether it can be reused.
On the same special items page, the City points residents at its Waste Explorer tool for reuse or recycle opportunities near you. It is worth a search before a usable mattress goes on a truck: a mattress that is intact and clean is a different question from one that has been in a flooded basement.
We will not tell you which charity or recycler will take yours, because that changes with capacity and with the condition of the item, and a stale answer here wastes a trip. The tool is the current answer, and it is the City's own.
When hiring a crew is the right call.
A truck is worth paying for when the count is against you or the lift is. A mattress plus a box spring plus everything else a room contains is several collection cycles at three items a fortnight. A third-floor walk-up with a queen mattress is two people, not one. A closing date, a lease end or a tenant turnover is a deadline the fortnightly cycle cannot meet.
The other case is the one nobody plans for: a mattress that came out of a basement flood or a hoarded room, where it is one item among a house of them and the job is a clearance rather than a disposal.
We take single items as a normal booking rather than a favour, across Ottawa and Gatineau, and we agree the price on site before anything goes on the truck. Our own prices are not published, so the honest thing this page can do is send you to what is: /pricing carries two Ottawa companies' published load fractions, attributed to them, so you can see what the going rate looks like before you call anyone, including us.
Six situations, and what each one actually costs.
Routes and rules from the City of Ottawa's own pages, read on 2026-08-28, and linked at the foot of this page.
| Your situation | What to do | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| One mattress, and you have an item to spare this cycle | Out at the curb before 7 am on your collection day. | Free. It uses one of your three items. |
| A mattress and a box spring | Both at the curb on the same day, if the rest of your garbage fits in the remaining item. | Free, and it leaves you one item for two weeks of bags. |
| More than three items this cycle | The mattress waits for the next collection day, or it goes by vehicle. It cannot be yellow-bagged. | Free but slow, or the landfill fee below. |
| You have a vehicle and a free morning | Trail Waste Facility, Trail Road, residential garbage. | $43.20 flat for a load under 250 kg, 2026 rate. |
| The mattress is intact and usable | Check the City's Waste Explorer for reuse or recycling near you before it goes anywhere. | Usually free, and it saves the landfill space. |
| A room, a rental turnover or a whole house to clear | A crew, in one visit, mattress included with everything else. | Quoted on site before anything is lifted. |
Yes, and it is free. The City's special items page lists large items such as sofas, mattresses and furniture as picked up at the curb, and asks that the item be out before 7 am on your collection day. What it does not do is take it outside your three-item allowance: a mattress is a bulky item, and the City counts each bulky item as one of the three items of garbage collected every two weeks.
Three, collected every two weeks, under the limit the City introduced in 2024. A garbage item means one bag, or one bin up to 140 litres and under 15 kg with a removable lid, or one bulky item such as furniture. Recycling and green bin material stay unlimited. Anything above the three items has to be in a City-branded yellow bag, and anything over the limit that is not in one is left with a courtesy tag explaining why.
No. The City states that large bulky items and furniture cannot be bagged and that a bag cannot be attached to the item. So a yellow bag has no effect on a mattress: it goes out as one of your three items on a collection day, or it does not go out at all. That rule is the reason a cleared bedroom sits in a hallway for a month, and it is the point where a vehicle or a crew starts to make sense.
The City's Trail Waste Facility charges residential garbage at $172.70 per tonne on its 2026 rate card, with a flat minimum fee of $43.20 for any load under 250 kg. A mattress is well under that weight, so $43.20 is the figure that applies however little else you bring. The scale house takes Interac, Visa, Mastercard and Amex, and landfill fees are exempt from HST.
The City points residents at its Waste Explorer tool for reuse and recycling options near them, and that is the answer we will give you, because which recyclers and charities are accepting mattresses changes with their capacity and with the condition of the item. A clean, intact mattress is worth a search before it goes on any truck. One that has been in a flooded basement is not a candidate for reuse.
We quote on site, before anything is lifted, and we do not publish a price list. Single items are a normal booking rather than a favour, and the price depends on how much room the load takes in the truck rather than on the number of pieces. Our pricing page carries two Ottawa companies' published load fractions so you can see the going rate before you call anyone, including us. Call (613) 852-4059 and we will tell you on the phone whether waiting for the curb is the better answer.
Sources
- City of Ottawa, special items: large bulky items are picked up at the curb read 2026-08-28
- City of Ottawa, curbside garbage collection: the three-item limit and the yellow bag rule read 2026-08-28
- City of Ottawa, rates for the Trail Waste Facility Landfill read 2026-08-28
- City of Ottawa, Waste Explorer: reuse and recycling options by item read 2026-08-28
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