Good news San Franciscans miss: California recycles mattresses for free — you already paid the recycling fee when you bought it. The catch is getting the thing there. Here's the free route, the Recology route, and the flat-rate route ($139, carry down the hill included), so you can pick by how much lifting you want to do.
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Upload a Photo & Get Your Price →If you can move the mattress yourself, drop it at a Bye Bye Mattress site for free — California pre-paid the recycling. If you can't transport it but have time, book Recology's free bulky pickup and carry it to the curb. If you want it gone today without touching it, a flat $139 (queen) gets it carried out of the unit and recycled for you.
California runs a statewide mattress recycling program funded by the recycling fee you paid at purchase, so drop-off is free at participating sites and periodic collection events around the Bay. Mattresses and box springs are broken down and the steel, foam, and fiber are recovered. It's the greenest and cheapest option — if you have a vehicle that fits a mattress and can wrangle it down your stairs.
A mattress counts toward Recology's two free bulky pickups per year, by appointment. Free, curbside — provided you get it down there, you wait for the date, and you still have a pickup left (how the Recology program works).
Most thrift stores won't take used mattresses — hygiene rules and state law make them hard to resell. A nearly-new mattress is occasionally an exception, but plan on recycling rather than donating.
A flat $139 for a queen ($111 twin, $126 full, $154 king), quoted from a photo, same-day available. The crew carries it out from any floor — the stairs and hill are included — and delivers it to a recycler, so it ends up in the same place as the free route without you lifting a thing. See mattress removal.
California's free program is real and worth using — but a queen mattress is a floppy, 80-pound sail that doesn't fit in most SF cars, and it has to come down your staircase and hill first. That's why the "free" option quietly costs a rental van and an afternoon. And you can't leave it on the sidewalk without a scheduled pickup — that's illegal dumping. If the lift is the obstacle, paying a flat $139 to have it carried out and recycled is usually the sane trade.
Yes — through California's Bye Bye Mattress program, with free drop-off at participating sites. You transport it; the recycling itself is already paid for.
A flat $139 for a queen, $111 twin, $126 full, $154 king — carry down the stairs and hill and recycling included.
Only the night before a scheduled Recology pickup. Otherwise it's illegal dumping and fineable.