5 things Kansas City bulk pickup will not take

First, the structural problem

The Kansas City metro is two states and dozens of separate municipalities. Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas are different cities with different waste operations, and Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, Shawnee, Leawood, Prairie Village, Independence, Lee's Summit, Raytown, Gladstone and Liberty each set their own bulky-item policy on top.

So there is no single exclusion list to memorise — you have to read the page for the city you actually live in. But the same five categories are restricted or excluded almost everywhere in the metro, and they are the five that account for most of the disappointment.

1. Appliances with refrigerant

Refrigerators, freezers, window and portable AC units, outdoor condensers and heat pumps. Refrigerant has to be recovered by a qualified person before the unit is processed, and most municipal programs either exclude these outright or route them separately.

This metro produces a lot of them, because households here keep a second fridge in the basement or the garage and the climate wears units out. Flat prices: refrigerator $164, side-by-side or French door $183, mini fridge $115, chest freezer $146, upright freezer $149, window AC $87 small or $109 large, portable AC $85, outdoor condenser $115. Refrigerant handling is included and never a surcharge.

2. Televisions and electronics

TVs are the classic one. Many programs across the metro treat them as special handling rather than ordinary bulk, and some will not take them at all — which is precisely why so many Kansas City basements still contain a tube TV from 2004.

Flat prices: TV under 42 inches $62, 42 to 65 inches $68, 65 inches and up $73. A computer monitor is $58 and a box of accumulated electronics is $77. The entertainment center it was sitting on is $96.

Worked example, the standard basement clear: TV + entertainment center + box of electronics = $68 + $96 + $77 = $241.

3. Renovation and construction debris

Bulky collection is for household furnishings, not for the output of a remodel. Drywall, lumber, tile, cabinets, old countertop, torn-out carpet, roofing and fencing are generally excluded, and concrete is excluded everywhere because of weight.

This catches a lot of people in the older Missouri-side neighborhoods, where kitchen and bathroom remodels in pre-war houses are constant. Flat prices: construction debris $120, contractor bag $41 each, carpet rolled $68 or removal per room $71, laminate countertop per section $56, stone or granite countertop per section $111, cast iron bathtub $185, fiberglass bathtub $90, bathroom vanity $69, detached toilet $64, concrete and masonry debris $219 per quarter truck.

A Waldo bathroom gut: cast iron bathtub + vanity + toilet = $185 + $69 + $64 = $318.

4. Household hazardous waste

Nobody takes this at the curb and no junk truck takes it either. The list is consistent:

• Paint, stain, solvents and thinners — and every Kansas City garage has a shelf of them.
• Pesticides, herbicides and pool chemicals.
• Old gasoline, oil and antifreeze, usually left over from a mower that died four winters ago.
• Propane tanks.
• Automotive batteries and, separately, tires, which usually need their own route.
• Ammunition and anything similar.

Both sides of the metro run household hazardous waste programs, generally for residents of the area that funds them. Look up the one serving your address, and plan on taking these yourself — they are the one part of a garage cleanout you cannot hand off.

5. Anything that is not already at the curb

The biggest exclusion is not a category at all. It is the fact that municipal collection starts at the curb. No crew is coming into your house.

In this metro that is the whole problem, because the item is almost never at the curb:

• Almost every house here has a basement, and the basement is where the old furniture, the spare fridge and the dead treadmill live.
• Pre-war houses in Brookside, Waldo, Hyde Park and the Historic Northeast have boxed stairwells with a turn at the landing.
• Johnson County two-storys keep the bedrooms upstairs and the family room down a flight in the walkout.
• Apartment stock in Westport, Midtown and the suburban garden complexes means exterior stairs and long breezeways.

Carry-out from any floor is included in every flat price on this page. There is no stair charge, no walk-up fee and no long-carry fee — which is the actual difference between a free program and a booked one.

Bonus: mattresses, which are half-excluded everywhere

Not universally banned, but restricted often enough to be worth its own warning. Several programs in the metro limit bedding, require it wrapped, or require a specific request.

Flat prices: twin $82, full $94, queen $103, king $114, box spring $92, mattress and box spring as a set $143. Book the set rather than the pieces — $143 is less than $103 + $92.

What to do instead

• Read your own city's bulky-item page and find out which of these five it excludes.
• Separate the hazardous material out and take it to the HHW program serving your side of the metro.
• Put everything else on one booking rather than several. The minimum is $75 per visit, so batching is where the saving is.
• If the pile is large, compare against the truck-fill ladder: quarter $241, half $431, three-quarters $587, full $732.

Frequently asked questions