Bellevue, King County
Hauling junk for money is a certificated activity here. Most people never check.
Washington regulates solid waste hauling the way it regulates a utility. A company that takes your load to a transfer station for a fee needs a certificate from the state, and there is a public lookup that settles it in about a minute. The other half of this site is about the loads that never needed a hauler at all.
The certificate
What the state requires
Most trades this site's siblings cover are unlicensed. Junk removal in Washington is the opposite case, and the statute is unusually blunt about it.
A solid waste collection company shall not operate for the hauling of solid waste for compensation without first having obtained from the commission a certificate declaring that public convenience and necessity require such operation.RCW 81.77.040 · Washington State Legislature
The requirement reaches further than the truck. It applies to advertising, soliciting, offering, or entering into an agreement to provide the service, so a company that markets hauling in Bellevue is inside the statute before it has picked anything up. The commission that issues the certificate also regulates what a certificated company may charge, through tariffs filed with the state.
This is enforced, not theoretical
In January 2025 the Utilities and Transportation Commission recommended an $80,000 penalty against a company for operating without the required certificate, in docket TG-240590. The conduct at issue was 67 loads of construction and demolition material taken to a landfill, plus 13 drop-boxes placed at residential sites for contractors to fill, between March and October 2024. The penalty worked out at $1,000 for each of 80 violations. The docket did not stay open: the commission approved a settlement in it on 1 April 2025. The recommendation is cited here because it shows what the regulator treats as a violation and what it thinks the conduct is worth, not because anyone is still fighting about it.
How to check a company in about a minute
- Ask for the certificate number before the visit, not after. A certificated company will have it to hand, because it is the thing that lets it trade.
- Look it up on the commission's own register. The UTC publishes a company lookup and an interactive map of solid waste certificate holders by service area, so you can confirm both the certificate and whether it covers Bellevue.
- If something looks wrong, the state takes reports. The UTC accepts reports of non-permitted solid waste carriers online and on 360-522-6121.
The honest complication
Not every hauling job is solid waste collection, and the line is not where people assume. Washington's Department of Revenue puts it on destination: if the material goes to a landfill, transfer station or other disposal facility, it is solid waste regardless of whether it could have been recycled. Material genuinely collected for recycling or salvage sits outside that. So a company can legitimately do some work that falls outside the certificate, which is a reason to ask what happens to your load, and not a reason to skip asking about the certificate.
What you are buying
The truck is cheap. The stairs are not.
Disposal itself is rarely the expensive part. King County's minimum garbage charge at a transfer station is $40.25, and that covers up to 320 pounds, which is a great deal more than most people picture. What you are paying a hauler for is two people, a vehicle rated for the load, the lifting, the stairs, and an afternoon you get back.
That is worth saying plainly, because it is the honest case for the service. It is also the reason a quote should be legible: if you cannot tell which part of the price is disposal and which is labor, you cannot tell whether it is a fair one.
Before you book anything
The parts of your load that are already free
A typical garage cleanout in Bellevue splits into four piles, and only one of them is the pile people imagine paying for. Sorting before anyone arrives is the single largest lever you have on the price, because volume is what gets charged.
- Screens and computers go free. E-Cycle Washington takes televisions, monitors and computers at no charge for residents, schools and businesses under 50 employees, with a limit of ten items per visit and drop-off sites across the state.
- Paint goes free. PaintCare Washington accepts house paint, primers, stains, sealers and clear coatings at drop-off sites at no charge, from households and businesses alike.
- Cardboard, clean wood, scrap metal and yard waste are not garbage. King County's transfer stations take them as separated recycling rather than charging them as disposal, so mixing them into the pile costs money for no reason.
- Your city service already covers some of it. Bellevue contracts with a single hauler for garbage, recycling and composting, and larger rigid items can be scheduled through them. The city's solid waste pages set out what is included before you pay anyone extra.
- What is left is the actual job. Mixed, bulky, heavy or awkward, and usually the reason the whole thing has been sitting there for two years.
The Factoria Recycling and Transfer Station is the King County facility inside Bellevue itself. You have to live or do business in the county's service area to use it, and that area does not include Seattle or Milton. King County Solid Waste answers questions about what is accepted on 206-477-4466.
What we arrange in Bellevue
Five kinds of haul
Full-service junk removal and hauling
Two people, a truck, and the part you are actually buying: the carrying. Priced by the volume your load takes up in the truck, which is worth understanding before anyone quotes you.
What this involves 02Furniture and mattress removal
The category with the most alternatives worth checking first, and the one where a sofa that will not fit back down the stairwell decides the whole job.
What this involves 03Appliance and electronics removal
Televisions, monitors and computers recycle free in Washington under a state program. Refrigerators and freezers do not, because the refrigerant has to be recovered with EPA-certified equipment first.
What this involves 04Garage, attic and estate cleanouts
A whole-space job rather than a pile. The sorting is most of the work and almost none of the quote, which is why the sequence you do it in matters more than the truck size.
What this involves 05Construction and remodel debris
The category Washington regulators actually pursue. Dropping a box at a residential site for a contractor to fill counts as solid waste collection, and in a 2024 case regulators recommended an $80,000 penalty against a company for doing it without a certificate.
What this involvesStraight answers
What Bellevue customers ask
Is it cheaper to just rent a truck and do it myself?
Sometimes, and the arithmetic is worth doing rather than assuming. A self-haul costs the truck, the fuel, the King County minimum of $40.25 for up to 320 pounds, and your own time and back. It also carries a risk people forget: any vehicle arriving at a county facility with an unsecured load gets a $25 fee, and that is enforced.
Where self-haul stops making sense is stairs, weight and awkwardness. One person cannot get a treadmill down a flight safely, and a mattress in a sedan is a wasted trip.
How do companies work out the price?
Almost always by the fraction of the truck your load fills, measured from the cab end, not by weight or by the hour. That is why a quote given over the phone from a description is provisional and a quote given on the driveway is not. It is also why sorting matters: taking the free categories out of the pile before anyone arrives directly reduces the volume being charged for.
Will they take anything?
No, and a company that says yes to everything on the phone hasn't asked the right questions. Hazardous material, wet paint, solvents, automotive fluids, propane cylinders and asbestos-containing material all have their own handling routes. Refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners contain refrigerant that has to be recovered properly before disposal. It's better to be told no in advance than to have half a load left on the drive.
Does any of this apply to a remodel?
It applies most of all to a remodel. Construction and demolition debris is exactly the category the state's enforcement action concerned, and dropping a container at a residential site for a contractor to fill is the specific activity the commission held required a certificate. If a contractor is arranging disposal as part of the job, the certificate question belongs to whoever is actually hauling.
Do I need to be there?
For a driveway pile, generally not, provided the crew can identify what is going and what is staying and someone can approve the price. For anything inside the house, and for every cleanout, yes—the judgment calls about what stays aren't ones a stranger can make for you, and that is the single most common source of a bad outcome in this trade.
Who actually turns up?
A local hauling company. This site takes your details and passes them to the company covering Bellevue, who will contact you to arrange it. We are not the crew, we do not price the work, and we do not haul anything.
Describe the load
Tell us what needs to go
A rough description is enough to get a sensible answer. What the items are, roughly how much of a truck you think it would fill, and whether it is at ground level or up a flight of stairs. That last one changes the price more than anything else on the list.
If part of it is screens, paint or clean yard waste, say so. A decent company will tell you to take those out of the pile before they arrive, and it is worth knowing whether they do.