Appliance and electronics removal
This is the category where paying for the wrong half is easiest. One part of it is free by state program, and the other requires certified recovery equipment and a paper trail nobody can skip.
The free half
Screens and computers cost nothing
Washington runs a manufacturer-funded recycling program for electronics, and for most households it makes paying to dispose of a television or a monitor unnecessary.
- What it covers. E-Cycle Washington takes televisions, monitors and computers at no charge, at collection sites across the state.
- Who qualifies. Washington residents, schools and school districts, and businesses with fewer than 50 employees. That covers most of the people reading this and a fair number of the small offices.
- The limit. Ten accepted products per visit, which is generous for a household and worth planning around for an office cleanout.
- What it does not cover. The program is defined around those product categories. Printers, kitchen appliances and small household appliances are not the same thing and follow other routes.
If a company quotes you to haul away three monitors and a television without mentioning any of this, that is a useful signal about how the rest of the quote was arrived at.
The half that is not free
Anything holding refrigerant
Refrigerators, freezers, wine coolers, dehumidifiers and air conditioning units all contain refrigerant, and federal law requires it to be recovered before the unit is scrapped. The rule is more specific than it sounds, and the specifics are what decide who can take your fridge. For a household appliance the person doing the recovery does not have to hold an EPA technician certification — but the recovery equipment does have to be EPA-certified. And whoever takes the final step in disposal, typically the scrap processor, has to either recover the refrigerant themselves or hold a signed statement naming who did and on what date. That paperwork is the reason a yard will turn away an undocumented fridge, and the reason this is not something a general crew does on a driveway with hand tools.
Practically, this means refrigerant appliances almost always price separately from a volume quote. A company that folds a fridge into a general truck-fraction price without comment is either absorbing a cost it has not told you about or intending to add it later. Ask which.
Two other things worth knowing
Scrap metal is not garbage at a King County transfer station — it is a separated recycling stream and is not charged as disposal, which matters for a load of old appliances. And an appliance that still works has a genuinely different set of options, because a functioning machine is worth something to somebody and a broken one is worth its metal.
Before it leaves
Wipe the drives
Computers, and increasingly televisions, leave the house carrying accounts and files. A recycling program is not a data destruction service and does not claim to be.
- Sign out of everything on a smart television and factory reset it. Streaming accounts persist through a resale far more often than people expect.
- Remove or wipe the drive on a computer. Physically removing it is the version that does not depend on trusting anyone downstream.
- Do not assume a crew will handle it. Their job is transport. The moment the item is on the truck it is no longer under your control.
Straight answers
Appliance and electronics questions
My television is enormous and I cannot move it. Does free still apply?
The recycling is free at the drop-off point; getting it there is the part you are paying for. That is the whole shape of this category. For a wall-mounted 75-inch panel on an upper floor, paying a crew to carry it to a free drop-off can still be the cheapest sensible answer, and it is a fair thing to ask a company to quote that way.
Is the old fridge in the garage worth anything?
As metal, a little. As an appliance, only if it runs and is not twenty years old. The thing worth checking separately is whether your utility runs an efficiency program for retiring a working second fridge, since those have existed in various forms and change the arithmetic entirely when they are open.
What about a washer or a dryer?
No refrigerant, so it avoids that complication, and it is mostly steel, so it goes into scrap metal rather than garbage. The constraint is weight and stairs rather than disposal. A dryer vent full of lint is also the one that will make a mess on the way out, which is worth a sheet on the floor.
Can I put small appliances in the recycling cart?
No. Curbside recycling is a defined list and small appliances are not on it, mostly because of the batteries. Anything with a lithium battery in it is a genuine fire risk in a collection truck, which is the reason the rules are firm rather than fussy.
What happens to the batteries?
They need separating out, and they should not go in a general load. Loose lithium cells that get crushed are the single most consistent cause of fires in waste vehicles and at sorting facilities. Take them out of devices where you can, and ask any company you hire what they do with them.
Do I need to do anything about the doors on a fridge?
If it is going to sit outside for any length of time before collection, take the door off or secure it shut. It's an old safety rule and it exists for a real reason. If it is being collected the same day from inside, it is not an issue.
Start with a survey, not a sales visit
Ask about an appliance
Say what it is and whether it holds refrigerant: a fridge, freezer, wine cooler, dehumidifier or air conditioner all do. That single fact decides the route and most of the price.
Related work we arrange
Related removals we arrange
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.
Furniture 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.
Garage, 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.
Construction 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.