Rules

What Can and Cannot Go in a Dumpster: The Watertown List

The accepted list is long and boring. The prohibited list is short, strictly enforced, and the reason loads occasionally get turned away. Here is both.

The short version

If it came out of a building, a yard or a household and it is solid, non-hazardous and not on fire, it can almost certainly go in the container. If it is liquid, toxic, pressurised, or contains asbestos or refrigerant, it cannot.

That covers about ninety-five percent of questions. The rest of this article is the other five percent, which is where the money and the headaches live.

What you can put in

Household and furniture

Sofas, armchairs, beds, mattresses and box springs, tables, wardrobes, bookcases, desks, carpets, rugs, curtains, clothing, linens, toys, books, paperwork, kitchenware, patio furniture, grills with the propane tank removed, exercise equipment and general clutter. No mattress surcharge on our containers.

Construction and renovation debris

Drywall, plaster, lath, timber, plywood and sheet goods, doors, windows, trim, kitchen cabinets, countertops, tiling, laminate, hardwood and vinyl flooring, insulation, siding, soffit and fascia, guttering, fencing and deck timber, and general non-hazardous building material.

Roofing

Asphalt shingle in both three-tab and architectural, metal panels, felt and synthetic underlayment, flashing, drip edge, ridge vents and roof decking. Weight is the constraint here, not acceptability.

Heavy and inert material

Concrete, block, brick, pavers, stone, rubble, ceramic and porcelain tile and clean asphalt. All fine, all heavy — these belong in a 10 yard.

Scrap metal

Ductwork, conduit, steel studs, railings, farm sheeting, fencing and bicycles. Worth separating if there is enough of it.

What is prohibited

• Liquids of any kind — paint, stains, varnish, thinners, solvents, oils and fuels
• Asbestos-containing material — common in pre-1980 floor tile, mastic, pipe lagging and textured ceilings. Licensed abatement only
• Tyres
• Batteries of any kind
• Propane, gas and pressurised cylinders, including "empty" ones
• Refrigerant-charged equipment that has not been professionally evacuated
• Pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser
• Medical and infectious waste, including sharps
• Hot ashes or anything smouldering — a real one here, given how many households burn wood
• Contaminated soil
• Fluorescent tubes and older ballasts

New York bans more than most states

Worth knowing if you have moved here from elsewhere, because several things that were ordinary trash where you came from are not here.

Electronics. New York's electronic equipment recycling law means televisions, monitors, computers and similar equipment are not household trash. They go to a manufacturer take-back or an e-waste collection point, not into a container.

Rechargeable batteries. Covered by their own state take-back requirement.

Mercury-containing devices such as thermostats and fluorescent tubes.

If you are clearing a house and you have a pile of old TVs, sort that route before the container arrives rather than after.

Source separation is the local norm

One genuinely distinctive thing about this area. Jefferson County and the City of Watertown use source separation for recycling — cardboard, glass, paper, plastic and metal kept in individual containers — rather than the single-stream system used in St. Lawrence and Lewis Counties.

That matters for a renovation or a clear-out in two ways. If you are a city refuse customer, recycling is mandatory and it has to be separated properly. And if you are running a bigger job, the habit of keeping streams apart is already normal here, which makes a separated container setup an easier sell to everyone on site.

The grey areas people ask about

Paint cans

Liquid paint is prohibited. Dried-out latex paint is generally acceptable — open the can and let it harden, with cat litter or sand to speed it up. Oil-based paint is hazardous whether wet or dry.

Wood ash and stove ash

A lot of North Country households heat with wood. Ash must be completely cold — days cold, not hours — before it goes anywhere near a container. Embers stay live in an ash bucket far longer than people expect, and a container fire is a genuinely serious event.

Snow and ice

Do not fill a container with cleared snow. It is heavy, you pay for it by the ton, and it freezes the rest of the load into a block that will not tip.

Treated timber

Acceptable in a mixed load, not in a clean-wood container. Deck and dock timber here is nearly always treated.

Brush and yard waste

Acceptable in a mixed container, but the city runs a seasonal brush and green waste pickup that is cheaper if your volume fits and the season is open.

Where the rest has to go

A pre-load checklist

• Walk the pile and pull out anything liquid, pressurised or chemical
• Set aside televisions, monitors and computers for the e-waste route
• Check any appliance with a compressor for refrigerant
• Make sure wood ash is completely cold, not just cool
• If the building predates 1980 and you are disturbing floor tile, mastic or pipe insulation, stop and get it tested
• Set aside scrap metal if there is enough to be worth it
• Load flat and heavy first, bulky on top, and stop at the rail
• Cover it before the next storm