Rules

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

Almost everything we cannot take has a free local route. The ones that catch people are the electronics and whatever is at the back of the basement.

The short version

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

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

What you can put in

Household and furniture

Sofas, armchairs, bed frames, mattresses, tables, wardrobes, bookcases, desks, carpet and underlay, rugs, window coverings, toys, books, paperwork, kitchenware, patio furniture, grills with the propane tank removed, exercise equipment and general clutter.

This matters more here than in some markets, because your hauler's weekly cart is sized for a week's household waste and nothing more.

Construction and renovation debris

Drywall, timber, plywood and sheet goods, doors, windows, trim, kitchen cabinets, countertops, tiling, laminate and vinyl flooring, insulation, siding, soffit and fascia, guttering and fencing.

None of this has a residential route in Sioux Falls at all — it is not household garbage, whoever your hauler is.

Masonry, concrete and quartzite

All fine, all extremely heavy. Slab, footings, brick, block, pavers, mortar and local quartzite belong in a 10 yard, part-filled, and kept clean — clean masonry has its own cheaper route.

Roofing

Composition shingle, felt and underlayment, flashing and decking. Weight is the constraint, not acceptability.

What is prohibited

• Liquids of any kind — paint, stains, solvents, thinners, oils, fuels and pool chemicals
• Batteries of every kind, lithium especially — a real fire risk in a loaded container and on a tipping floor
• Propane, gas and pressurised cylinders, including "empty" ones, and aerosols
• Electronics — see below, this one is specific here
• Refrigerant-charged equipment that has not been professionally evacuated
• Asbestos-containing material — never a container
• Medical and infectious waste, including sharps
• Agricultural chemicals — pesticides, herbicides, treatments
• Ammunition
• Contaminated soil
• Fluorescent tubes and older ballasts
• Dirt, sod and rock in quantity without telling us — extremely heavy

⚠️ Electronics have their own rule

Worth its own section, because the reason is local and absolute.

The restriction follows the material, not the vehicle. Televisions, monitors, computers and hand-held electronics all need the Household Hazardous Waste Facility instead, which is the City's designated drop-off for exactly this.

The good news: under ordinance § 57.049, fees are waived for residents of the counties served by the sanitary landfill bringing large or hand-held electronics to that site. It is free, it is permanent, and it is the correct answer.

In a basement clear-out electronics turn up in real quantity — old televisions especially. Set them aside on day one.

The routes for everything else

• Household garbage, within the limits — your own licensed private hauler, since the City does not collect.
• Recycling — mandatory, through the same hauler.
• Hazardous material and electronics — the Household Hazardous Waste Facility, free for residents of the five-county region. Five-gallon containers, original packaging.
• Yard waste — your hauler as an extra service, or self-haul, with branches kept separate from grass and leaves.
• Free seasonal leaf and branch drop-off in spring and autumn — residents only, no root balls, no contractors.
• Scrap metal — positive value and its own route.
• Asbestos — a licensed abatement contractor, never a container.

One general point from the ordinances, and it is worth knowing: § 57.052 makes operating a private landfill unlawful. There is no informal option, which is precisely why the proper routes matter.

Treated timber and landscape ties

Worth its own section, because it costs people money on almost every outdoor project.

Clean untreated wood and green waste — branches, brush, prunings — has its own cheaper route.

Treated timber does not. Pressure-treated lumber, painted or stained wood, laminated products and anything with a finish are excluded from the clean stream. In this climate essentially all exterior wood is treated, so a "wood" container from a deck or fence demolition is almost never a clean wood container.

Landscape ties are the local version of this problem. Common in older gardens here, heavily treated, and extremely heavy. Container job, not a yard waste one — and they are nowhere near what the free seasonal sites will take.

Tell us which kind of wood you have. Mixing them turns the cheap load into the expensive one.

⚠️ Basements are where the problems hide

Nearly every house here has one, and it is where the prohibited items accumulate.

A typical basement in a long-held Sioux Falls house holds paint from four decades of redecorating, fuel for the mower and the snowblower, motor oil, a workbench with solvents and adhesives, batteries in tools nobody has used in years, fluorescent tubes from a shop light, two or three old televisions, an old chest freezer and very often a second fridge.

Five things that matter:

• Clear the chemicals first, before anything else moves. Once boxes are stacked in front of a shelf, the shelf gets forgotten and the fuel can ends up loaded.
• Set the electronics aside separately. They are barred from the landfill, so they are barred from the container — and the HHW Facility takes them free.
• Snowblower fuel is the one people forget. Every garage and basement in this state has some, and it is a genuine hazard in a loaded container.
• ⚠️ Watch for old furnace and boiler insulation. In a pre-1980 house it may contain asbestos, and a basement clear-out is exactly when it gets torn out without a second thought.
• Pull the scrap metal. Old boilers, radiators and pipework have genuine value and take serious weight out of the container.

A pre-load checklist

• Walk the basement, garage and any shed and pull every chemical before anything else moves
• Check for mower and snowblower fuel specifically
• Check for batteries: power tools, garden equipment, emergency lights
• Pull out propane cylinders and aerosols, including "empty" ones
• Set every television, monitor and computer aside — HHW Facility, free
• Check for the second fridge or chest freezer as well as the obvious one
• Drain anything holding liquid, including the water heater
• Put tires aside — they are charged separately at the landfill
• Decide whether your wood is clean or treated — and keep them apart
• Landscape ties go in the container, not the yard waste
• Separate concrete, brick and quartzite into their own small container
• Pull the scrap metal — it has real value
• In a pre-1980 house, test before you tear out insulation, tile or textured ceilings
• Load flat and heavy first, bulky on top, and stop at the rail