Charleston, SC Trash & Recycling: Bulk Item Disposal (2026)

City Code Sec. 14-46(b) makes bulk collection, defined citywide to include furniture, mattresses and other large nonmetal items plus white goods, free for residents, but only after the resident notifies the city sanitation division. Items must be set at the curb or edge of pavement with all doors and drawers removed, and only on the date and time the division assigns, not on the resident's own schedule. White goods such as refrigerators and washers will not be picked up at all unless doors and drawers have already been detached, a safety rule aimed at preventing children from being trapped inside discarded appliances.

Subsection (d) covers yard debris: logs, limbs, brush and stumps placed at the curb cannot exceed four feet in length or four inches in diameter, and cannot be piled on top of water meters, next to fire hydrants, on sprinkler heads, or near anything a mechanical loading arm could damage. Critically, that free brush pickup is residential-only: material in those same categories generated by a contractor or landscaper working on the property is excluded from city collection entirely, so homeowners using a tree service or landscaping crew need to arrange private hauling for that debris.

Subsection (i) additionally requires bulk categories, including grass, leaves, brush, white goods and furniture, to be separated at the curb so collection crews have clear access; materials mixed together will not be collected until the resident separates them.