Cameron Park has the best green waste arrangement in the county and most residents only use half of it. Before you pay anyone to haul brush, use the voucher pickup — then call me for the things it explicitly won't take.
Every year Cameron Park residents get green waste vouchers from El Dorado Disposal, and these aren't drop-off vouchers — they're for scheduled kerbside pickup of green waste sacks at a time that suits you. Up to thirty compostable lawn and leaf bags per pickup. Thirty bags is a serious amount of raking, and you don't drive anywhere or load anything heavy. If your yard work fits inside that, you genuinely do not need me, and I'd rather tell you than take the job. Call El Dorado Disposal on (530) 626-4141 to book it.
This trips up more Cameron Park households than anything else on this page. Plastic bags are no longer accepted for green waste, full stop. It has to be paper compostable sacks, which you buy at the local hardware stores. People fill twenty plastic sacks on a Saturday, stack them at the kerb, and then find out. Buy the paper ones first. The same rule applies to the two-cubic-yard daily green waste bin at the recycling centre — loose material or paper sacks, nothing in plastic.
The Cameron Park Recycling Center at 3350 Saratoga Lane opens Tuesday to Saturday, 9am to 3:30pm. It takes bottle and can buyback, cardboard, newspaper and magazines, household batteries, electronic waste free for county residents, and up to two cubic yards of green waste a day — that last one for Cameron Park Community Services District residents only. What it refuses: televisions over 60 inches, microwaves, appliances of any kind, paint, hazardous waste and general trash. The big TV and the dead fridge are both wasted trips.
Anything Saratoga Lane refuses goes to the El Dorado Disposal Materials Recovery Facility at 4100 Throwita Way in Diamond Springs — about 14 miles and 22 minutes each way. Minimum load charge is $24.53, mixed loose waste $27.06 a yard, and recycling, e-waste and scrap metal are free. Cameron Park sits closer to the tip than El Dorado Hills does, so a single appliance run is more defensible here. A garage's worth, at three trips, is still most of a day gone.
County ordinance adds a 25% surcharge to any unsecured load arriving at the facility. Properly secured, not a tarp thrown loosely over the top. It's the most common way a self-haul trip ends up costing more than planned, and a truck bed of brush is exactly the load that fails it. Everything that leaves in my trailer goes out tarped and strapped, and that's part of what you're paying for.
Furniture and mattresses, appliances including fridges and water heaters, televisions of any size, garage and household clutter, brush and yard waste beyond what the bags will hold, construction and remodel debris, exercise equipment, and scrap metal. Nothing needs to be at the kerb first — upstairs rooms, back sheds and basements are normal. What I can't take is hazardous: paint, solvents, fuel, pool chemicals, asbestos. No junk removal service in California legally can, and there's a free route for it below.
By the cubic yard — the space it takes up in the trailer — with a $165 minimum on any trip. Not per item, so once I'm in the driveway the marginal cost of adding the old bookshelf and a couple of bags is small. Given the voucher pickup handles ordinary yard waste for free, most Cameron Park jobs that reach me are the awkward ones: stumps, fencing, an appliance, a full clearance. Firm total before anything is loaded, and it doesn't move once I've started.
Between the bag vouchers and this, Cameron Park residents can clear a lot without spending anything. The El Dorado County Fire Safe Council runs free chipping across the western slope — two free services a year per address, renewing 1 January, up to six hours per visit. Brush only, seven inches diameter or under, no rocks, wire or lumber, stacked beside a driveway or road, primary residences only, nothing on Red Flag days. Cameron Park has its own Fire Safe Council as an associate. Apply through edcfiresafe.org. Stumps, old fencing and treated lumber are outside both programs — that's the gap I fill.
Saratoga Lane takes household batteries, and Cameron Park runs its own battery removal arrangement for larger ones — worth asking the CSD about if you've got vehicle or equipment batteries sitting in a shed. Everything else hazardous goes to Diamond Springs, free for county residents, Friday to Sunday only, 9am to 4pm and closed between noon and one. Different gate and different hours from the regular tip. Charges apply to business waste.
Cameron Park is the town where I turn down the most work, and that's fine. Ordinary yard waste goes in the thirty-bag voucher pickup. Brush up to seven inches goes to free chipping. Chemicals go to Diamond Springs on a weekend. Bottles, cardboard and e-waste go to Saratoga Lane. That covers a remarkable amount. What's left is the genuinely awkward: appliances and large televisions the recycling centre refuses, furniture that needs two people and a staircase, stumps and fencing no chipper will take, remodel debris, a full garage or an estate clearance, or anything that has to be gone by a fixed date. My minimum is $165 and pricing is by the cubic yard — measure that against three round trips and a possible surcharge.
Compiled 15 September 2026 from the Cameron Park Community Services District waste collection and organics pages, El Dorado Disposal's recycling centre and facility listings, El Dorado County's household hazardous waste pages, and the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council. Hours, fees and allowances change, so call ahead before you drive anywhere. If something here has gone out of date, tell me and I'll correct it.
Send a photo and your Cameron Park address. You'll get a firm total before anything is loaded — and the soonest I can get there.
