Folsom is unusual: the city runs its own waste operation rather than contracting it out, and that means residents already get more for free than most of my customers elsewhere. So this page starts with what you don't need to pay me for — and then covers the jobs the city program genuinely doesn't cover.
The City of Folsom gives single-family households up to three free bulky-item pickups a year, booked by appointment through Public Works on (916) 461-6730. If you have one couch and it's September and you haven't used yours, call them, not me. That's the honest answer and it costs you nothing. Where people go wrong is assuming it covers everything — it doesn't, and the gaps are specific.
Three limits, and between them they account for most of the Folsom calls I get. The free pickups are for single-family households only — apartments, condos with shared bins, and anything commercial are excluded outright, which is why property managers and landlords end up calling. Three appointments a year does not survive a full garage, an estate clearance or a rental turnover, all of which need one visit rather than three spread across twelve months. And a scheduled pickup runs on the city's calendar, not yours: if the tenant leaves Friday and the new one moves in Monday, an appointment slot in three weeks is no use.
Furniture and mattresses, appliances including fridges and water heaters, televisions and computers, garage and household clutter, yard waste and brush, construction and remodel debris, exercise equipment, and scrap metal. You don't need to move any of it outside first — upstairs bedrooms, back garages, second-floor apartments with an elevator are all normal. What I can't take is hazardous: paint, solvents, fuel, pool chemicals, asbestos. Nobody in this business can, legally, and Folsom has its own answer for that further down this page.
Pricing is by the cubic yard — the space it takes up in the trailer — with a $165 minimum on any trip. Not per item, which matters: once the truck is in your driveway, the marginal cost of adding the broken bookshelf and the bag of old clothes is small. You get a firm total before anything is loaded, and it doesn't move once I've started. Text a photo of the pile with your address and you'll have a number back quickly; that's faster than any form.
This is the best-kept secret in the city and almost nobody uses it. Folsom's Hazardous Materials Division runs a Door2Door residential collection on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — they come to you and take motor oil, paint, poisons, unwanted medications and electronics. Call (916) 461-6730 to arrange it. Most towns in the four counties I cover make you drive that stuff to a transfer station on a Saturday morning. If you're clearing a garage in Folsom, book that collection for the chemicals and call me for the furniture; between the two, nothing needs to go anywhere it shouldn't.
If you'd rather haul it yourself, know this before you load the car. Sacramento County has two hazardous waste sites and they do not accept the same things. Kiefer ABOP at 12701 Kiefer Boulevard in Sloughhouse takes antifreeze, batteries, motor oil, paint, aerosols and brake fluid — but refuses gasoline, household cleaners, pesticides, solvents, pool chemicals and acids outright. The North Area Recovery Station at 4450 Roseville Road in North Highlands takes all of those, plus everything Kiefer takes. So a garage clear-out with weedkiller or pool shock in it has to go to North Highlands. Both are open to the public with no residency requirement, and both allow 15 gallons or 125 pounds free per household per month.
California bans electronic waste from household trash — televisions, monitors, computers, printers and anything with a circuit board. That's the law statewide, not a local policy, and it's the reason dead CRT televisions sit in Folsom garages for a decade. The city's Door2Door service takes electronics, so that route is free to you. If they're going out with a larger load anyway, I'll take them and route them to a recycler rather than a landfill.
California runs a statewide mattress recycling program funded by a fee you already paid when you bought it, and drop-off is free at participating sites — check byebyemattress.com for the nearest. Retailers are also required to take the old one when they deliver a new one, so ask before you pay anyone. Where I earn my keep is the carry: a mattress bends in the middle, one person can't control it on a staircase, and it usually starts life in an upstairs back bedroom. Tell me which room it's in and it's handled.
Folsom sits at the valley end of my run — I'm based up the hill and come down the Highway 50 corridor regularly, so it's a routine trip rather than a special journey. That matters for rental turnovers and closings, where the date is fixed by somebody else and a three-week appointment window doesn't help. Call or text me and tell me your deadline; if I can't make it I'll say so straight away rather than leave you waiting.
Plainly: if you're a single-family Folsom household, you haven't used your three free pickups, and it's one or two items that fit what the city will take — use the free service. If it's chemicals or electronics, book Door2Door. You'd be paying me for something the city already does. Where the sums change is volume and access: a load that needs more than one run, anything heavy that's upstairs or down a flight of steps, a whole garage, a property that has to be clear by a date. My minimum is $165 and pricing is by the cubic yard, so weigh that against an afternoon of your time, the fuel, the tip fees, and the pickups you'd burn.
Compiled 15 September 2026 from the City of Folsom's solid waste and hazardous materials pages, and Sacramento County's Kiefer Landfill and North Area Recovery Station facility listings. Pickup allowances, hours and accepted materials change, so treat this as a starting point and 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 Folsom address. You'll get a firm total before anything is loaded — and the soonest I can get there.
