The list of things that are illegal to put in a household bin here is longer than almost anyone realises, and most households break it every few weeks without knowing. This is the whole list, plainly — plus the free programs that will take each one off your hands, because for most of these the legal route costs nothing.
CalRecycle bans a long list of household items from regular trash: all electronics, every kind of battery, fluorescent and some LED bulbs, anything containing mercury, paint and solvents, motor oil and antifreeze, tires, pool and garden chemicals, propane tanks, asbestos and chemically treated wood. If you are clearing a garage or a shed, you will hit several of these. The good news is that most have a free disposal route — it's the finding out that costs people time.
Televisions and monitors are the ones people know about. The ban also covers laptops, desktop computers, printers, radios, microwaves, video players, cell phones and answering machines. That is most of what accumulates in a spare room. In El Dorado County the Diamond Springs facility takes all of it free of charge, and Amador's Buena Vista station accepts televisions, monitors, computers and microwaves too. Worth knowing before you pay anybody, including me, to take a television away.
AAA, AA, C, D, nine-volt, button cells, rechargeables, single-use and car batteries. All of them, with no household exemption. Most people in this state have thrown a dead AA in the bin this year. Sacramento County takes them at both hazardous waste sites, western Placer takes them free daily, and eastern Placer residents can put them in a sealed bag on top of the trash can or drop them at named hardware stores in Tahoe City, Kings Beach and Truckee.
Fluorescent tubes and lamps are banned, along with metal halide and sodium vapour lamps and LED lights containing toxic metals. So is anything mercury-bearing, and the list is broader than you'd guess: thermostats, thermometers, barometers, blood pressure gauges, electrical switches, some older toys and even some cosmetics. If you are clearing out an older house, the garage shelf and the bathroom cabinet are both worth a second look before anything goes in a bag.
Latex and oil-based paint, thinners, solvents and non-empty aerosol cans are all banned from the bin. What almost nobody knows is that you have already paid to dispose of them. California adds a small fee to every container of paint sold — 30 cents on a quart, 65 cents on a gallon, $1.50 on a five-gallon bucket — which funds PaintCare, and there are over 800 year-round drop-off sites in the state taking house paint, primers, stains, sealers, shellac and varnish back for free. If you have more than a hundred gallons, PaintCare will collect it at no charge, which is worth knowing if you are a contractor or a property manager.
Motor oil and oil filters, antifreeze, tires and car batteries are all banned from household trash. Oil and antifreeze are among the easiest to deal with — free at the hazardous waste drop-offs in every county I cover. Tires are different: they are accepted at Kiefer in Sacramento, at the Western Regional Landfill in Placer and at Buena Vista in Amador, but as a charged item rather than a free one.
Pesticides, herbicides, pool chemicals, acids, oxidisers and bases, and anything flammable or poisonous. This is the group that trips up the Sacramento County trap: the Kiefer site in Sloughhouse refuses pesticides, solvents, pool chemicals and household cleaners, while the North Area Recovery Station in North Highlands accepts them. Same county, opposite ends, different answers. Sort the shed before you load the car.
Compressed gas cylinders including propane tanks are banned from the bin, and there are usually limits even at the places that do take them — Sacramento County caps it at two barbecue-size tanks, and the Tahoe City collection takes cylinders up to five gallons. The old rusted tank behind the shed is one of the most common things people try to hand over at a gate and get turned away with.
Chemically treated wood and asbestos in older building materials are both banned from household trash, and this is where a DIY remodel or a fence replacement quietly becomes a problem. Old fence posts, landscape timber and railroad ties are treated wood. Amador's transfer station refuses railroad ties outright; Kiefer in Sacramento and the Western Regional Landfill in Placer will take treated wood, and Kiefer accepts asbestos with the right documentation. It is the single most common reason a pile of old fencing sits behind a house for two years.
Individually, almost every item on this page has a free or cheap route. Collectively they are four or five separate trips to three or four different places, several of which are only open certain days, and one of which may be a two-hour window on the third Saturday of the month. That is the real cost — not the tipping fees, the Saturdays. If the job is one television and a bag of batteries, use the free programs and keep your money. If it's a garage, a shed and a fence line, call me: $165 minimum, priced by the cubic yard, firm total before anything is loaded. I can't legally take the hazardous material — nobody can — but I'll take everything else in one go and tell you exactly where the rest has to go.
Compiled 14 September 2026. The banned-from-trash list is CalRecycle's own; the paint program details are PaintCare's; the county-level facility notes come from El Dorado Disposal, Sacramento County Waste Management and Recycling, Western Placer Waste Management Authority, Placer County and ACES Waste Services. Rules and fees change. If you spot something out of date here, tell me and I'll fix it.
Send a photo and your location. I'll tell you what's free to drop yourself and quote the rest before anything moves.
