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Brush and Bulky vs hiring a hauler in Tucson
If the free city pickup will do the job, this site will tell you so. Here is exactly what it does, so you can decide before you pay anyone.
What Brush and Bulky is
Twice a year, City of Tucson Environmental Services sends crews through each of the city’s 26 residential trash service areas to collect brush and bulky items from the curb, at no charge, for households on city trash service. The dates are set for the year and published as the 2026 Brush and Bulky schedule and on the city’s Know Where to Throw site, by service area. The limit is 10 cubic yards per household — the city’s own comparison is that one cubic yard is about the size of a washing machine — and anything over the limit is left behind.
The set-out rules are strict because a crew that has to hunt for a pile or untangle it from a meter moves on. Materials must be out by 6 a.m. on the Monday of your collection week, not more than two weeks ahead, in front of the home, and at least three feet from obstacles including the trash and recycling containers and the utility meters.
What Brush and Bulky takes, and what it refuses
Accepted: appliances; auto tires, limit five; brush cut to five feet long and no more than 24 inches in diameter; cacti, boxed, 25-pound limit; furniture; carpet; lumber up to five feet long; scrap metal and pipes up to five feet long.
Not accepted: compressed gas cylinders; concrete; construction material; dirt, stones, rocks and gravel; glass and mirrors; household hazardous waste — paint, oil, pesticides, solvents; televisions and computer monitors.
Read the two lists together and the program’s shape is clear. It is built for the ordinary output of a house and a yard — the old recliner, the dead washing machine, the mesquite limbs — and it is not built for a remodel, a landscaping project, or anything that belongs at the Household Hazardous Waste drop-off. The city also takes requests for special pickups outside the schedule, by form or by phone to Environmental Services; ask what that costs, because the page does not say.
When Brush and Bulky is enough
Three conditions, all of which have to be true. Your address is inside the Tucson city limits and on city trash service. Your collection week is close enough — the schedule is by area and the next date may be next month or five months away. And your pile is under ten cubic yards, on the accepted list, and can sit at the curb from the Monday until the crew comes. If all three hold, there is no reason to pay a hauler anything, and a hauler who tells you otherwise is not one to hire.
The middle case is common: the date is close, the pile is mostly bulky furniture and brush, but there is a load of tile from the bathroom and a garage of paint in it as well. Put what qualifies at the curb, take the paint to HHW, and quote a hauler only for the tile. That split can take a $700 job down to a quarter-truck.
The four cases where a hauler is the honest answer
- The address is outside the city limits. Oro Valley, Marana, Sahuarita, Vail, the Catalina Foothills and Green Valley are not on city trash service and have no Brush and Bulky. Sahuarita’s town program has its own quarterly bulk pickup; the rest have whatever the private trash contract says.
- The date is not yours to choose. A closing, a lease end, a move, a listing photographer. The crew comes when the schedule says; a hauler comes when you say.
- The pile is a house, not a room. Ten cubic yards is generous for a garage and nothing for an estate. A full cleanout is several truckloads, and the excess is not collected.
- The material is on the refused list. Construction debris, concrete, dirt, glass, mirrors, televisions. None of it is going to the curb, and most of it is exactly what a remodel or a storm produces.
There is a fifth, quieter case: nobody in the house can carry a sleeper sofa to the curb. Brush and Bulky collects from the street; it does not come inside.
What a hauler charges for the part the city will not take
The published ranges put a few items to a quarter truck at $150 to $350, a half truck at $300 to $550 and a full truck at $600 to $900, with refrigerators and freezers about $20 more each because Los Reales charges the hauler $20 per refrigerant appliance. The landfill’s own fee for a covered pickup load is $18 plus a $2 fee, so most of what you pay a hauler is labor and the truck. The cost guide has the full fee sheet beside the ranges, and junk removal and hauling explains how a load is priced.
Questions this guide gets asked
How do I find my Brush and Bulky week? The city publishes the year’s schedule by residential service area on its Brush and Bulky page and on Know Where to Throw. Your service area is set by your address.
Can I put a refrigerator out? Yes — appliances are accepted, and the city handles the refrigerant on its side. Take the door off or secure it.
What happens to the excess over ten cubic yards? It stays at the curb. Plan the pile to the limit, or price a hauler for the remainder.
Does Brush and Bulky take TVs? No. Televisions and monitors are refused. Flat-screen TVs, laptops and phones go to the Household Hazardous Waste drop-off at Los Reales; CRT tube monitors are refused there too, so call before you load one.
I am in the county but have a Tucson mailing address. Am I eligible? Eligibility follows city trash service, not the postal address. The Catalina Foothills, Vail and other unincorporated areas have Tucson addresses and no Brush and Bulky.