What happens when you take your own load
There are six recycling and waste centres open to the public in Metro Vancouver — North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Langley, Maple Ridge, and two in Surrey. Metro Vancouver also runs a waste-to-energy facility in Burnaby, but that one only takes commercial loads.
Metro Vancouver bans a long list of materials from a regular garbage load. If your load has too much of something banned in it, you pay a surcharge on the whole load rather than on the one banned item. One tin of paint left in the back of the truck is enough to trigger a surcharge.
What you can’t put in a garbage load
Metro Vancouver’s disposal bans cover three groups of material, and each one is treated a little differently at the scale.
Recyclables
Cardboard, recyclable paper, glass, metal and plastic containers, beverage containers, food waste, yard waste, clean wood, and foam packaging.
Anything covered by a provincial recycling program
Paint, solvents, gasoline, pesticides, antifreeze, motor oil and filters, medications, car batteries, tires, and anything electrical or electronic — which includes your fridge, washing machine, microwave and TV.
Hazardous and hard-to-handle materials
Drywall, mattresses, propane tanks, liquids and sludge, anything flammable or explosive, car bodies and parts, railroad ties, dead animals, and the invasive plants — giant hogweed, spurge laurel and devil’s club.
There are size limits too. No single item can weigh more than 100 kg, be wider than 1.2 m, or be longer than 2.5 m. Barrels, drums and pails of 205 litres or more are out, so is any wire, hose, rope or cable longer than a metre, and so is more than half a cubic metre of soil, concrete or similar fill.
How much of a banned material it takes to trigger a surcharge depends on the material. Recyclables trigger at 5% of the load, food waste at 25%, and foam packaging at 20%. Anything hazardous or covered by a provincial program triggers at any amount at all. If your load has a few different things in it, Metro Vancouver only issues the highest single surcharge rather than adding them all up, and you have 30 days to dispute one if you think it was applied by mistake.
When it’s easier to book us instead
You may decide to load up one single item and drive it to a nearby site. For larger projects, give us a call and we can help you figure out how much it will be and how quickly we can get it out of your space.
We load everything at once and sort it afterwards at our own facilities across Metro Vancouver, where we divert up to 85% of what we take. We also take household hazardous waste, including paint and solvents.
Full service junk removal with 220-JUNK starts at $180 and you only pay for what you fill. Send us photos of what you’ve got and we’ll get you an estimate within a few minutes. If it’s a bigger project, Plan your job with us and we’ll help you figure out the best way through it.
Common questions
Can I take my own junk to the dump in Metro Vancouver?
Yes. Six recycling and waste centres are open to the public — North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Langley, Maple Ridge, and two in Surrey. The waste-to-energy facility in Burnaby only takes commercial loads.
What happens if there’s one banned item in my load?
Anything hazardous or covered by a provincial recycling program triggers a surcharge at any amount, and that surcharge applies to the whole load rather than the item. Recyclables trigger at 5% of the load, food waste at 25%, and foam packaging at 20%. If there are a few different things in there, only the highest single surcharge is issued.
Can I take a mattress to the dump?
Yes, but not inside a garbage load. Mattresses are banned from garbage and accepted as their own separate category, capped at four items per visit counting box springs.
Why can’t I put drywall in with the garbage?
Drywall is gypsum, and Metro Vancouver bans gypsum from garbage loads. It’s still accepted at the facility, just separated into its own category.
Can I take paint, solvents or propane tanks?
Not as garbage. Paint, solvents, gasoline, pesticides and medications can go to provincial recycling programs that take them free of charge, within limits. Propane tanks have no provincial program, though Metro Vancouver’s centres take them at no charge. We take household hazardous waste, including paint and solvents, as part of a project.
Do I have to sort my load before I go?
Yes, for anything on the banned lists. Drywall, mattresses, clean wood and yard waste each have to arrive as their own category, which means sorting at home rather than at the scale.
Is there a limit on how much I can bring?
Each facility sets its own vehicle length and weight limits. Separately, no single item can weigh more than 100 kg, be wider than 1.2 m, or be longer than 2.5 m, whatever you arrive in.
How is booking 220-JUNK different from doing it myself?
We load everything at once and sort it afterwards at our own facilities, so the disposal bans are our problem rather than yours. We also take the materials the dump won’t accept as garbage, including paint and solvents.