By The Junk Lord · Updated
Before you lift a single box
Pick a dry day, pull the car out, and clear the driveway. A garage purge goes a lot faster when everything has a place to land on its way out the door. Set up before you start:
- Four zones on the driveway: keep, donate or sell, trash, and special handling.
- Contractor bags, a marker, and painter's tape for labeling boxes.
- Work gloves and real shoes. Garages hide roofing nails, broken glass and mouse nests.
- A folding table or tarp off to the side for anything with a warning label.
The sort-and-purge checklist
Work through it in order. It keeps you from handling the same box three times.
- Go one wall at a time, left to right. Don't jump to the corner that's bugging you.
- Empty every shelf and bin completely. Half-sorting is how the same boxes survive two moves.
- Ask one question per item: did anyone use this in the last year? If not, it goes to donate or trash.
- Read the label on every can, jug and bottle before it goes near a bag. Anything flammable or poisonous goes on the special-handling table.
- Put anything with a cord or a screen in its own pile. Those have their own rules, covered below.
- Sweep as each wall comes clear, so you can see what's actually left.
What can't go in the trash or our trailer
Some of the garage can't ride with any junk load. We don't take hazardous waste or liquids, which means paint, chemicals, asbestos, propane tanks and gas cans stay behind, whether it's a crew job or our dump trailer.
York County's answer is its household hazardous waste collection days, one in spring and one in fall, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. They're free for county residents, but registration is required. Check ycswa.com for the current dates.[1][2]
- The events take fuels, solvents and stains, garden and pool chemicals, driveway sealant, vehicle fluids and fluorescent bulbs.[2]
- Propane tanks bigger or smaller than 20 pounds are accepted. The standard 20-pound grill tank is not.[2]
- Latex paint isn't taken at the events. Usable cans can be donated. For the rest, the county's instructions are to stir in kitty litter or shredded paper until the liquid is gone, close the lid tight, bag it, and set it out with regular trash.[2]
- Old car batteries go back to a business that sells vehicle batteries.[2]
Tires and anything with a cord
Old tires can go out with curbside trash in York County as long as they're off the rim, knocked clean of excess dirt, no more than 32 inches across and no more than 12 inches of tread. Some haulers limit how many per pickup. Tires still on rims, or bigger than that, can't go curbside or to the Resource Recovery Center.[3]
TVs, computers, monitors and peripherals can't go in the trash at all. Pennsylvania's Covered Device Recycling Act put that disposal ban in place on January 24, 2013.[4]
York County recycles electronics for free at the Resource Recovery Center and at the Fairview Township and Penn Township recycling centers, with a limit of five TVs per visit. The list covers more garage stuff than people expect: corded power tools, stereos, game consoles, and wires and cables. It doesn't take anything with refrigerant, electric motors, or oil-filled radiant heaters. Wipe any personal data off old computers first.[5]
Scrap metal and leftover lumber
Bent shelving, a rusted bike frame, the metal bookcase from a dorm room: York County residents can bring metal items to the Small Load Drop-Off at the Resource Recovery Center, and the county sends them on to a local scrap yard. Stop at the scale house first. Hours are weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon.[6]
Leftover boards from the last project are their own puzzle. In York City, small amounts of building lumber can go out with regular trash if they're cut to 3 feet or shorter and bundled at no more than 40 pounds, and each bundle counts as one bag. Lumber is also on the City's list of large items residents have to handle privately.[7]
At the county's Small Load Drop-Off, lumber, including pressure-treated, is accepted when it's cut to 6 feet or less.[8]
When to hand the rest off
Some garages are one Saturday. Others are thirty years of stuff behind a door that doesn't close all the way anymore.
If you'd rather not haul it, pull the hazardous items onto their own table and point at everything else. Our two-person crew does the lifting and loading, drops usable pieces at donation drop-offs, and sweeps the floor once it's clear. Text William a few photos for a price, and he'll confirm it before we start.
Would you rather sort at your own pace? Our 14-yard dump trailer can sit in the driveway while you fill it, and we haul it away when you're done.