Junk Removal
A mattress is one of the hardest things a household has to throw away. It is bulky, most curbside programs will not take it as ordinary trash, most donation centers refuse used ones, and it does not fit in a car. Here are the options that actually work, roughly in order of least effort.
If you are replacing the mattress, the delivery crew is the cheapest removal you will ever get. The catch is that haul-away usually has to be arranged when you place the order, not on delivery day. Ask whether it is included, an add-on, or not offered at all, and get the answer up front. People miss this window constantly and then pay separately to solve a problem the retailer would have handled.
Many towns run a bulky-waste collection separate from regular trash. It is often free but limited: a set number of items per year, scheduled in advance, and sometimes with a requirement to wrap the mattress in plastic before it goes to the curb. Look up your own waste department's page rather than going on what a neighboring town does, because these rules vary enormously over short distances.
It feels wasteful to landfill something that still looks fine, but most charities will not accept used mattresses at all, for hygiene and liability reasons, and some states restrict resale of used bedding. A few local shelters take them under specific conditions. Call and ask before you move it. Showing up unannounced with a mattress is how it ends up back in your garage.
Broken down, a mattress is mostly recoverable material: steel springs, foam, a wood or fiber frame, and cotton or felt padding. Whether that is available to you is a local question. A handful of states run funded statewide mattress recycling programs, and everywhere else it depends on whether a facility in range accepts them and what they charge to take one. Search for a mattress recycler in your county before assuming there is not one.
If none of the above fits, a junk-removal crew is the option that asks nothing of you: they carry it down the stairs, load it, and take it to the right facility. It is the paid route, but for anyone who cannot get a king mattress down a staircase it is often the only realistic one. In southwest Missouri, the junk-removal crew we point Springfield-area homeowners to takes mattresses along with the rest of a clear-out.
Do not leave it at the curb and hope. Illegal dumping of bulky items carries real fines in most places, and a mattress left out in the rain becomes both unrecyclable and considerably heavier to move.
Say so, to everyone involved. An infested mattress should be sealed in an encasement bag before it leaves the bedroom, or you spread the problem through the house and into whoever's truck collects it. Haulers and facilities handle infested items differently and need to know in advance.
In most places, no. Mattresses are usually excluded from ordinary curbside collection and handled through a separate bulky-item pickup that has to be scheduled, sometimes with rules about wrapping the mattress first. Check your own city or county waste department's rules rather than assuming, because they vary a lot between neighboring towns.
Most will not. Hygiene and liability rules mean the majority of donation centers refuse used mattresses outright, and some states restrict the resale of used bedding. A few local shelters and resettlement groups do accept them under specific conditions, so call and ask before you load it into a truck.
The materials are: steel springs, foam, wood or fiber frame and cotton padding all have separate recovery streams. Whether you can use that depends on where you live. Some states run funded statewide mattress recycling programs; elsewhere it comes down to whether a local facility accepts them and what they charge.