Where can I throw away a TV? The trash truck leaves it

Four routes here cost nothing, and if your TV clears the rule, one of them is the whole answer.

• •You have a working flat panel and somewhere to list it. Facebook Marketplace or a Buy Nothing group tonight, gone tomorrow, and somebody else does the lifting. The rule is that it has to turn on.
• •It is 50 inches or under and you can carry it. Best Buy takes flat panels at the drop-off desk for $29.99 per TV or monitor where the fee applies, up to 3 items per household per day, with TVs and monitors capped at 2 per day. Screens up to and including 50 inches are accepted, and larger ones are refused. The fee is waived in some states, because their own program already pays for collection. Verified August 2026; policies are set per store and change — call ahead.
• •Your state runs a take-back program. Texas runs Texas Recycles TVs, paid for by the manufacturers, and other states run their own version. Programs change, so search your state name plus TV recycling program and read the state page before you drive.
• •Your county holds an e-waste day. Usually free, usually a Saturday, a few times a year, and what they accept varies by county.

If your TV passes one of those, take it. You do not need us for that.

Start with bulk day, because it is the only free option that comes to you. Call 311 and ask one question: does bulk pickup take electronics. In a lot of cities the answer is no and electronics are excluded by name, even in programs that take couches and mattresses. If yours says yes, put it out and stop reading.

Everything else has a rule, and the rules are what catch people.

• •Size. Best Buy stops at 50 inches on flat panels. Over that the desk will not take it at any price, and their own answer for a TV that size is a paid standalone haul-away, listed at $199.99 where it is offered, though price and availability are set per store.
• •Quantity. Up to 3 items per household per day, and TVs and monitors are capped at 2 of those. A TV, the stand, the DVD player and the monitor in the closet is four.
• •Condition. Goodwill and Salvation Army take working flat panels at most locations. A broken TV is not a donation, and they will tell you that at the door.
• •Tube TVs. Stores cap them well below flat panels, and plenty of places will not take one at all.
• •The dumpster behind your building. That one runs on a commercial hauling contract, and those contracts commonly exclude electronics. The TV gets left, or the property gets charged for it.

All of that is decided at the counter or at the door, after you have wrapped the TV, loaded it and driven there. And every free route except bulk day is a place, so you are the truck, and you are the second person on the lift.

You are about to hand a broken TV to a company you found on a blog. That is the doubt that makes people phone the office instead of booking, so here is a customer answering it better than we can.

"I was concerned this wasn't a legit company, but they absolutely are… I was quoted $1500 by another company."

Melissa Mader, Google

5.0 on Google, 150+ reviews. 4.9 on Trustpilot, 125+ reviews. 1,000+ items picked up every month.

That is fixable today, not next Saturday. Book before 2 PM local time and a hauler comes the same day, seven days a week, in all 50 states. Haulers head out between 8 and 10 in the morning. Almost half of pickups are done by noon and about three quarters by 2 PM.

You get a text with the ETA before the hauler arrives and photos of the empty spot once the TV is gone. You do not need to be home for any of it.

If it is not out yet, put it out the morning of the pickup, not the night before. A TV on the sidewalk overnight is how you end up explaining yourself to a property manager. In the morning it sits out for a few hours instead of a few days.

They weigh 80 to 150 pounds, and most of that weight is leaded glass in the front, which is the reason places refuse them.

Goodwill and Salvation Army do not take them. Best Buy caps them well below flat panels. Certified recyclers do take them, many charge for it, and their hours are often weekdays only, though that varies by facility. So the tube TV in the basement is a two-person carry up a flight of stairs, into a car it may not fit in, on a Tuesday between 9 and 3.

Curbside pickup is $249 for a tube TV. It costs more than a flat panel for the same reason the drop-off is harder. See the tube TV price before you decide.

The number you see when you book is the number you pay. It locks at booking, and nothing gets added at the curb. Hauling the TV to a facility that takes electronics is already in that number, so there is no second line for it.

What we do not do is come inside. The TV needs to be outside, somewhere the hauler can reach from the driveway or the street. Nobody knocks, nobody walks through the house, and nobody moves furniture to get to it.

So the honest version is this. The free route asks you to lift it, load it, drive it, and unload it at the other end, and then a person at a counter decides. This asks you to get it out front once.