Massachusetts is stricter about this than most states, and the rule catches people out. You cannot put a tube television in the barrel. You cannot put an old computer monitor in there either. The hauler who tells you otherwise is guessing.
This post covers what the ban actually says, the free ways to get rid of electronics around Billerica, and the point where paying someone starts making sense. Most readers should end up somewhere free. That is the correct outcome, and it is why the free options come first.
Cathode ray tubes are banned from the trash statewide
Massachusetts keeps a list of materials that cannot be landfilled, incinerated, or thrown out with household trash. Cathode ray tubes are on it, and they have been since 2000. That covers the old glass-tube televisions and the beige computer monitors that go with them. MassDEP publishes the current list on its waste disposal bans page.
The reason is lead. A CRT holds several pounds of it in the glass, and a broken one in a landfill puts that lead somewhere nobody wants it. This is not a recycling suggestion. It is a disposal ban.
A few other things on that same list turn up in a basement cleanout: metal, which covers most appliances, lead-acid batteries, and whole tires. If you are clearing a garage, assume the metal goes to a recycler rather than the dump.
Flat panels are the confusing part. LCD and LED televisions are not named on the ban list the way cathode ray tubes are. That does not make them barrel material. Many older flat panels have mercury in the backlight, most towns will not take one at the curb, and every recycler that handles CRTs handles flat panels too. Treat them the same as a tube TV and you will not be wrong.
What counts as e-waste when you are standing in the basement
The working definition is simple. If it has a circuit board, a screen, or a sealed rechargeable battery, it is electronics. That is broader than most people assume.
- Televisions of any age — tube, rear-projection, plasma, flat panel
- Computers, laptops, monitors, keyboards, printers, scanners
- Stereo receivers, speakers, DVD and Blu-ray players, cable boxes
- Phones, tablets, cameras, game consoles, routers, external drives
- Microwaves, and the small kitchen electronics stacked behind them
- Anything with a rechargeable battery sealed inside it
Try the free routes before you pay anybody
Most household electronics can leave your house for nothing. Here is the order worth trying:
- Your town DPW or transfer station — most towns in our area run electronics collection either year-round or on scheduled days
- Staples — takes computers, monitors, printers, phones and most small electronics free, in store, any brand, no purchase. No televisions, and there is a per-visit item limit
- Best Buy — takes a long list of electronics in store, but charges a per-unit fee for televisions and monitors. Check the current fee before you load the car
- Manufacturer take-back — Apple, Dell, HP, Samsung and others run mail-in or trade-in programs for their own gear
- Call2Recycle drop-offs — for loose rechargeable batteries, which several hardware and office stores host
- A working computer is not waste. Sell it, hand it to a nephew, or give it to a local nonprofit
Your town almost certainly charges for a tube TV
Nearly every transfer station in Massachusetts charges a fee to take a CRT television or monitor, because they have to pay someone to handle the leaded glass. The fee varies by town, sometimes by screen size, and towns change it.
So check your own DPW page. I am not going to print a number here that is wrong in six months, and you should be suspicious of any junk removal blog that does. Search your town name plus "transfer station electronics" and the fee schedule is usually the first result.
You will also need a resident sticker at most transfer stations, and the hours are often two or three days a week. Worth confirming before you wrestle a console TV into the back of a car.
One more thing worth knowing. Some towns run a scheduled electronics collection day a couple of times a year and take material then that they will not take the rest of the time. If your house is not on a deadline, waiting for that date is usually the cheapest route there is.
Wipe the drive before the computer leaves the house
Recyclers shred drives. Most retail take-back programs say they wipe them. Neither is a reason to skip doing it yourself.
Sign out of accounts, then use the built-in reset: Reset This PC on Windows, Erase All Content and Settings on a Mac, factory reset on a phone or tablet. Ten minutes. If the machine is dead and will not boot, pull the drive out and keep it, or take a drill to it.
This matters most in estate and downsizing jobs, where a machine has sat untouched for years with tax returns and saved passwords on it. If a crew is carrying a computer out of a house today, the drive should already be handled.
Where paying a hauler actually makes sense
Three situations. First, mixed loads. The electronics are one part of a basement cleanout or a whole house cleanout that also has furniture, appliances, and boxes in it. Nobody wants to break that day up with a separate Staples trip.
Second, weight and stairs. A rear-projection television or a stack of old office equipment in a finished basement is a two-person carry up a narrow staircase. That is the job people actually call about, and it is the one where a free drop-off stops being free in any meaningful sense.
Third, volume. A basement holding eight or ten pieces of old equipment is more than a car trunk holds and more than most retail programs will take in one visit. At that point you are making four trips, and the fourth one never happens.
Pricing is by volume, flat, all-in. One or two items is $90. A truck load is $250. A half trailer is $425 and a full trailer is $650. Electronics are dense, so a heavy load carries a 1.2x multiplier, and stairs add $40 for one flight or $80 for two or more. Over eight items adds $4 per item beyond the first eight. Quotes carry about plus or minus 15 percent until we see the job in person.
| What you have | Typical volume | Flat price |
|---|---|---|
| One tube TV, or a TV and a monitor | 1–2 items | $90 |
| Basement or office full of old equipment | Truck load | $250 |
| Electronics mixed into a garage or basement cleanout | Half trailer | $425 |
| A whole house, electronics included | Full trailer | $650 |
Where the electronics off our trucks end up
Metal and electronics from our jobs go to licensed recyclers. That is the plain version, and it is the whole version. We are not going to dress it up with a certification we do not hold.
Working equipment that somebody can still use gets donated locally where it will be taken — Goodwill, Savers, Habitat ReStore. Only true waste heads to the transfer station. The landfill is the last stop, not the default one.
Appliances follow the same path. A fridge, a washer, or a window air conditioner is mostly steel, and steel has a market. We cover that in appliance removal and recycling.
If you want a paper trail for a business or an estate, tell us before the job. For commercial equipment with data on it, an ITAD company that issues certificates of destruction is the right call, not us.
When you should not call us
If it is one laptop and a printer, do not pay us $90. Drive them to Staples and it costs nothing. That trip takes twenty minutes and beats every price on this page.
If it is a single television and you have a vehicle that fits it, your transfer station fee will almost certainly be less than $90. We will tell you that on the phone rather than book it.
If the computer still runs, it is not junk yet. A five-year-old laptop with a wiped drive is genuinely useful to somebody, and the local Buy Nothing groups clear them in a day.
And if what you have is chemicals, wet paint, asbestos, medical waste, or propane tanks, we cannot take those at all. Those need a household hazardous waste day, not a trailer.
Send a photo of the pile and we will tell you the cheapest route
Text a photo of what you have and your town to (978) 330-8980, or email quotes@statementjunkremoval.com. We come back with one flat price within 24 hours. We cover 16 towns from Billerica out, Monday to Saturday, 07:00 to 19:00. If Staples or your DPW will take it for free, we will point you there instead.