What Is the Cheapest Way to Get Rid of Junk in Yavapai County?
If you’re looking for the cheapest way to get rid of junk, the answer is pretty simple: do it yourself. That may sound like a strange answer coming from someone who owns a junk removal company, but it’s the truth.
If you have a truck and trailer, you’re physically able to move the items, you know where everything needs to go, and you have the time to do it, hiring a junk removal company probably isn’t the cheapest option.
But there’s an important distinction between the cheapest option and the best value.
After nearly a decade working in the waste industry and now owning Copper State Junk Removal & Hauling in Yavapai County, I’ve seen plenty of people spend an entire Saturday trying to save a couple hundred dollars. I’ve also seen people pay for disposal when they could have gotten rid of something for free.
So before you decide how to get rid of your junk, you need to consider more than just the price at the landfill.
1. The Cheapest Option: Give It Away
Before loading anything into your truck, ask a simple question: Does somebody else want this? If the item is still usable, one of the cheapest options is to list it for free on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Nextdoor, another local marketplace or have a yard sale.
Take a few pictures, write a short description, and make it clear that the buyer needs to pick it up, list the time and day of your sale, prep for the sale, etc. If someone comes to your house and hauls your junk away, you've spent no money on fuel, disposal fees, trailer rentals, or junk removal.
That's about as close to truly free junk removal as you're going to get. The problem is that someone has to actually want your stuff. We regularly get called to homes where people have placed furniture or other household items at the curb with a FREE sign on them. Sometimes they get picked up. Sometimes they don't.
In Northern Arizona, leaving something outside can also quickly turn a reusable item into trash. Furniture that sits through rain or snow may no longer be something anyone wants. By the time we're called, an item that potentially could have been reused now has to go to the transfer station.
So give free pickup a shot, but put a time limit on it. If nobody wants it after a reasonable amount of time, move on to Plan B.
2. Selling Your Junk Can Save or Make Money—But Your Time Has Value
If something has value, selling it seems like an obvious solution. And sometimes it is. At Copper State Junk Removal & Hauling, we resell quite a few items that we remove from customers' homes. But we also have something most homeowners don't: a warehouse where we can store items while we wait for them to sell. And that's a huge difference.
For example, earlier this year, we completed a full estate cleanout. Months later, we still have items from that property listed for sale. I have no doubt that the items will eventually sell, but you have to ask yourself the question: how long do I want to wait for these items to sell?
On another job in Prescott, we removed a unique exercise machine called a StreetStrider. It was valuable enough to sell, but it took us roughly nine months to find the right buyer. Most homeowners don't want their garage filled with unwanted belongings for nine months while they wait for the right person to come along.
There's also considerably more work involved in selling something than people realize. You may need to clean it, stage it, photograph it, research its value, write a listing, answer messages, deal with no-shows, negotiate with buyers and arrange pickup. That's why one of the most important questions I recommend asking is: What is my time worth?
Selling a $30 item isn't necessarily a win if you spend two hours dealing with it.
3. Donate What You Can
Donation is another inexpensive option for usable furniture, clothing, household goods and other items. But there's a misconception here: Donating something isn't necessarily free. If you load your truck, drive to a donation center, unload everything and drive home, you've spent time and fuel.
You may also discover that the donation center won't accept everything you've brought. We've also heard plenty of customers tell us some variation of: “A charity was supposed to pick this stuff up for free, but they never showed up."
Donation pickup can be a great option when it's available, but if you're working against a deadline—selling a house, turning an apartment, moving, settling an estate, etc.—you need to account for the possibility that the pickup doesn't happen when expected.
4. Hauling Junk to the Dump Yourself
Once you've separated everything that can be given away, sold, donated or recycled, you're left with actual trash. If you have the equipment, DIY disposal is generally going to be the cheapest way to handle it. But don't assume that means it's free.
In our area of Yavapai County, disposal rates can vary considerably depending on the material and facility.
As a general range, we've seen:
Trash: approximately $50–$106 per ton
Green waste: approximately $40–$75 per ton
Inert material: approximately $50–$60 per ton
Many landfills and transfer stations also have a minimum charge of around $20 or more, regardless of how little material you bring. That means even a relatively small load can cost money to dispose of properly. Then add your fuel and time. And if everything can't go to the same facility, you're making multiple stops.
5. The Cheapest Method May Require Sorting Your Junk
One of the best ways to reduce disposal costs is to avoid treating everything as trash.
A typical cleanout might contain:
Trash
Furniture
Donations
Scrap metal
Green waste
Batteries
Tires
Used motor oil
Paint
Other materials requiring special handling
Some of those materials can be disposed of or recycled for little or no charge.
For example, many auto parts stores accept used motor oil and automotive batteries. Scrap metal can be taken to a metal recycler. Usable household items can go to a donation center. But you need to know where each material belongs.
That's one of the hidden costs of DIY junk removal: one pile of junk can turn into several different trips.
You might visit a donation center, scrap yard and transfer station before you're finished.
6. Don't Overestimate the Value of Scrap Metal
This is another area where I see misconceptions. People sometimes look at a pile of metal and assume it's worth a lot of money. Usually, it isn't. It’s not uncommon for folks to call us and let us know of the scrap metal they have on their property and they’ll tell us, “You can have it!” What they don’t realize is that most of the time, the scrap probably isn’t worth much.
In our area, ordinary scrap steel is typically worth only around four cents per pound. Higher-value metals such as copper, brass, aluminum and stainless steel can certainly be worth separating, but there's a catch.
To receive the best price, the material generally needs to be clean and properly separated. If stainless steel, for example, is attached to other metals, plastics or miscellaneous materials, you may not receive the premium price you're expecting.
So yes, recycling metal can offset some of your disposal costs. Just don't assume that every piece of metal in your garage is a payday.
7. Some Items Can't Simply Go in the Trash
Knowing how to dispose of something is just as important as figuring out how to move it. People are sometimes surprised to learn that certain items require different disposal methods.
For example, you shouldn't simply throw away items such as:
Tires
Automotive batteries
Used motor oil
Wet paint
Depending on the material, there may be a recycling program, retailer take-back option, household hazardous waste program or specialized disposal facility available.
Before hauling an unusual item to the landfill, check with the facility first. A five-minute phone call can save you a wasted trip.
8. Is Renting a Trailer Cheaper Than Hiring a Junk Removal Company?
Sometimes. If you don't own a truck or trailer but you're comfortable doing the labor yourself, renting equipment can make sense. But calculate the entire cost, not just the advertised rental price.
Consider: Trailer rental + fuel + disposal fees + your time + number of trips
Then compare that number with the cost of having someone remove everything for you. The answer depends heavily on the job. We recently cleaned out an apartment in Prescott for a property owner. Could he have done it himself? Absolutely.
But he would have needed help, rented a trailer, loaded everything, figured out what could be donated, made multiple disposal trips and spent at least a full day dealing with it. Our crew completed the cleanout in about four hours.
We removed two full loads using our roughly 15-cubic-yard trailer. One went to the transfer station. The other contained a mixture of donations and items that we brought back to our warehouse. For that property owner, the question wasn't whether he was physically capable of doing the work.
It was whether spending his day doing it was the best use of his time.
9. Don't Make Your Junk Someone Else's Problem
There's one "free" disposal method that isn't free at all: illegal dumping. And illegal dumping doesn't only mean driving into the desert and throwing a mattress on the side of the road. Putting your trash into a dumpster that belongs to someone else is also dumping.
I've heard people brag about getting rid of something by putting it in a commercial dumpster behind a business. They may have gotten rid of their junk for "free," but somebody else paid for it. The business owner may be charged for excess material or contamination. The dumped material also takes up capacity the business is paying for.
Bulky items create another problem because commercial trash containers generally aren't designed for bulky-item disposal. Leaving a couch, mattress or other large item in or beside somebody else's dumpster can create an entirely separate service issue for that business.
Saving yourself a disposal fee by transferring the cost to someone else isn't a disposal strategy.
So When Should You Hire a Junk Removal Company?
Here's the simplest way I know to answer that question. Ask yourself: Can I move this myself? If you're dealing with heavy furniture, appliances or large quantities of material, consider whether you can safely load it. Do I have the necessary truck or trailer? If not, determine what renting one will actually cost.
Do I have the time? Don't just count the drive to the landfill. Include sorting, loading, driving, waiting, unloading and making additional stops.
Can I realistically sell or give these items away? Not theoretically. Realistically. Are you willing to photograph them, create listings, answer messages and potentially store them for weeks or months?
Finally: What is my time worth? That last question changes the calculation.
Cheapest vs. Best Value
If you've got a Saturday available, a truck and trailer in the driveway, a couple of people who can lift, and you know where everything needs to go, do it yourself. You'll probably save money. Frankly, you're probably not the customer who needs a company like Copper State Junk Removal & Hauling.
Our service makes sense when one or more pieces of that equation are missing. Maybe you don't own a trailer. Maybe you can't lift the furniture. Maybe you don't know which facilities accept which materials. Or maybe you're perfectly capable of doing all of it, but you'd rather spend your Saturday doing something else.
That's the difference between price and value. The cheapest way to get rid of junk is usually to handle as much of it yourself as possible. The best value is the option that gets the job done properly while making the best use of your money, equipment and time.
At Copper State Junk Removal & Hauling, that's ultimately what we're selling: not access to a landfill, but the labor, equipment, knowledge, sorting, transportation and time required to make the junk disappear.
