Getting rid of a couch in San Francisco often involves two separate jobs. Recology can collect it, but you still have to get it out of the apartment and down to the curb.
For eligible San Francisco residents, the Bulky Item Collection program covers furniture, mattresses, residential appliances, electronics, and other large household items by appointment.
Quick Answer: San Francisco residents with an active eligible Recology account can schedule curbside bulky-item collection online. Buildings with five units or fewer generally receive two no-charge collections per year, while tenants in buildings with six or more units get one per unit. Each appointment can include up to 10 items. Put them out between 6 p.m. the night before and 6 a.m. on collection day, keep the sidewalk clear, and attach a visible sign marked “RECOLOGY.”
San Francisco only: Recology operates bulky-item programs in other Bay Area communities, but the rules aren’t the same. San Mateo County, for example, has different item allowances and multifamily booking rules. If you’re outside San Francisco, use your local Recology page rather than following the limits below.
Recology Bulky Item Pickup Rules at a Glance
| Rule | San Francisco Requirement |
| Eligibility | City of San Francisco residents at properties with an active eligible Recology account |
| Buildings with 5 units or fewer | 2 collections per calendar year |
| Buildings with 6+ units | 1 collection per unit per year |
| Tenant booking | Tenants can schedule directly |
| Items per appointment | Up to 10 |
| Booking lead time | Plan about 2 weeks ahead |
| Earliest setout | 6 p.m. the night before |
| Ready by | 6 a.m. on collection day |
| Placement | At the curb without blocking the sidewalk |
| Identification | Attach a sign reading “RECOLOGY” |
| Inside-home removal | Not included |
| Cancellation | By noon on the business day before |
Unused annual collections don’t roll over into the next year. If your household qualifies for two appointments, Recology says the two can sometimes be combined for up to 20 items, depending on availability.
Who Can Book a Recology Bulky Item Pickup?
You don’t have to own the building.
Recology says tenants in San Francisco apartment buildings can schedule their own bulky-item collection directly. The property itself does need an active residential or apartment account with Recology Sunset Scavenger or Recology Golden Gate.
That distinction matters in a city where many people rent. You don’t necessarily need to wait for the landlord or property manager to arrange a building-wide cleanup.
For smaller residential properties, the allowance is generally two collections per calendar year. In buildings with six or more units, each apartment gets one collection per year.
If you’re not sure whether you’ve already used yours, check before putting anything outside. Recology doesn’t publish a simple public counter showing how many appointments remain at an address, so use its contact page or booking system to confirm your eligibility before you build a curb pile.
How to Book Recology Bulky Item Pickup
The Recology San Francisco bulky-item page links directly to the online request form.
Here’s the practical booking process.
- Confirm the address qualifies. The property needs an active San Francisco residential or apartment Recology account. Tenants can book their own eligible collection.
- Check your remaining allowance. If you’re unsure whether the year’s pickup has already been used, confirm that with Recology first. Unused collections don’t carry over.
- Make the item list before opening the form. Count each couch, dresser, mattress, television, appliance, or other piece separately. One vague entry such as “furniture” won’t help when the collection has a 10-item cap.
- Submit the online request. Have the service address, contact information, and any account details you have handy. If the address doesn’t appear in Recology’s search tool, its booking page instructs residents to contact customer service instead.
- Wait for confirmation before moving anything outside. Recology specifically says the online request isn’t complete until you’ve submitted the collection information and received confirmation.
Save that confirmation. Online bookings include a cancellation option in the confirmation email.
Recology doesn’t publish a clear self-service process for editing the item list after you’ve booked. If you need to swap or add something, contact them before collection day rather than putting an extra dresser on the sidewalk and hoping it goes.
What to Do Before Collection Day
Don’t start moving furniture outside as soon as the appointment appears on your calendar.
Recology allows bulky items at the curb no earlier than 6 p.m. the night before collection. Everything should be ready by 6 a.m. the following morning.
Place the items neatly in front of the service address without blocking pedestrian access. Write RECOLOGY clearly on a piece of paper or sign and attach it to one of the items so city staff can tell the pile has a scheduled collection.
Before carrying anything downstairs, compare the curb pile with your confirmation. Ten scheduled pieces plus three last-minute chairs is no longer a 10-item appointment.
How Should You Prepare the Items?
A couch and a mirror shouldn’t be prepared the same way.
Recology asks residents to wrap glass, ceramics, mirrors, china cabinets, and similar breakable items so broken material can’t spill or injure collection crews. Living-room furniture and display cases that could break apart should be secured with cardboard or tape.
Toilets have more specific instructions. They need to be fully drained and sanitary, then secured in a cardboard box with duct tape or wrapped safely so they can be lifted without falling apart.
Clean textiles should be bagged or boxed for reuse.
What about mattresses?
Mattresses and foundations are accepted through the San Francisco bulky-item program. Recology’s San Francisco pages don’t state that a mattress needs to be bagged or wrapped for ordinary curbside collection.
If your confirmation gives an item-specific instruction, follow that rather than borrowing a rule from another city’s program.
What about refrigerators?
Residential refrigerators are also on Recology’s accepted list. The San Francisco bulky-item pages don’t publish the refrigerator-door-removal rule used by some other waste programs, so don’t assume another city’s instructions apply here.
Empty the appliance, remove food and loose contents, and follow the instructions Recology gives with the appointment. If the refrigerator isn’t going through bulky pickup, our guide to getting rid of an old refrigerator covers other removal and recycling routes.
What Does Recology Pick Up in San Francisco?
The accepted list is broad enough for most household move-outs and furniture cleanouts.
Recology lists categories including:
- living-room furniture
- display cases
- mattresses and foundations
- residential refrigerators
- washers and dryers
- residential stoves
- kitchen appliances
- bathroom fixtures
- electronics
- garage items
- tanks
- clean textiles that are bagged or boxed
A typical apartment pickup might include a sofa, mattress, dresser, television, and refrigerator as five separate items.
If a table, dresser, or sofa is still clean and usable, putting it at the curb isn’t always the best first move. Our guide to donating furniture and household items covers options for pieces that still have useful life.
What Recology Won’t Take
The program isn’t meant to empty every kind of material from a property.
| Item | Standard Bulky Pickup? |
| Sofa or chair | Yes |
| Mattress or foundation | Yes |
| Residential refrigerator | Yes |
| Washer or dryer | Yes |
| Television or computer | Yes |
| Clean textiles | Yes |
| Tires and car parts | No |
| Piano | No |
| Tree trunk | No |
| Cast-iron tub | No |
| Concrete or plaster | No |
| Dirt or construction debris | No |
| Paint, pesticides, or chemicals | No |
| Commercial appliances | No |
Ordinary garbage belongs in the black cart, recyclables in the blue cart, and yard waste in the green cart. Bulky Item Collection isn’t a way around those regular services.
Recology also lists pianos, cast-iron tubs, tree trunks, tires, car parts, and oversized pieces over its stated weight limits among the exclusions.
Recology Doesn’t Carry Furniture Out of Your Apartment
This is the part that matters most in San Francisco.
Collection starts at the curb.
If your sofa is still on the third floor of a Richmond flat, Recology isn’t coming upstairs for it. The same applies to a refrigerator in the kitchen, a heavy dresser in the bedroom, or a bed frame that has to be taken apart before it’ll fit through the hall.
Older San Francisco buildings make that job harder. Narrow stairs, tight turns, small elevators, shared entryways, and street-only loading can turn one piece of furniture into most of an afternoon.
Measure large pieces before moving day. Furniture that came in before a remodel or before a doorway changed may not come back out the way you expect.
Leaving Furniture Out Without an Appointment Can Become an Illegal-Dumping Problem
A couch on the sidewalk isn’t automatically a bulky-item pickup.
San Francisco treats abandoned furniture, mattresses, appliances, electronics, and similar large debris left on streets or sidewalks as illegal dumping. Recology directs residents who find abandoned bulky items to report them through SF311.
That also explains why the RECOLOGY sign matters. It tells city staff that the items aren’t simply abandoned and are waiting for a scheduled collection.
If your appointment isn’t confirmed, keep the furniture on the property.
What if Recology Leaves Something Behind?
Start by looking at the obvious things before assuming the entire appointment was missed.
Was the item actually on your confirmed list? Was the pile outside by 6 a.m.? Was it placed where Recology was expecting it? Was the RECOLOGY sign visible? Is the leftover piece on the accepted-item list?
If the full scheduled collection appears to have been missed, report it through Recology’s customer-service or missed-collection channels and include the service address and details about what remained.
If only one or two pieces were left, don’t leave them on the sidewalk indefinitely. An extra item, an excluded material, or something that wasn’t properly prepared may need another route.
What Happens if You Have More Than 10 Items?
Don’t quietly turn a 10-item appointment into a 14-item pile.
If your property gets two annual collections, Recology says you may be able to use both at once for a total of 20 items, depending on availability. Arrange that when booking rather than assuming two allowances will automatically be combined.
Recology’s San Francisco pages aren’t fully consistent about what happens after all allotted collections have been used. One FAQ mentions additional fee-based collections, while the program FAQ says additional appointments beyond the annual allowance aren’t available at this time.
Because of that conflict, confirm with Recology rather than relying on an older statement about purchasing another curbside appointment.
During a move, check your allowance before the final week. Sorting furniture and household items before moving is much easier while you still have time to use donation, self-haul, or another removal option.
The SF Transfer Station Is the Self-Haul Backup
The SF Transfer Station at 501 Tunnel Avenue is the main self-haul option when you can transport the material yourself.
As of the November 2026 update to this guide, the posted hours are:
- Monday through Friday: 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
- Saturday and Sunday: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The minimum disposal charge is $60 per load, and general refuse is listed at $274.57 per ton.
Some materials are handled differently. California-origin TVs and computer monitors can be dropped off at no charge under the listed conditions. The first four qualifying mattresses or box springs per day are also accepted free when they’re source-separated, clean enough for recycling, reasonably dry, and free from mold, insects, or severe damage.
Self-hauling works best when you’ve already got the vehicle and the lifting isn’t a problem. A third-floor sofa, truck rental, parking, loading, and a trip across town make the “cheap” option a little less simple.
When Recology Is the Better Option
If you’ve got a few accepted pieces, an appointment available, and a workable way to get everything outside, the no-charge curbside program is hard to beat.
One mattress and an elevator probably don’t call for a full-service hauling crew. Book the Recology appointment, follow the setout rules, and use the service that’s already available to you.
The decision changes when the lifting is the job.
When Full-Service Pickup Makes More Sense
A move-out can leave you with a sectional upstairs, a dresser that needs two people, an appliance in the kitchen, donation pieces, and several boxes that all need to disappear before the keys are handed over.
Remoov’s San Francisco service handles accepted furniture, appliances, electronics, décor, and other household items from inside the property, so you don’t have to turn an upstairs cleanout into a curbside moving project first.
There are limits on our side too. We don’t take hazardous materials such as paint and chemicals, weapons, construction waste, hot tubs, pool tables, pianos, or ordinary food waste. If you’ve got a piano, for example, you’ll need a service equipped for piano moving rather than Recology or Remoov.
For accepted loads, items can follow different routes after pickup depending on their condition. Our guide to what happens after junk removal explains the resale, donation, recycling, and disposal side.
Book Before You Start Carrying Things Downstairs
Make the item list, check your annual allowance, and get the appointment confirmation before furniture reaches the sidewalk.
If Recology handles the collection and you can manage the carry-out, that’s probably all you need. If the difficult part is getting a furnished apartment down three flights of stairs, solve that part before collection morning.