Rules

What Can and Cannot Go in a Dumpster: The Enfield List

The accepted list is long and boring. The prohibited list is short, strictly enforced, and the reason loads occasionally get turned away. Here is both.

The short version

If it came out of a building, a yard or a household and it is solid, non-hazardous and not on fire, it can almost certainly go in the container. If it is liquid, toxic, pressurised, or contains asbestos or refrigerant, it cannot.

That covers about ninety-five percent of questions. The rest of this article is the other five percent, which is where the money and the headaches live.

What you can put in

Household and furniture

Sofas, armchairs, beds, mattresses and box springs, tables, wardrobes, bookcases, desks, carpets, rugs, curtains, clothing, linens, toys, books, paperwork, kitchenware, patio furniture, grills with the propane tank removed, exercise equipment and general clutter. No mattress surcharge on our containers.

Construction and renovation debris

Drywall and sheet rock, plaster and lath, timber, plywood and sheet goods, doors, windows, trim, kitchen cabinets, countertops, tiling, laminate and vinyl flooring, insulation, siding, soffit and fascia, guttering, fencing and deck timber, and general non-hazardous building material.

Worth stating plainly, because it is the clearest line in this town: none of this can go in a Town tipper. Demolition material from home improvement is excluded outright, and sheet rock and shingles are named specifically. A container is the route.

Basement and interior strip-outs

Panelling, suspended ceiling tile and grid, carpet and underlay, framing, drywall and old built-in furniture. Mostly bulky rather than heavy — unless it has been wet, which in a New England basement it often has.

Roofing

Asphalt shingle in both three-tab and architectural, metal panels, felt and synthetic underlayment, flashing, drip edge and roof decking. Weight is the constraint, not acceptability. Note that shingles are on the Town's excluded list, so this is container work by definition.

Heavy and inert material

Concrete, block, brick, pavers, fieldstone, rubble and tile. All fine, all heavy — these belong in a 10 yard. Concrete is another item the Town will not accept.

Scrap metal

Ductwork, conduit, steel studs, railings, fencing and appliances without refrigerant. Worth separating — and see below, because scrap metal goes to the transfer station free and without a permit.

What is prohibited

• Liquids of any kind — paint, stains, varnish, thinners, solvents, oils and fuels
• Asbestos-containing material — common in pre-1980 floor tile, mastic and pipe lagging, and very common in housing of this age. Licensed abatement only
• Tyres
• Batteries of any kind
• Propane, gas and pressurised cylinders, including "empty" ones
• Refrigerant-charged equipment that has not been professionally evacuated
• Pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser
• Medical and infectious waste, including sharps
• Hot ashes or anything smouldering — a real winter issue with wood stoves here
• Contaminated soil
• Fluorescent tubes and older ballasts

The Town's own exclusion list is longer

This is the part that surprises people, because the Town refuses a good deal that we can take.

Read that against a renovation. A window replacement produces windows with glass. A bathroom produces a mirror and sheet rock. A re-roof produces shingles. A patio produces concrete. Every one of those is on the excluded list.

Note that we can take all of it except the asbestos and the paint. The exclusion is the Town's, not ours.

What the transfer station takes free

Worth knowing before you pay for anything, because some of it costs nothing at all.

The transfer station on Town Farm Road takes several streams free:

• No permit and no fee for scrap metal, cardboard, televisions, microwaves and electronics
• Electronics — TVs, computers, monitors, printers, microwaves — at no charge to residents, with proof of residency required
• Yard waste without additional fees, but only with a valid permit — and permits require a vehicle registration showing Enfield residency

So on a clear-out, pulling the metal, cardboard and electronics out first genuinely costs you nothing and shrinks the container you need.

Hours are Tuesday to Friday 8:00am to 2:30pm and Saturday 8:00am to 3:30pm. It closes on holidays — and after a Monday holiday it is closed on Tuesday, which catches people out every year.

The grey areas people ask about

Paint cans

Liquid paint is prohibited in our containers and the Town takes no paint of any kind. Dried-out latex is generally acceptable to us — open the can and let it harden with cat litter or sand. The Town points residents to Sherwin Williams or Carr Hardware for paint.

Wood stove and fireplace ash

Only when completely cold — days, not hours. Embers stay live far longer than people expect and a container fire is a serious event. Common enough here to be worth naming.

Treated timber

Acceptable in a mixed load, not in a clean-wood container. Deck and fence timber is nearly always treated.

Appliances with a compressor

Fridges, freezers and window air conditioning units need the refrigerant professionally evacuated first.

Anything a contractor generated

Straightforward: it is theirs to remove. The Town requires contractors to make their own arrangements, with a building permit accompanying them, or to use a private waste company.

Where the rest has to go

A pre-load checklist

• Walk the pile and pull out anything liquid, pressurised or chemical
• Check the garage and basement for propane cylinders, old fuel cans and paint
• Check any appliance with a compressor for refrigerant
• Make sure any wood stove ash is stone cold
• If the building predates 1980 and you are disturbing floor tile, mastic or pipe insulation, stop and get it tested
• Pull out scrap metal, cardboard and electronics — the transfer station takes them free
• Set aside clean concrete and stone if there is enough to route separately
• Load flat and heavy first, bulky on top, and stop at the rail