Almost everything in a Nanaimo home or business can go on our trailer: furniture, appliances, electronics, mattresses, yard waste, renovation debris and general junk. A shorter list needs special handling, and a few materials have to travel through a hazardous waste stream of their own.
This guide sorts it into those three groups, because asking whether we take something is the question we answer most, right after what it costs.
What we take as ordinary junk
If it can be handled and transported safely, it can usually ride as a normal volume priced load: furniture and mattresses, washers, dryers, stoves and dishwashers, electronics and TVs, hot tubs and pianos, yard waste and brush, renovation and demolition debris, scrap metal, carpet, and garage, shed and storage unit contents. The A to Z page lists everything alphabetically.
Even here there is fine print worth knowing. Stumps are a good example: we do not dig, grind or extract them, but once a stump is out of the ground we can haul it away, subject to its size, weight and how we can get at it.
What we take with special handling
Fridges, freezers and AC units
Refrigerant containing appliances cannot go straight to metal scrap. We take them to an appropriate facility for proper handling and recycling, and they carry a special handling charge. More on the appliance removal page.
Propane tanks
We take propane tanks, and an applicable surcharge covers their safe handling and disposal. They never ride loose in a mixed load.
Paint
We take paint too, and it is handled as its own stream rather than tipped with the garbage: paint in BC runs through dedicated recycling depots, and the regional disposal facilities do not accept liquids at all. Tell us it is there when you book so it is planned for. Commercial chemical waste is different, and belongs with a licensed handler.
Mattresses and box springs
Taken every day, with their own disposal charge, because the facilities that break them down charge per unit. A queen runs about $135 with us, a king about $150, and a box spring added to the pickup about $75.
Drywall
Drywall has the most paperwork of anything we haul. The region accepts gypsum only at the Church Road Transfer Station in Parksville, with a signed drywall declaration, and older or undated drywall can need date stamps from 1991 or newer, or lab testing, before it can travel as ordinary gypsum. We deal with this constantly on renovation jobs, and the construction debris page covers it in detail.
What needs the hazardous stream
Asbestos is the hard line. Suspected asbestos needs proper assessment and licensed abatement, and if we see it on your job we will stop and say so rather than haul it as regular debris. Fuels and biomedical waste are also out, and the regional facilities refuse them too.
What we do handle is everything around a contaminated space: heavily soiled contents, pest damage and mould exposed belongings, as a separate specialised service with hazard labour on top of normal load pricing. That service has its own page, with the honest limits stated.
Not sure which group yours is in?
Click the Get a free estimate button below and describe the item in the request form. You will get a straight answer about whether it can go, how it is handled, and what that costs, before anything is booked. Same-day or next-day service may be available depending on our schedule, your location and the size and scope of the job.