Most people clearing out a garage or a yard in Fond du Lac discover the rules in the wrong order: they load a trailer, drive to the Municipal Service Center, and find out at the gate that half the load is not accepted there. The two city sites between them cover a great deal, but there is one category they specifically refuse, and knowing that before you load saves the whole trip.
The short answer: bulky household items go to 490 Doty Street and yard waste goes to 530 Doty Street, both city residents only. A double-axle trailer load of bulky waste is $40. Construction and demolition debris is not accepted at either and has to go to a landfill.
Bulky waste: 490 Doty Street
This is the site for large household items that will not go in a kerbside cart: furniture, mattresses, appliances and similar things cleared out of a house or garage.
- City of Fond du Lac residents only. Not open to surrounding townships or to contractors
- An attendant decides what is accepted, so a borderline load is a judgement call at the gate
- Waste that fits in a 95-gallon receptacle is free
| Load | Fee |
|---|---|
| Fits in a 95-gallon receptacle | No charge |
| Car or compact SUV load | $10 |
| Pickup, van or SUV load | $20 |
| Single-axle trailer | $20 |
| Double-axle trailer | $40 |
| Freon items (fridges, freezers, AC) | $25 each |
| Car tyres | $5 each |
| Truck tyres | $10 each |
| Tractor tyres | $15 each |
Note the trailer pricing. A single-axle trailer is charged the same as a pickup load at $20, and a double-axle trailer is $40. Since the fee is per load rather than per item, one full trailer is considerably cheaper than three pickup trips.
What they will not take
This list is the reason trips get wasted, and it is worth reading twice before loading.
- Construction, remodelling or demolition debris: lumber, shingles, drywall, tiles
- Any electronics, including televisions and games consoles
- Hazardous waste: paint, chemicals and similar
- Fluorescent bulbs and ballasts
- Gravel, stone and concrete
- Motor vehicles, campers, boats and hot tubs
- Household recycling
The one that catches people
Remodelling debris. If you have torn out a bathroom or pulled down a deck, none of it goes to the city site. That material needs a landfill or a licensed construction and demolition facility, which is a different destination and a different fee structure.
Yard waste and brush: 530 Doty Street
Fifty metres up the same street and a completely different set of rules, most of them more generous.
- Open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day at the mulch bin
- No charge to drop off, and no charge to take away wood chips, mulch, compost or logs when available
- City residents only, no contractors
- Accepted: brush, branches, shrub trimmings, garden waste, grass clippings, leaves
- Not accepted: bags or containers, rocks, stones, trash, root balls, contractor debris, sand, dirt, sod
The bagging rule matters. Material has to come out of bags, so plan to tip or unload loose rather than arriving with forty full sacks and no time. This is precisely where a dump trailer earns its keep: tip the whole load and drive away.
Note also that the city does not offer any kerbside pickup for yard waste. You bring it there yourself, which is the whole reason a trailer is in this conversation.
Which trailer for which job
| Job | Trailer | City fee |
|---|---|---|
| Garage clear-out, furniture | 6' x 12' utility trailer | $20 single axle |
| Whole-house clear-out | 18ft utility trailer | $40 double axle |
| Yard waste, brush, leaves | dump trailer | Free |
| Appliances and fridges | 6' x 12' utility trailer | $20 plus $25 per freon item |
| Demolition debris | dump trailer | Not accepted, landfill instead |
The axle count is worth knowing before you book, because it changes the fee. The 6' x 12' utility trailer is single-axle and the 18ft utility trailer and dump trailer are tandem. For a modest load, the smaller trailer is cheaper twice over.
Outside the city limits
Both sites are for City of Fond du Lac residents. If you are in Taycheedah, Empire, Friendship or any of the surrounding townships, these are not your sites, and your options are a private transfer station or a county facility. Call ahead rather than loading first, because acceptance and pricing vary.
Renting the trailer is not affected by any of this. People rent here from across the county and beyond; it is only the municipal disposal sites that are residency-restricted.
Electronics, which neither site takes
Wisconsin has banned a long list of electronics from landfill, which is why neither Fond du Lac site accepts televisions, computers, monitors or games consoles. This surprises people clearing out a basement, because old electronics are exactly what accumulates there.
Electronics go to a registered electronics recycler instead. Some charge by item, particularly for CRT televisions and monitors which are genuinely expensive to process, and some retailers run take-back schemes for specific categories. The practical advice is to count the electronics before the cleanout starts, find out where they are going, and keep them out of the trailer that is headed for Doty Street.
Paint, chemicals and hazardous household waste
Neither site takes paint or chemicals, and these are the other category that reliably turns up in a garage clearance.
- Latex paint can often be dried out solid and disposed of with household waste, which is the cheapest route
- Oil-based paint, solvents and stains are hazardous waste and need a collection event or a permanent facility
- Motor oil and antifreeze are usually accepted by auto parts retailers
- Propane cylinders are refused nearly everywhere as general waste and need specific handling
- Car batteries carry a core value at most retailers, so they are worth money rather than costing it
Fond du Lac County runs household hazardous waste collection periodically rather than continuously, so the timing matters. Check the county schedule before planning a clearance around it.
Scrap metal is worth separating
Before paying a disposal fee on anything metal, consider whether a scrap yard will take it instead. The economics run the other way: a scrap yard pays for material the disposal site charges you to accept.
- Appliances, although fridges and freezers need the refrigerant removed first
- Metal bed frames, filing cabinets and shelving
- Copper pipe and wire, which is worth separating from the rest
- Old tools, cast iron and steel fencing
- Car and truck wheels, once the tyres are off
On a full house clearance this is not trivial. A trailer of mixed metal that would cost $40 to dispose of can return a useful amount instead, and it comes out of the load you were paying to tip.
Timing the trip
Two practical scheduling points make a disposal run easier.
The bulky waste site has limited hours and they change with the season, running longer in summer than in winter, with one weekday evening and a Saturday morning. Those are the busiest slots, so a weekday morning is a quicker trip if you can manage it. The yard waste mulch bin, by contrast, is open around the clock every day, which makes it the easier of the two to fit around work.
Also allow for the queue at month-end and in spring. The weekend after the first warm week of April is the busiest the site gets all year, as the whole city clears its yards at once.
Appliances and the freon question
Fridges, freezers, air conditioners and dehumidifiers all contain refrigerant, and that is why they carry a $25 fee each at the bulky waste site rather than being included in the load price.
The refrigerant has to be recovered by someone qualified before the appliance can be scrapped, which is a real cost rather than an administrative one. Three old fridges from a basement is $75 on top of the load fee, which is worth knowing before the trailer is loaded rather than at the gate.
There is sometimes a better route. Scrap yards will often take appliances, and some will handle the refrigerant themselves as part of the value of the metal. Utility companies occasionally run appliance recycling schemes with a rebate for working units being retired. Both are worth a phone call when there are several appliances, because the difference between paying $75 and being paid a modest amount is a genuine swing on a cleanout budget.
Planning the trip
- Sort before you load. Yard waste and bulky waste are different sites, and mixing them means two stops with one sorted load
- Pull the construction debris out and plan a landfill run for that separately
- Take electronics somewhere else, since neither site accepts them
- Count your freon items, at $25 each, before deciding whether the trip is worth it
- Go on one trip with a bigger trailer, since the fee is per load
Fees and hours do change. This page reflects what the city publishes at the time of writing, and it is worth a quick check on the city website before a big load.
Text Nick at (920) 381-9770 and describe what you are clearing out, and you will get the trailer that matches both the load and the fee tier. Related: dump trailer versus dumpster and the house cleanout guide.