A landscaping job in Chattanooga ends with a pile that is really three or four piles: limbs and brush on top, sod and soil under it, a stack of broken pavers, and the old fence or bed timbers that came out when the yard was redone. Each has a different destination, and sorting them decides whether the cleanup costs nothing, a tank of gas, or a truck load. This is the load-by-load version for whoever is standing in the yard the morning after.
The short form: natural wood and leaves have a free route if you live inside the city limits and can wait for your week; soil, rock and concrete have no free route anywhere in Hamilton County; treated wood, fencing and timbers sit in between.
Brush, limbs and leaves
Inside the Chattanooga city limits, single-family addresses get brush collection on a rotating schedule. The city is split into four areas, each area gets one collection week a month, and the pile has to be at the street by 7 a.m. on the Monday of that week. The limits catch people out: wood waste no longer than eight feet, no thicker than eighteen inches, stacked no higher than four feet, and natural wood only, meaning limbs, hedge cuttings and shrubs. Brush, bulky items and bagged leaves go in separate piles, five feet clear of cars and mailboxes, never in an alley or under low wires. Land clearing is not collected, contractors and businesses are not eligible, and each property is capped at twelve brush collections in any twelve-month period.
With a truck you can skip the wait. The city's Wood Recycling Center on North Hawthorne Street takes brush, leaves and raw natural wood Monday to Saturday, free for city residents in a standard pickup or single-axle trailer, with a per-ton charge for non-residents, businesses and contractors; you unload it yourself. It turns away root balls and stumps, dirt and rocks, anything treated, painted or glued, pallets, plywood, railroad ties, and pieces over ten feet long or five feet across. City residents can take mulch home from the same yard at no charge.
Fall changes the timing. Loose leaf collection runs November through March, separate from the brush route; the city asks residents to call 311 for priority pickup in November and December and to file a roaming-service request from January on. Small amounts of bagged leaves or grass clippings can go in the garbage cart. The limb side of the season is the wind off the plateau once the leaves are down, and a brush week that passed the day before the storm does not come back for a month. That gap, and the twelve-a-year cap, is when plain brush ends up on a crew's truck.
Sod, soil, pavers and concrete
Nothing in this group has a free route. Dirt, rock, brick, block and concrete are refused at the curb, at the city's refuse collection centers, and at the city landfill on Birchwood Pike in Harrison, which does not take construction and demolition material even from city residents. What takes it is the private construction and demolition landfill next door, which charges by the ton, and that is why every hauler in the county prices this material by weight rather than by the share of the truck it fills.
Sod is the load people underestimate. A stripped lawn is soil with roots in it, heavy and wet, and a few wheelbarrows of it outweigh a whole truck of limbs. Keep a little concrete out of a lot of brush: a mixed load is priced as the heavy one, and the wood yard refuses the whole pile if there is rock in it.
Old mulch, landscape timbers, fencing and treated wood
The brush route takes natural wood only and names lumber, cross-ties, pallets and particle board as excluded, so fence panels, pressure-treated bed edging and railroad ties cannot go to the curb on brush week, and the bulky-item list does not cover them either. The Wood Recycling Center refuses them for the same reason: treated and painted wood does not become mulch.
City residents do have a free route for part of it. The three refuse collection centers, on Airport Road, North Access Road and West 57th Street, open Tuesday to Sunday, accept landscape timbers, lumber and metal from a household in a standard pickup, up to twelve visits in a calendar year, with a driver's license showing a city address. They refuse brush, leaves, grass clippings, concrete, dirt, railroad ties and roofing, and they do not admit contractors or landlords. A fence job splits that way: panels and posts to the refuse center, the hedge behind them to the curb or the wood yard.
Old mulch is decided at the gate: raked up clean it is wood, after a few seasons it is half soil and landscape fabric and goes with the dirt, and the attendant makes the call. Chain-link, wire fencing and metal edging go as scrap, which the refuse centers take and a crew hauls at the lighter end of its range.
Outside the city line: what Hamilton County takes
The Hamilton County recycling centers at Highway 58, Middle Valley, Red Bank, Standifer Gap and Sequoyah take plastics, glass, metal, paper, cardboard and computer electronics, used motor oil at four of them, and tires at the Tire Recovery Center on Standifer Gap Road. None of them takes anything from a yard.
So for Ooltewah and the rest of the unincorporated county, brush goes to the city's Wood Recycling Center at the per-ton rate or on a truck, and heavy material to the private construction and demolition landfill or on a truck. Red Bank, East Ridge, Collegedale, Soddy-Daisy, Signal Mountain and Lookout Mountain are separate towns with their own rules; read the town's page first, because a pile the town will not take sits at the curb until someone pays to move it.
How loads are sized and what they cost
A crew prices yard debris by the share of the truck it fills once it is cut and packed, with the labor, the haul and the facility fee inside one number. Brush is bulky and light, so limbs are cut to length and stacked tight; a heap that looks like half the yard is often a quarter truck, $240 to $325, once it is on the truck. A hedge line or one large oak's limbs runs to a half truck at $375 to $490 or three quarters at $540 to $650, and a lot cleared to the fence fills the truck at $650 to $800. Soil, sod, pavers and concrete are the exception, quoted by weight from a photo. The storm and yard debris page covers the truck side in more detail.
For a project that sheds debris over a week, a container beats repeat trips: a 10-yard at $325 to $440 for a patio tear-out or a bed rebuild, a 15-yard at $410 to $525 for a yard plus a fence, a 20-yard at $465 to $600 for the overhaul where the whole back garden comes out. Concrete and soil use up the tonnage allowance before the box is half full, so say what is going in when you book dumpster rental. Send a photo of the pile either way, and the crew names the part the city would take free if you can wait for your week.
Useful links
- City of Chattanooga: brush and bulk trash collection – collection-week calendar, size limits, accepted and refused materials
- City of Chattanooga: Wood Recycling Center – hours, who dumps free, what wood is refused, free mulch
- City of Chattanooga: loose leaves collection – November to March leaf season and how to request pickup
Questions on this
Will Chattanooga pick up landscape debris from a landscaper's job?
No. The brush route serves single-family residents, land clearing is not collected and contractors are not eligible. A landscaper's pile goes to the Wood Recycling Center at the per-ton rate or on a truck.
Where can I dump dirt, sod or concrete in Chattanooga?
There is no free drop-off. The curb, the city's refuse collection centers and the city landfill all refuse dirt, rock, brick and concrete. It goes to the private construction and demolition landfill next to the city landfill on Birchwood Pike, by weight, which is why a crew quotes it by the ton rather than by the load.
When does Chattanooga collect leaves?
Loose leaf collection runs November through March. Call 311 for priority service in November and December; from January it runs through the city's roaming service requests. Bagged leaves go out separately on your brush week, and small amounts can go in the garbage cart.