City services

What Roseville City Collection Will and Will Not Take

Roseville's curbside service is more generous than most — and more specific. Knowing exactly where the limits sit tells you when you need a container.

One item a week

We are a dumpster company, so this may seem an odd thing to lead with: for a lot of household jobs in Roseville you should not rent a container at all.

Weekly is genuinely good by the standards of most cities we work in. A sofa this week, a mattress next week, an old dresser the week after. If you are not in a hurry, a slow clear-out can be done for nothing.

Where it stops being useful is when the job has a deadline, or when it produces more than one item. A house being emptied for sale does not have twelve weeks.

The 60 lb construction rule

This is the specific limit that sends most of our residential calls, and it is worth quoting exactly.

Three things follow. It is one item, not one load. It is capped at 60 lbs, which is less than a single bathroom vanity. And it has dimensional limits that rule out most sheet material and framing lengths.

Set that against an actual project. A bathroom gut produces a tub, a vanity, a toilet, tile, plaster and flooring. A kitchen produces cabinets, countertop and appliances. A basement produces panelling, carpet and framing by the ton. None of that is one item under 60 lbs.

The rule is sensible — it stops renovation debris being fed into a residential collection system a piece at a time. But it means any real project needs its own container.

If you simply need more general capacity, an additional trash container can be purchased from Green For Life on 866-772-8900.

Compost season and the size limits

Yard waste is a separate stream here with its own season and its own very specific rules.

Compost collection runs from the beginning of April to the beginning of December. Exact dates are published on the City calendar and available from the Clerk's Office. Material placed out improperly, or outside the season, will not be picked up.

The container rules:

• Kraft paper bags, or 32–35 gallon cans with a City "COMPOST" sticker
• No heavier than 60 pounds
• Bundles of brush or branches no larger than 2 inches in diameter, tied securely, no longer than 4 feet, no more than 18 inches across, and no heavier than 60 lbs per bundle
• Sod, dirt and stones are not accepted

Those numbers rule out a lot of real yard work. A tree coming down produces limbs well over 2 inches in diameter. A landscaping project produces sod and soil. Both are container jobs.

Two ordinance points worth knowing: yard waste separation is mandatory, and raking or depositing leaves or grass onto the street is a violation in its own right.

Michigan bans yard waste from landfills

The reason all of the above is a rule rather than a preference.

For us that means vegetation genuinely is a different load. Keep clean brush separate from general debris and it stays on the cheaper composting route; mix it in and the whole container is handled as mixed waste.

What the recycling cart will not take

Worth knowing because contamination is easy and the exclusions are broader than people expect.

Not accepted: paper milk and juice cartons, styrofoam, wax-coated cardboard, garbage, propane tanks, paint cans, window glass, medical waste, flammable liquids, household cleaners, chemicals — and wood.

That last one catches people mid-project. Scrap wood is not a recycling item. It goes in the container, or out as one bundled sub-60 lb item a week.

The special-handling list

One scheduling note: holiday collection is delayed by one day only, and only when the holiday falls on a weekday.

The drop-off sites the city lists

For volumes past what curbside handles, the city itself publishes these:

• Pinetree Acres, 36600 29 Mile Road, Richmond — 586-749-9698. Auto parts, construction debris, excessive household refuse, large amounts of yard waste.
• Metropolitan Disposal, 6451 E. McNichols, Detroit — 313-893-3388. Auto parts, construction debris, excessive household refuse, metals.
• Clancy Concrete, 29950 Little Mack, Roseville — 586-294-2900. Clean broken concrete only; no brick, patio stones or cinder blocks.
• Roseville Concrete, 29765 Groesbeck Highway — 586-778-6860. Concrete only.

The two concrete sites are genuinely useful and genuinely local. The other two are a drive, and both mean you are doing the loading and hauling.

When a container is the right answer

• Any renovation or remodeling project. The construction allowance is one item under 60 lbs.
• A basement or whole-house clear-out you want done in a weekend rather than one item a week for three months.
• A tree coming down, or anything with limbs over 2 inches in diameter.
• Landscaping with sod, dirt or stone, none of which is accepted as compost.
• Yard work between December and April, when compost collection is not running.
• Anything a contractor generated. That debris is theirs to remove.
• Business, rental or commercial property.
• Any address outside the City of Roseville — Eastpointe, Fraser, Warren, St. Clair Shores and the rest have their own arrangements, and none of the above applies.

Call and describe what you are clearing. If the city service will handle it, we will say so — and if it genuinely will not, we will put you in the right size container.