Detached garages, alley-served garages, workshop benches, boat and fishing gear, side yards and storage closets cleared across Long Beach. Sorted as we go, chemicals separated, slab swept, quoted free upfront.
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A Long Beach garage clearance divides in two. Furniture, boxes, bikes and tires ride the free twelve-collection bulky program. Paint, motor oil, pool chemicals, pesticides and batteries may not go in any cart at all, and travel to scheduled weekend centers. Both halves get sorted at your address on one free quote.
A Long Beach garage splits cleanly into two halves and the city treats them completely differently. The bulk half — furniture, boxes, bikes, garden equipment, an old television, tires — is covered by the most generous free bulky program in the region: 12 Special Collections per calendar year for a City-serviced account, up to 8 large items or 25 bags, bundles or boxes each, booked on (562) 570-2876. The shelf half is not covered by anything. Long Beach states plainly that paint and paint thinners, fluorescent light bulbs, household cleaners, used motor oil and filters, pool chemicals, expired medications, batteries, weed killer and pesticides, metal polishers and antifreeze may not be placed in your trash or recycling carts. Those travel to the EDCO Environmental Collection Center in Signal Hill on select Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., or the Gaffey Street S.A.F.E. Center in San Pedro on Saturdays and Sundays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a limit of 15 gallons or 125 pounds per trip. Los Angeles Junk Removal & Hauling sorts both halves at your address and routes each one properly, on a free upfront quote.
Nobody calls about a garage because of the garage. They call because a car has not fitted in it for years, or because a tenant left, or because the space is being converted and a contractor wants it empty by Monday. And then, about forty minutes into the sorting, somebody finds the shelf: eleven part-cans of paint, a jug of antifreeze, two-stroke mix for a mower that no longer exists, a coffee can of unidentified thinner, and a flare kit from a boat that was sold in the nineties.
That shelf is the whole reason this page is different from a furniture page. This is about what is actually in a Long Beach garage, which half of it the city will take for free, and where the other half legally goes. The wider local picture is on junk removal in Long Beach, and our county-wide service is on garage cleanouts.
Start with the good news, because in Long Beach it is genuinely good. Every City-serviced account gets 12 Special Collections per calendar year at no additional cost, booked through the online request form or the call center on (562) 570-2876. Each pickup takes up to 8 large items or 25 bags, bundles or boxes, and two free pickups may be used on the same day. The eligible list covers most of what fills a garage: furniture, appliances, computers and monitors, televisions, tires up to 16 inches with a maximum of five per pickup, and tree branches and yard trimmings in tied bundles. If the boxes and the broken patio set are all you have, and you can carry them to your regular collection point by 6 a.m. on the confirmed day, use the free service. We will tell you that on the phone.
The limits are the ones every Long Beach bulky job runs into. No item may exceed 72 by 48 inches. Bundles may not exceed 48 inches in any direction or 40 pounds, and bags may not exceed 25 pounds — which a bag of tile offcuts or a bag of old paint rollers reaches long before it looks full. Large glass has to be wrapped and fully contained or it will not be collected. Appliances, televisions, computer monitors and tires ride a separate truck and must be kept apart from everything else, with the city noting that fees may apply for special handling. Nothing may be set out before the confirmed day, and collection crews cannot enter private property, which for a detached garage at the back of a lot is not a small detail.
Now the half nobody plans for. Long Beach's household hazardous waste page names the material directly: paint and paint thinners, fluorescent light bulbs, household cleaners, used motor oil and filters, pool chemicals, expired medications, batteries, weed killer and pesticides, metal polishers and antifreeze. None of it may be placed in your trash or recycling carts. Neither, separately, may debris from construction, remodeling or demolition, or rocks, concrete or dirt, or hot ashes — and a garage that has absorbed the leftovers of two remodels usually contains all three.
The free destinations for that half are real and free, and both are scheduled rather than open all week. Long Beach and Los Angeles County residents can use the EDCO Recycling & Transfer Environmental Collection Center at 2755 California Avenue in Signal Hill, which opens on select Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the Gaffey Street S.A.F.E. Center at 1400 North Gaffey Street in San Pedro, open Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The county sets a limit of 15 gallons or 125 pounds per trip, which is why a genuinely full garage is more than one run. The list of what those centers will not take matters just as much on a garage job: business hazardous waste, explosives and ammunition, marine flares, radioactive material, controlled substances, trash and tires, white goods such as refrigerators and washing machines, and solar panels.
Sources: City of Long Beach, Special Collection 101 and Household Hazardous Waste; LA County Public Works. Cited in full below.
| The bulk half | Covered — 12 free Special Collections a year, up to 8 large items or 25 bags, bundles or boxes each |
|---|---|
| The chemical half | Not covered. Household hazardous waste may not be placed in your trash or recycling carts |
| What the city names as HHW | Paint and thinners, fluorescent bulbs, cleaners, used motor oil and filters, pool chemicals, medications, batteries, weed killer and pesticides, metal polishers, antifreeze |
| Nearest free chemical route | EDCO Environmental Collection Center, 2755 California Ave, Signal Hill — select Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. |
| Weekend chemical route | Gaffey Street S.A.F.E. Center, 1400 N Gaffey St, San Pedro — Saturdays and Sundays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Limit per trip | 15 gallons or 125 pounds of household hazardous waste |
| Refused at those centers | Business waste, explosives and ammunition, marine flares, radioactive material, controlled substances, trash, tires, white goods, solar panels |
| Used motor oil and filters | Free curbside pickup for City-serviced accounts, requested before 4 p.m. the weekday before your recycling day |
| Household batteries | Free drop-off at four Council District offices, the Environmental Services Bureau and the Conservation Corps of Long Beach |
| Lithium batteries | Not accepted at those drop-off points — they belong at an HHW collection event |
| Remodel debris in the garage | Banned from every cart, along with rocks, concrete or dirt and hot ashes |
Sources: City of Long Beach, Special Collection 101; City of Long Beach, Household Hazardous Waste; City of Long Beach, Refuse Collection 101; Los Angeles County Public Works, permanent household hazardous waste collection centers; LA Sanitation, Harbor Area Gaffey Street S.A.F.E. Center; City of Long Beach, Used Motor Oil; City of Long Beach, Universal Waste.
Long Beach garages are not the attached double garages of the newer suburbs. Across most of the older grid — Rose Park, California Heights, Wrigley, the blocks around Fourth and Seventh — the garage is a separate structure at the back of the lot, opening onto an alley rather than the street. That changes the work in two ways. The good way is that a truck can usually get right to the door, which is faster than any front-loaded job. The awkward way is that the alley apron is shared, frequently blocked, and on collection days it belongs to the carts. We ask which side the working access is on before we choose the vehicle, because sending a large truck down a blocked alley is the single easiest way to waste an hour.
The second Long Beach pattern is water. This is a boating city, and it shows up on the shelves: outboard oil and two-stroke mix, teak cleaner, bottom paint, fiberglass resin and hardener, fuel stabilizer, and almost always a flare kit. Marine flares are worth flagging early, because they are explicitly on the list of things the free county collection centers will not accept, and neither are ammunition or explosives. Auto and marine paint is also outside the PaintCare take-back that covers ordinary house paint. That does not mean they are your problem forever, it means they need a specific route rather than the Saturday drop-off, and it is far better to know that at the quote than at the gate.
Third is the workshop. Long Beach has a deep home-mechanic tradition and a lot of single-car garages that have been a workbench for thirty years: drums and jugs of used oil, filters in a bucket, brake and carburetor cleaner, a battery or two on the floor, solvent in unlabeled containers. The oil is the easy part — the city collects used motor oil and filters free from City-serviced accounts on your recycling day — and the unlabeled containers are the hard part, because an unlabeled container is a guess, and nobody should be guessing with a five-gallon pail.
Fourth is the conversion job. A garage being turned into living space is a different brief from a garage being tidied: everything goes, the walls get stripped back, and the load stops being household waste and starts including building material, which is banned from every cart in this city. If that is your job, read construction debris removal in Long Beach as well. If there is a refrigerator or a freezer living out there, which there very often is, see appliance removal in Long Beach — the county centers will not take white goods, and a second fridge has its own route.
Tell us what is on the shelves and whether the garage opens onto the alley. That sets the quote.
Free upfront quote, no obligation. One number, agreed before anything is lifted.
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Our own crews on Los Angeles County jobs. The garage cleanouts we run in Long Beach looks like this too: side yards, narrow walkways and the back of the property is where the work actually is.
A garage cleanout is a sorting job with a truck attached, and the sorting decides how much of it ends up as waste. Donation first: usable tools, bikes, camping and sports equipment, garden equipment, working small appliances, furniture that has been stored rather than ruined. The city itself asks residents to consider donating a usable oversized item and keeps its own donation guide for exactly that reason. Metal second, and there is always more of it than people think — shelving, a workbench frame, bike frames, pipe, ducting, an old barbecue, cable. Scrap steel and aluminum have a market; a mixed load does not.
Third is electronics, and in California this is law rather than preference. Televisions, monitors, computers, printers, microwaves, cell phones and household batteries are universal waste, banned from household trash since the state's exemption ended on 9 February 2006. Long Beach repeats the rule in its own words: e-waste may not be placed in your trash or recycling carts. Those items ride the same separate special-handling truck as appliances on a city collection, and on our jobs they are separated at your address and routed to a certified handler.
Fourth is the chemical fraction, and this is where an honest crew earns its keep. Architectural paint has its own free statewide take-back through PaintCare, funded by a recovery fee already paid at purchase — nothing to pay at drop-off, and 819 year-round drop-off sites in California. What PaintCare does not take is just as important on a garage job: paint thinners, mineral spirits and solvents, aerosol coatings, auto and marine paints, art and craft paints, caulking, epoxies, glues and adhesives, wood preservatives containing pesticides, asphalt and tar products, two-component coatings, and any container that is leaking, empty, or missing its original printed manufacturer's label. All of that goes to a household hazardous waste route instead. If you have more than 100 gallons of leftover architectural paint — which happens on landlord and contractor clearances — PaintCare runs a free large volume pickup service worth knowing about before anyone loads a truck.
Fifth is the batteries and bulbs, and Long Beach has its own quietly useful arrangement here. Ordinary household batteries — alkaline AA, AAA, C, D and 9-volt, zinc-carbon, nickel zinc, silver oxide, nickel cadmium and nickel metal hydride — are accepted free at the District 2, 3, 8 and 9 Council offices, the Environmental Services Bureau on East Willow Street, and the Conservation Corps of Long Beach. Lithium primary and lithium-ion batteries are specifically not accepted at those points and have to go to a household hazardous waste collection event, which matters because cordless tool packs and laptop batteries are exactly what a garage is full of. Unbroken fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps contain mercury and go to a proper recycling route rather than a bin.
Sixth is what is genuinely left, and the goal is to make it small. Tires are their own case: the city takes up to five passenger tires at 16 inches or under on a Special Collection, and the statewide California Tire Fee charged on every new tire at the point of sale is what funds a legal route for them. Whatever residual waste does leave Long Beach goes to the city's own waste-to-energy facility rather than straight to burial, where metals are recovered before and after the boilers at an average of 825 tons a month. We will tell you which stream each part of your garage falls into while we are quoting, before anything is lifted.
Sources: City of Long Beach, Household Hazardous Waste; Californians Against Waste, background on universal waste and DTSC regulations; City of Long Beach, E-Waste; PaintCare, California program and recovery fees; PaintCare, products accepted and not accepted; City of Long Beach, Universal Waste; City of Long Beach, Tires; California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, California Tire Fee Law Guide; City of Long Beach, SERRF waste-to-energy facility.
Same rule in Long Beach as anywhere else in Los Angeles County. The local part is the program above, not the disposal law. Full detail on garage cleanouts.
This page is garage cleanouts in Long Beach specifically. The wider service is on garage cleanouts across Los Angeles, and everything we haul in this city is on junk removal in Long Beach. Same crew, different job: Furniture removal in Long Beach, Appliance removal in Long Beach, Mattress removal in Long Beach, Commercial junk removal in Long Beach, Construction debris removal in Long Beach, Same-day junk removal in Long Beach. Pricing works the same way everywhere: how our pricing works, and the full map is on areas we serve.
We are already next door most days. The whole list is on areas we serve.
Sorted at your address so each fraction reaches the right destination.
TVs, CRT monitors and computers. Banned from the trash in California.
Fridges, washers and AC units. Refrigerant units are handled as universal waste.
Couches, sectionals, mattresses in the same trip, beds, desks and wardrobes carried down rather than dragged.
Drywall, lumber, tile and concrete, hauled to a certified C&D processor.
Brush, palm fronds, sod, soil and storm debris, priced by weight.
Booked and cleared the same day, most days, across LA County.
The free pickup, the shelf, the alley and the things nobody will take on a Saturday.
For about half of it, yes. Long Beach gives a City-serviced account 12 Special Collections a year, and furniture, boxes, bikes, garden equipment, televisions and up to five tires are all eligible. Everything has to be at your regular collection point by 6 a.m. on the confirmed day, and crews cannot enter private property. What the free route will not take is the chemical shelf, because the city states that household hazardous waste may not go in your trash or recycling carts at all.
Two free places, and both run to a schedule. The EDCO Recycling & Transfer Environmental Collection Center at 2755 California Avenue in Signal Hill opens on select Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the Gaffey Street S.A.F.E. Center at 1400 North Gaffey Street in San Pedro is open Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There is a limit of 15 gallons or 125 pounds per trip, which is why a well-stocked garage is usually more than one run.
Neither goes on a Saturday drop-off. The county is explicit that its permanent collection centers do not accept marine flares, ammunition, explosives or radioactive material, and Long Beach being a boating city means we find flare kits regularly. The correct route is a specialist one, and for ammunition that usually starts with a call to law enforcement rather than a hauler. We separate it, tell you exactly what you have, and do not quietly put it on a truck.
Usually better, as long as we know. An alley-served garage means the truck can often reach the door, which is faster than carrying across a front yard. The catch is that the apron is shared and frequently blocked, and on collection days the carts are out. Tell us it is alley access when you book and we will size the vehicle to the alley rather than sending the biggest truck and finding out at the corner.
We separate both and route them properly. It is also worth knowing that Long Beach collects used motor oil and filters free from City-serviced accounts on your recycling day — request it before 4 p.m. the weekday before, keep it in the containers the city provides, and set it two feet away from the cart rather than inside it. Ordinary household batteries are taken free at several city locations, though lithium and lithium-ion packs are not, and those need a hazardous waste event.
Yes. A garage cleanout finishes swept, with the space actually usable, which is normally the entire point. If the floor has old oil staining or the space is being converted, say so and we will tell you honestly what a sweep will and will not fix. The quote is free and given upfront, and it includes the clear-down rather than treating it as an extra afterwards.
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Collection rules, transfer stations and permit counters change at the city line, so each of these is written for that city rather than for Long Beach. A job that straddles two of them is still one visit and one number.
Everything we haul in the cities next door: Gardena, Redondo Beach, Hawthorne. The whole list is on areas we serve.
Send a photo, get a flat number back. Free, no obligation, no pressure and no call-out fee — and if your city will haul it free instead, we will tell you that too. Most requests are answered within the hour during working hours.
