What Cobbs Recycling Center takes, and where the refusals go

By Waco Junk Removal Guide · Published and fact-checked October 4, 2026 · Independent local guide

Where it is, and when the bays close

Cobbs Recycling Center is at 4201 Trice Ave, Waco, 76710, and its hours are Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The detail that matters for a cleanout is the earlier cut-off inside those hours: the City states that the bulky and brush bays close at 4:45 p.m. each day so staff can sweep the area before closing.

Bulky and brush drop-off is self-service, so you are doing the unloading. Plan the car or the trailer with that in mind, and arrive with enough of the afternoon left to empty it without rushing.

Recyclables from anyone, bulky waste from residents

The City’s Cobbs page, retrieved October 4, 2026, invites household items no matter where you live, and asks only that materials arrive separated by type. The resident-only lanes sit further down the same page.

The solid waste ordinance explains why the two halves work differently. Section 21-30(g) caps a brush or bulky deposit at the citizens’ collection station at eight cubic yards and allows four deposits a calendar year to residential collection customers who prove residency, while leaving recyclables to the city manager or a designee, who sets what is eligible and any residency requirement, with no limit on the number of recyclable deposits.

For the resident lanes, the City asks for a copy of the Waco water bill, paper or electronic, within 30 days of its due date, showing a Waco residential service address with a residential trash service charge. It also asks for a photo ID whose address matches that service address. The ordinance words the proof as a photo identification card and the most recent utility bill.

Sort it before you arrive

The accepted recyclables come with their own exclusions, and the exclusions are where loads get rejected. The City lists number 1 drink bottles and number 2 hard plastic containers in any color; glass bottles and food jars in clear, brown, blue and green, but no windows, coffee table glass or dishes.

Steel or tin cans and aluminum cans are taken. So are cardboard, magazines, mail and paper cups, though not cardboard contaminated with food, which the City illustrates with paper plates and take-out pizza boxes. Cooking oil is accepted as liquid only, with no solid grease.

Household batteries and curly CFL light bulbs are accepted, but not lithium ion or car batteries. Packing styrofoam is taken while food containers made of it are not. Computers and cell phones are accepted as electronic waste, which the fee schedule records as a no-charge drop-off.

What a Waco resident can add at no extra charge

With the bill and the identification in hand, the resident lanes open up. Used motor oil, antifreeze and oil filters are accepted up to five gallons a month, and latex paint up to five gallons a month.

Then there are the four trips of bulky and brush, each of which may not exceed eight cubic yards, a volume the City describes as about a full-sized pickup truck load. State law requires loose loads to be tarped, so strap the tarp down before you set off. The City’s residential services page adds that yard waste and brush may go to Cobbs or the landfill up to four times a year at no additional cost.

The two charges that reach your utility bill

Refrigerant appliances need a label or tag showing that a certified technician removed the refrigerant. Where there is none, the City can remove it for $15.00 per appliance for a residential customer. Appliances are recycled and do not count against your bulky drop-offs.

Tires are capped at four per visit, off the rim, with a 20 inch size limit and no commercial or industrial tires. The fee schedule lists $3.50 a tire for 15 inches or smaller and $6.00 a tire for 16 to 20 inches, which the Cobbs page words as $6.00 for 20 inches or smaller. Above 20 inches the City points to local off-the-road tire dealers, who will often take them for a fee. Tires are recycled and, like appliances, do not use up a bulky trip.

Neither charge is collected at the gate. The City states that the fees are added to your next utility bill, which is worth knowing before you hand over four tires and a freezer in one visit. Our appliance planning guide covers the disconnection and access questions that come before any of this.

The refusal list, and where each item goes instead

Cobbs publishes what it will not take. Each line below pairs that refusal with the official route we could verify today.

• Remodeling or construction debris: the landfill takes construction and demolition waste at $75.00 a ton, or $125.00 with concrete or bricks, and the transfer station takes no concrete at all. The ordinance also forbids this material in a residential cart. See the self-haul guide.
• Industrial or commercial business waste: this belongs to the commercial system, not a household lane. The City publishes its approved franchise haulers.
• Propane cylinders and old gasoline: the state counts fuels, including gasoline and propane, as household hazardous waste, and the landfill refuses that too. Nothing of this kind belongs in a cart or a trailer.
• Radioactive materials, and the smoke detectors the fee schedule also excludes: the state notes that certain smoke detectors hold very small amounts of radioactive material, that some manufacturers run take-back programs, and that the postal service publishes guidance on disposal.
• Household hazardous waste: the state’s examples are corrosive cleaners, fluorescent bulbs, fuels, mercury, oil-based paints and some anti-mildew latex, pesticides, pool chlorine and acid, and wood stains and varnishes. See the handling rules below.
• Leaking equipment: do not load it. Tell whoever is handling the removal what is leaking and from where, before anything moves.
• Scrapped out televisions and electronics, chargers and cables, and speakers in wooden cabinets: the state’s manufacturer programs are the route for a television or a computer, and they are covered below.
• Plastic bags of every kind: the City’s own page points to HEB, Walmart, Lowes, Target and Kohls locations, which take shopping, produce, bread, dry cleaning and newspaper bags.
• Food waste and household garbage: the gray cart, bagged and tied, with the lid able to close. The City lists $20.00 per event for an overfilled cart, waste outside the cart or unbagged trash in it, with a warning letter when a penalty is assessed.

Household chemicals: what the state says to do

The TCEQ guide for Texans, retrieved October 4, 2026, makes a point that explains the differing lists: material generated by a household is not required to be handled as hazardous waste and can often go in the regular trash, though many residents prefer a more protective route.

Its handling rules are simple and worth following whichever route you choose. Keep products in their original containers with readable labels, store and carry them upright rather than on their sides, secure them in the vehicle, never mix products together, and keep them cool, dry and away from children and pets.

The guide also explains why batteries, used oil, latex paint and antifreeze have their own lanes at Cobbs. Those four are generally nonhazardous or are regulated under other programs, so collections limited to them sit outside the state’s household hazardous waste requirements, and the state tells residents to check with their own city for a site. For a paint can less than a quarter full, it suggests taking the lid off in a well-ventilated area, letting the paint dry, and putting the can in the trash.

For anything genuinely hazardous there is a gap to know about locally. The state keeps a county list of collection programs on its HHW contacts page, and the version we downloaded on October 4, 2026 carries no McLennan County entry. The state’s advice in that situation is to ask the local government or the regional council of governments whether an event is planned, which is a call worth making before a pantry shelf of old chemicals goes anywhere.

Televisions, computers and the rest of the electronics

Cobbs takes computers and cell phones but refuses scrapped out televisions and electronics, so a dead television needs the state route. Under the Texas Recycles TVs program, rules sit in Title 30 of the Texas Administrative Code, chapter 328, subchapter J, and each manufacturer on the state list has notified the agency that it offers a program to collect and recycle its own brand of television equipment.

The agency is explicit that it provides no recycling service itself and only helps locate options, suggesting you check the brand against its list, contact the manufacturer when a brand is missing, and ask whether a household hazardous waste program nearby accepts televisions. The computer program works the same way for personal and home business machines, and it puts one duty on you: anything left on the device is your responsibility, so erase the drive before handing it over.

Glass: three different answers in one city

Glass is the clearest example of why one rule never covers a whole load. Blue carts refuse it. Cobbs accepts bottles and food jars in four colors but not windows, coffee table glass or dishes. The residential page, meanwhile, says a glass tabletop or a mirror is excluded from bulky collection and may be dropped at Cobbs, so ask the staff before you lift one out of the car.

For bottles and jars alone there is a third route. The City’s glass recycling page lists large purple roll-off containers at Heritage Square in downtown Waco, McLennan Community College in Parking Lot S, and the Goodwill headquarters on New Road. They are free, available around the clock, take glass only with no bags or boxes, and the glass goes to Prestige Shredding and Recycling.

What the City’s bulky collection covers anyway

Some loads never need a drive. The ordinance defines bulky waste as furniture, treated wood, construction materials a household generates on its own residential project rather than through a commercial provider, mattresses and box springs, carpet, swing sets, plastic swimming pools, small and large toys, bicycles, fish aquariums, toilets, residential appliances and similar items, and white goods free of CFCs, provided they hold no hazardous waste and nothing the designated landfill refuses.

Each service unit gets one collection a month, and the request has to be made within eight hours of placing the pile out. The ordinance caps it at eight cubic yards, noting for illustration that a pile six feet wide by six feet high by six feet long is the equivalent volume, and requires the pile to be apart from carts, yard waste bags and brush.

It also attaches charges to the water bill for a pile over that size, a pile commingled with garbage, recyclables, yard waste or plastic bags, and a pile set out with no request made at all. The fee schedule prices additional bulky service at $50.00 up to seven cubic yards, $90.00 for eight to fifteen, and $165.00 for sixteen to thirty. The pickup comparison sets those bands beside a private quote, and the garage guide covers separating the awkward items first.

Sort first, drive once

A pass through the pile with these lists open will usually split it three ways: what the carts take, what Cobbs takes, and what needs a destination of its own. Load the car for one destination at a time, keep the bill and the identification with you, and tarp anything loose.

When the sorting makes it obvious that the job is bigger than the car, the quote form reaches a local pro who confirms the items, the access and the price before anything is booked. Describe what you have already set aside, so the quote covers the load that is actually leaving.

Official sources

• City of Waco, Cobbs Recycling Center: hours, accepted materials, resident requirements, fees and the refusal list.
• City of Waco utility rates, Solid Waste schedule: refrigerant removal, tire bands, electronic waste, bulky service charges, cart penalties.
• City of Waco, Residential Services: cart contents, the four yearly drop-offs, bulky exclusions and their alternatives.
• Waco Code of Ordinances, sections 21-29 and 21-30: the bulky waste definition, deposit limits and proof of residency.
• City of Waco, Glass Recycling: the purple container locations and what they take.
• TCEQ, Household Hazardous Waste: A Guide for Texans and the contacts page: definitions, handling rules and the county program list.
• TCEQ, Texas Recycles TVs and consumer information on computer recycling: the manufacturer programs and the data you erase first.

Sources checked October 4, 2026. Programs and fees change; confirm acceptance with the City or the program before a trip.