9 Things Minnesotans Can’t Legally Toss in a Household Garbage Bin
Your cordless drill battery won’t hold a charge anymore, so you drop it in the garbage bin on your way out of the garage.
In Minnesota, you’ve just broken a state law.
Here’s what you can’t legally toss in your household garbage, and where your old stuff can go instead.
Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Disposal rules are subject to change, so confirm the current requirements with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (PCA).
1. Tube TVs and Computer Monitors
Televisions and computer monitors with a cathode-ray tube have been banned from Minnesota garbage since July 1, 2006.
The PCA’s ban covers any device with a cathode-ray tube, so the set in your basement can’t go to the curb.
In 2007, the state added recycling requirements for video display devices.
Psst! How much do you know about recycling in Minnesota? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Minnesota Recycling IQ
Answer these questions on recycling and waste in Minnesota. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
In 1992, Minnesota banned which household paper product from municipal solid waste disposal?
2. Fluorescent Lights
Fluorescent lights contain mercury, so a burned-out tube from your garage can't go in the household garbage bin.
State law says a fluorescent lamp has to be recycled.
That covers all types of fluorescent lights, including compact fluorescents, high-pressure sodium, and metal halide lights.
Putting any of them in ordinary household garbage is unlawful.
For households, the state limits the administrative penalty to $700.
Your county's household hazardous waste site is the place to take them.
3. Mercury Thermometers and Thermostats
Minnesota law bars putting mercury, or a device with its mercury still in it, in the garbage.
Thermostats and fever and cooking thermometers can contain mercury.
Barometers and some blood pressure cuffs can too.
Thermometers with blue or red liquid don't, so the ban doesn't reach them.
Silver liquid gives it away.
Mercury thermostats and thermometers carry a label saying they may not be placed in the garbage until the mercury is removed and reused, recycled, or otherwise managed.
If you're swapping out an old wall thermostat, check it for mercury before it goes in your bin.
4. Rechargeable Batteries
Mixed municipal solid waste, the regular garbage stream, can't hold a rechargeable battery.
The ban has been in effect since August 1, 1991.
It reaches battery packs and products with a rechargeable battery built in.
Any rechargeable counts, sealed or not.
So a worn-out cordless tool pack isn't headed to your curb.
Manufacturers must run collection programs or work with an organization that does.
What Your Garbage Bin Can Still Take
Alkaline batteries may go in your garbage bin.
Button, coin, and lithium batteries are different, since they count as household hazardous waste.
Dried paint may go in the trash too.
Empty aerosol containers can go in the trash as well.
5. Car Batteries
Car batteries are lead acid batteries, which Minnesota law bars from household garbage.
A violation is a misdemeanor.
Stores that sell car batteries have to take your old one.
A retailer must charge a fee of at least $10 on a new battery unless you return a used one.
Bring the old one along when you buy a new one, and you skip the fee.
6. Motor Oil and Filters
Anyone who knowingly puts motor oil in household garbage breaks Minnesota law.
The same goes for brake fluid, power steering fluid, transmission fluid, motor oil filters, and antifreeze.
You also can't knowingly dump any of them on land without state approval.
The PCA lists motor oil, brake fluid, antifreeze, transmission fluid and oil filters as household hazardous waste, so your county's site is the stop.
7. Major Appliances
Refrigerators and other major appliances can't go in your household garbage.
The legal definition covers clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers, hot water heaters, ovens, ranges, and air conditioners.
Freezers, furnaces, garbage disposals, heat pumps, and trash compactors are on that list too.
Each county has to make sure your household has a chance to recycle used major appliances.
8. Waste Tires
Minnesota landfills can't take waste tires.
That landfill ban started on July 1, 1985.
The state's waste law lists them among the items banned from garbage.
A store that sells tires must accept as many waste tires from you as you bought.
9. Yard Waste
Leaves, lawn cuttings, weeds, shrub and tree waste, and prunings are all yard waste, which has no place in household garbage.
State law keeps it out of your garbage bin.
The ban started in 1990 in the metro area and in 1992 outside the metro area.
In the metro area, a plastic bag of yard waste can't go to a transfer station or compost facility unless the bag is compostable, though you can empty it and take the bag with you.
Yard waste has to be reused or composted instead, even at a resource recovery facility.
The compost facility locator maps the permitted large composting sites.
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