How to get rid of a TV in Minneapolis

The short answer

Priced by screen size, not by age, weight or technology. A 200-pound CRT under 42 inches is $62, the same as a flat panel of the same screen size.

The minimum is $75 per visit, so a single small TV at $62 bills at $75. Worth adding the monitor or the box of cables while the visit is already happening.

Minnesota keeps screens out of the garbage

This is the rule that decides everything else. Minnesota is one of the states that keeps televisions and computer monitors out of household trash, so they have to go through a recycling channel.

Practically: your hauler will not take a TV off the alley apron, and setting one out there does not make it disappear. It sits, it gets rained or snowed on, a neighbor reports it, and the citation traces to the address it is behind.

Check your city's bulky-item page for whether electronics are on the accepted list at all and what the current charge is — in most of this metro screens are handled separately from furniture, and Minneapolis proper, Richfield, St. Louis Park and Edina all run their own arrangements.

Hennepin County drop-off facilities take electronics. Check current rates, which typically vary by device type.

The basement rear-projection problem

Every third house in the bungalow belt has one. A big rear-projection console or a 32-inch tube set, sitting in the basement rec room of a Nokomis, Standish, Longfellow or Field house since it was replaced around 2009.

Two reasons it is still there, and neither is laziness.

Weight. A large CRT is a genuine two-person lift on a flat floor. Up a narrow pre-war basement staircase with a turn at the bottom against a block wall, it is a careful job with straps.

Nobody will take it. There is no resale market, no donation market, and no alley scrapper wants it. Unlike a steel appliance it has no scrap value worth the handling, because the leaded glass in the tube is a processing cost rather than a material to sell.

Priced by screen size like anything else, carried up from wherever it is. No stair charge.

Wall mounts, and the thing people forget

If the TV is on the wall, take it off the bracket before the crew arrives, or say so when you book.

A large panel on a full-motion arm in a plaster wall is a two-person job on its own, and in a pre-war Minneapolis house the bracket is usually lagged into whatever stud the installer could find behind plaster and lath. Coming off the wall is fine. What is left behind is four holes in plaster, which is your patching job, not ours.

The bracket itself goes with the TV at no extra charge — it is steel and it goes into the same stream.

Worth a mention for newer buildings too. In the North Loop and Mill District condos a 75-inch on a wall over a fireplace is common, and the panel has to come down before it goes anywhere. Tell us the size and location when you book.

Wipe it before it leaves the house

Five minutes, and it is on you rather than on us.

• Factory reset a smart TV. It is holding logins for every streaming account you signed into, plus your wifi credentials. The reset is in the settings menu.
• Remove any streaming stick or box plugged into the back. People forget these constantly and they hold accounts too.
• Wipe or pull the drive on any computer going out on the same visit. Deleting files is not wiping.
• Reset old routers and phones before they go in the box-of-electronics pile.

A box of electronics is $77 and it is the efficient way to clear a drawer of old phones, chargers, cables and a dead tablet — but empty and reset them first.

The free routes, and when they work

• Retailer haul-away on delivery. If a new TV is being delivered, ask at checkout whether the old one goes back on the truck. Delivery day only.
• Retailer and manufacturer take-back. Several accept small electronics free and charge for large screens. Worth ten minutes if you have one item and a car.
• Give it away. A working flat panel moves fast on neighborhood groups in Longfellow, Seward, Powderhorn or Northeast between April and October. Post it with the size and the model.
• County drop-off. Takes electronics for a fee that varies by device.

A CRT does not move through any of the giveaway routes. Not in spring, not free, not to anyone. If you have one, skip straight to a paid route.

Worked totals

• Living room refresh in Kingfield. TV 42-65in $68 + entertainment center $96 = $164.
• Basement rec room in Standish. CRT under 42in $62 + TV 65in+ $73 + box of electronics $77 = $212.
• Home office in Fulton. Two computer monitors at $58 each ($116) + desk $83 = $199.
• Condo in the Mill District. TV 65in+ $73 + console table $57 = $130.
• Student apartment near campus. TV under 42in $62 + microwave $30 = $92.

Plain addition of published rates, disposal included, no e-waste fee added afterward. If a whole room is going, compare against a quarter truck at $241.

Frequently asked questions