Most people find out about the prohibited items list at the worst possible moment, which is after the container is already full.
It is a short list and it is not complicated. But almost every item on it is something that turns up in a normal garage, so it is worth reading before you start loading rather than after.
The list
Keep all of this out of a roll off container:
Hazardous chemicals. Pesticides, herbicides, solvents, pool chemicals, and industrial cleaners.
Liquids of any kind. Motor oil, transmission fluid, antifreeze, brake fluid, and contaminated oils. This includes partially full containers.
Paint and paint thinner. Both count as hazardous. Dried-out latex paint is sometimes handled differently, but do not assume it.
Propane tanks. Grill tanks, camping cylinders, torch bottles. Full, empty, or somewhere in between.
Aerosol cans. Spray paint, lubricants, and anything else pressurized.
Tires. Car, truck, tractor, all of them.
Car batteries. And most other lead-acid batteries.
Asbestos. Anything suspected of containing it.
Appliances with Freon. Refrigerators, freezers, window air conditioners, and dehumidifiers.
Everything else in a normal remodel, roof tear-off, garage cleanout, or property clear is fine.
Why each of these is actually banned
It is not arbitrary, and understanding the reason makes it easier to remember.
Liquids and chemicals leach. A container sits outside, it rains, and whatever was in that half-full jug of antifreeze goes into the ground or into the runoff. Landfills are engineered to contain specific waste streams, and free liquids are not one of them.
Propane tanks and aerosol cans are pressure vessels. Container contents get compacted and crushed, sometimes by heavy equipment at the landfill. A sealed pressurized cylinder in that environment is a genuine hazard to the people operating the machine.
Tires trap gas and float back up through a landfill over time, which destabilizes the cap. They also collect water and breed mosquitoes. Nearly every landfill in the country handles them separately for these reasons.
Batteries contain lead and acid. Both belong in a recycling stream rather than in the ground.
Asbestos requires licensed abatement and specific containment. If your house is old enough that popcorn ceiling, old floor tile, or pipe insulation might contain it, get it tested before you disturb it. This is one of the few items on this list where doing it wrong has a health consequence rather than just a disposal one.
Freon is a controlled refrigerant. It has to be professionally recovered before the appliance can be scrapped. The appliance itself is fine once that is done, which is why this one is a “handle it first” rather than a flat no.
The Freon one catches everybody
Out of everything on this list, refrigerators cause the most confusion, so it is worth being clear.
A refrigerator is not permanently banned from a container. What is required is that the refrigerant gets recovered by somebody equipped to do it, before the unit goes in. Same for freezers, window units, and dehumidifiers.
If you have one of these coming out of a property, tell us on the phone. It is a normal part of the job and it just needs to be sequenced correctly.
What to actually do with the banned stuff
This is the part most articles skip, and it is the part you actually need.
Paint, chemicals, and automotive fluids go to household hazardous waste collection rather than in the trash. The city routes these to its Industrial Waste Section rather than to regular solid waste, so call 806-342-1556 for current drop-off locations and collection event schedules, since those change.
Tires are usually accepted by tire shops for a per-tire fee when you buy replacements, and are sometimes accepted at the landfill separately for a fee. Call ahead.
Car batteries are taken back by most auto parts stores, often with a core credit that puts money back in your pocket.
Propane tanks can go back to an exchange cage at most hardware stores and gas stations. Grill tank exchanges take the old cylinder as part of the swap.
Electronics are not on the prohibited list everywhere, but they are increasingly handled separately. Worth asking about rather than assuming.
Asbestos needs a licensed abatement contractor. Not a hauling company, not you, and not a weekend project.
For anything you are unsure about, call the City of Amarillo solid waste department directly at 806-378-6813 or check amarillo.gov. They are the authority on what the local landfill will and will not accept, and their answer beats anything you read on a hauling company’s blog, including this one.
What happens if it goes in anyway
Practically speaking: the load can be refused at the scale house.
That means the container comes back, or it sits until the prohibited item is pulled out, and the schedule everybody planned around slips. On a job with a real deadline, like a rental turnover between tenants, that is a genuine problem.
It is a lot faster to spend two minutes asking about one questionable item than to lose a day over it.
The city alley dumpster has its own rules
Separate from the roll off list, and worth knowing since a lot of Amarillo households use both.
The alley dumpsters the City of Amarillo provides are for household waste and general refuse only. Construction and remodeling debris is not allowed in them. So drywall, lumber, shingles, cabinets, flooring, and concrete are out, even though none of those are hazardous.
That restriction is the single most common reason people end up needing a roll off container in the first place. The material is perfectly safe. The city just does not take it through that channel.
Old houses and old shops have more of this than you think
If you are working through an estate or a full property clean out, plan for it.
A shop that has been in use for thirty years will have partially full cans of things nobody has identified since the nineties. Barns out toward Bushland tend to have old fuel, old chemicals, and old batteries sitting on a shelf.
None of that stops the job. It just needs to be separated out early and routed correctly instead of being discovered halfway through a load. When we walk a property before a clean out, this is one of the specific things we are looking for.
Just ask
The list above covers the overwhelming majority of situations. For anything else, call or text (806) 290-0166 and describe the item.
We would much rather answer a question about one weird thing in your garage than have you guess wrong. Send us the details here if you would rather write it out.