How to Get Rid of a TV in New York City

A television is e-waste, not bulk trash

Screens contain materials that are recovered and recycled rather than landfilled, and electronics are consequently handled separately from ordinary household waste. New York publishes its current electronics requirements on the city's own pages, including what may and may not be set out and the channels available to residents, and because that guidance is revised it is the page to check rather than a neighbor's recollection.

If we are removing the set, none of that is your problem. Recycling is inside the published price, and there is no separate e-waste or environmental charge added at the end.

The published prices

Screen prices are set by size, not by weight or age, which is worth knowing if what you have is a rear-projection monster from 2002. A set under 42 inches is $84 whether it is two centimeters thick or sixty.

The minimum for a visit is $75, so any television clears it on its own. A single computer monitor at $78 does too.

The old tube television problem

New York apartments hold on to things, and the sets that finally come out of long-held apartments are frequently CRTs — tube televisions and rear-projection units that can weigh upwards of fifty kilos in a cabinet the size of a chest of drawers.

Two practical realities. Nobody wants it, so do not spend a weekend listing it. And it is not a one-person carry, particularly down a prewar stair with a turn at the landing. This is the classic case for booking removal rather than attempting it: an under-42-inch tube set prices at $84 and comes down the stairs with two people who do that for a living.

Screens crack. A cracked CRT is a genuine hazard rather than a mess, which is another reason not to drag one down a fire stair on your own.

Wall-mounted sets and what comes off with them

A flat panel on a wall bracket has to come off the bracket, and in a prewar building the bracket is usually lagged into plaster over masonry or into a stud that somebody found on the third attempt. Taking the set off the mount is included in the price. So is taking the mount off the wall if it is going too.

What is not included is making the wall good afterwards. Expect anchor holes and, in an older building, some plaster loss around them. If you are renting, the mount may well be considered a fixture depending on who installed it, so check before anything comes off the wall.

Say at booking that the set is wall-mounted. A crew that knows arrives with a driver and a second pair of hands rather than discovering a 65-inch panel three meters up.

The rest of the media wall

Televisions rarely leave alone. The stand, the cables, the DVD player and the two speakers that were part of a system nobody has used in a decade all go at the same time, and it is far cheaper to do that in one visit.

A worked case: a 42-to-65-inch television, the stand it sat on, and the accumulated small electronics from the cupboard beneath it comes to $91 + $129 + $104 = $324.

A smaller version: a monitor, a desktop tower and a home printer from a spare room comes to $78 + $83 + $78 = $239. A box of electronics at $104 is the catch-all for the cables, remotes, chargers and set-top boxes, and it is usually the cheapest way to clear a drawer that has been accumulating since 2014.

Buildings, e-waste rooms and where sets accumulate

Some larger buildings run a designated electronics holding area in the basement, and where that exists it is the correct place to put a set. Many more do not, and the standing rule is that nothing may be left in a service hallway — because one tolerated television becomes a row of six by the end of the month.

If you are on a co-op board or managing a building, the accumulated pile is worth clearing in a single visit rather than piece by piece. Once it is genuinely a pile the truck ladder applies instead of the item list: $325 for a quarter truck, $455 for three-eighths and $580 for a half. We calculate both ways and charge the lower one.

Walk-ups, freight elevators and alternate-side parking

Nothing about the building changes the price. A television is $91 on the fifth floor of an East Village walk-up and $91 in a lobby on Riverside Drive, because there is no stair charge and no walk-up fee in our pricing.

What the building changes is the calendar. In a doorman or managed building the crew needs a certificate of insurance naming the building and the managing agent before it reaches the service entrance, and the freight elevator is released in fixed weekday windows. Ask the managing agent for the wording and the windows when you book, and we will issue the certificate.

On brownstone blocks the constraint is the street: alternate-side rules decide when there is legally room to stand a truck near your door, which is why an arrival slot is a window rather than a minute.

Booking it

Photograph the set, tell us the screen size and whether it is mounted, and say what floor you are on. We confirm the published price before dispatch, recycling is inside it, and the figure does not change when the crew arrives.

Frequently asked questions