Concrete hauling and disposal in Bellevue

King County's construction and demolition pages list concrete, asphalt paving and bricks among the materials county code treats as readily recyclable and bans from the landfill. A load of clean broken concrete belongs at a recycler that crushes it into aggregate, not in a garbage load.

That is also why sorting matters. A pile that is nothing but concrete has the most places it can go. Once wood forms, plastic sheeting, soil or trash are mixed in, the load becomes mixed construction debris, and the county sends that to a short list of designated facilities instead.

King County says you can bring small loads of construction and demolition debris to its transfer stations under certain conditions, as long as you live or do business in the service area. The conditions are where most self-haul trips go wrong:

Bellevue is much stricter than Seattle about containers in the street. The city's right-of-way FAQ says it does not permit dumpsters, PODs or storage containers in the right of way except in very limited circumstances, never downtown and never on arterial streets. In residential areas they go on the driveway.

The exception is for very steep driveways, over 15% grade, where a Right of Way Street Use permit may be issued. When a container is allowed in the street, its footprint can't exceed 20 feet by 8 feet, it can stay no longer than 48 hours, it has to sit on wood or other risers to protect the road, and it must be marked with 28-inch cones.

Two things follow for a concrete job. If the concrete is still a driveway, the bin can't sit on it, so the pieces usually go straight into a truck or a bin placed elsewhere on the lot. And trucks loading from the curb have to stay off the sidewalk: Bellevue says parking on a public sidewalk is illegal at any time without a right-of-way use permit.

Most of the work in a clean haul is done before the truck arrives. Break oversized slabs down, cut and pull rebar or mesh where you can, and keep soil, wood and trash in a separate pile. Several recyclers in the region set their cheapest tier at pieces under 2 feet, and King County's own size limit sits at the same place, so a pile broken to that size has the most options.

Photos of the pile with something for scale, and a note on whether it holds steel, are the fastest way to get an accurate price back. They also tell the crew whether a pickup, a dump truck or a bin is the right tool for that driveway.