Where to dump concrete in Seattle

If you live in Seattle, you cannot take broken concrete to a public transfer station. The city bans it and King County will not serve you. Your options are private recyclers, and only a handful of them publish a price.

That surprises most people, so the first half of this page explains exactly why, quoting the rules themselves. The second half is where you can actually go, what it costs, and the one rule that gets more people turned away at the gate than anything else — and it is not rebar.

Seattle bans concrete from its own transfer stations

Seattle Public Utilities runs two transfer stations, North (Wallingford) and South (South Park). Concrete is on the not accepted list at both. Their page groups it under “Specific Construction & Demolition Waste (must be taken to a Recycler)” and the first three items are:

“Asphalt Paving, Bricks, Concrete”

The city’s construction-and-demolition page says the same thing more bluntly, listing those materials under Materials Banned from Disposal. This is a disposal ban, not a station preference — so there is no point driving to the other one.

And King County will not take you either

The obvious next thought is Bow Lake in Tukwila, or Factoria, or Shoreline. Those are King County facilities, and King County is explicit:

“Customers must live or do business within King County’s 37-city and unincorporated service area to use our solid waste facilities. Our service area does not include the cities of Seattle or Milton.”

So Bow Lake, Factoria, Houghton, Shoreline, Enumclaw, Vashon, Renton, South County and the Cedar Falls drop box are all closed to a Seattle resident, regardless of what they accept. Cedar Hills landfill is not an option for anyone — its own page is headed “Cedar Hills NOT open to the public”.

Where you can actually take it

Four facilities in the wider metro publish a concrete price. Two are in Seattle. Read the unit carefully — some charge by the ton and some by the cubic yard, and the two are not comparable at a glance.

Dirt Exchange — Ballard, and the most practical option in the city

1521 NW 50th St, Seattle 98107. Self-serve, no account: you park, pay, unload and go. Priced by the cubic yard, measured as the space your broken pieces actually occupy — their words: “Pricing is based on the actual space your material occupies, air gaps and all”.

They do not weigh loads. If you need a weigh ticket for a job, this is not the place — they price by volume and say so.

Pacific Topsoils — North Seattle

1212 N 107th St. $126.00 per cubic yard for small concrete (under 2 ft), and $95.00 per cubic yard for soil and concrete mixed. Concrete over 2 ft is not accepted at this yard at all — their own materials list puts “Large concrete over 2′” under unaccepted. Half-yard minimum charge on concrete.

This is the only price in this guide that carries a published effective date on the schedule itself (24 August 2026), which makes it the most reliable figure here — and we would still phone to confirm before loading a truck. Their Kenmore, Maltby and Issaquah yards list the same rate; Redmond, Mill Creek and Maple Valley take no concrete at all.

Reece Aggregates — cheapest by a wide margin, and 45 miles away

Arlington and Lake Stevens, in Snohomish County. Priced by the ton, and this is the one facility that states a clean-versus-reinforced price side by side:

Renton Concrete Recyclers — call for the price

500 Monster Road SW, Renton. Monday to Friday, 7:00am–4:30pm. They publish the surcharges but not the base dump fee — their own price page says “CALL FOR CURRENT PRICING ON ALL PRODUCTS AND DUMP FEES”. What is published: +$2.00 per cubic yard for material with rebar, any size; a $45.00 minimum charge per load; a 5% waste disposal fee on all dump charges; and 4% on card payments. Over 4 ft is quoted per load or per piece.

The 2-foot rule — the thing most likely to get you turned away

Rebar gets all the attention, but size is the real gatekeeper, and four separate facilities draw the line in the same place. Reece prices under and over 2 ft differently. Renton’s tiers are “2 foot and smaller” and “2 foot to 4 foot”, and it will not take over 4 ft without a special quote. Pacific Topsoils refuses anything over 2 ft outright at its Seattle yard. Dirt Exchange’s cheapest tier is “less than 2 ft and no thicker than 8 inches”.

Thickness matters as much as width. A 3 ft slab section that is only 4 in thick is a different proposition from a 2 ft foundation block. Break it smaller than two feet before you load, not after you have driven there.

The same rule applies on the public side for anyone outside Seattle: King County refuses any dense item larger than 2×2×2 ft weighing more than 200 lb without a waste clearance, naming concrete blocks as the example.

Rebar: three facilities, three different answers

There is no single “reinforced concrete costs X% more” figure, because the facilities that quantify it do it in incompatible ways:

• Reece charges exactly double — $6.00 to $12.00 per ton under 2 ft.
• Renton adds a flat $2.00 per cubic yard, on top of a base price it does not publish.
• Dirt Exchange does not treat it as a surcharge at all. Rebar is banned from the $80 tier and reinforced pieces go into the $90 tier — and the rebar must be cut.

Everyone else is silent on it. No public agency in Seattle or King County publishes a rebar rule or rate at all, which is worth knowing before you phone one to ask. The reason recyclers care is simple: they crush concrete into aggregate for resale, and steel contaminates the product.

Places you will find on Google that cannot take your load

Several well-known names come up when you search for this, and they will waste your time:

• DTG Recycle — for years the obvious answer, and no longer operating a King County drop-off. Their own facilities page now lists only Bremerton, Kingston, Snohomish and Yakima. Any guide still sending you to their Seattle or Renton yards is out of date.
• Cadman — now part of Heidelberg Materials. Their Redmond concrete recycling plant makes aggregate to sell; it is a production facility, not a public gate.
• Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel, Lakeside Industries, Miles Sand & Gravel, CalPortland — these sell material. None publishes any drop-off, tipping fee or accepted-materials list.
• Washington Rock Quarries — accepts concrete only in “certified quantities of 200 tons or more”. That is a construction project, not a driveway.
• MCS Recycle — a genuine exception worth a call. They do accept concrete at yards on East Marginal Way and S Hudson St in Seattle, they are a King County designated recycling facility, and they weigh loads. But they publish no price anywhere, and their own FAQ answers “Are you open to the public?” with “Please see the desired facility” — for facility pages that do not exist. Phone them.

If you are outside Seattle

Everything above changes. King County does accept concrete as construction and demolition waste, charged at the garbage rate: $40.25 minimum and $243.38 per ton, effective 1 January 2026. The 2×2×2 ft and 200 lb limit applies, dump trailers are restricted unless the C&D is under 20% of the load, and Vashon will not take it without a waste clearance. All other vehicles are weighed in and out.

A word on prices

Only one price in this guide — Pacific Topsoils’ — carries a published effective date. The rest say only that pricing is subject to change. Aggregate and disposal rates move, and King County’s reset every January. Phone the facility before you load a truck. We check these figures periodically and date this page accordingly, but a five-minute call beats a wasted trip with a loaded pickup.

Or skip the trip

Hauling it yourself means breaking it under two feet, loading it by hand, finding a facility that takes your particular mix, and paying at the gate anyway. For most driveway and patio jobs it is not the cheaper option once you price a truck rental and a Saturday.

If you would rather it just went away, tell us the rough size and send a few photos — we’ll come back with a price range that includes the disposal, and pass your details to one local concrete removal company.