How to get rid of a TV and old electronics in Milwaukee

The short answer

Flat, published, carried out from wherever it is — including up from a basement or down from an upper flat. No stair fee, no recycling surcharge. Minimum per visit is $75.

Why you cannot just put it in the alley

This is the part that catches people out, and it is the reason Milwaukee basements are full of dead televisions.

Electronics are handled differently from ordinary household waste in Wisconsin. Televisions, monitors and computers are not a curbside or alley item the way a broken chair is, and the rules for collecting and processing them are separate from general trash. Milwaukee and the surrounding municipalities each handle electronics through their own arrangements, so check your own municipality's current guidance rather than assuming.

What that means practically: a TV left next to your garage on collection day will usually still be there afterwards. And a TV that stays in the alley becomes a nuisance complaint with the property owner's name on it.

So the real options are: take it somewhere yourself that accepts electronics, on their hours and their terms — or have it collected at a flat price.

The CRT problem, which is very much a Milwaukee problem

The single most common electronics call we get in this city is a cathode-ray-tube television — the deep, boxy kind — that has been in a basement or an attic since flat screens arrived.

They are heavy out of all proportion to their size. A 32-inch CRT in a wooden console cabinet is a genuine two-person lift, and it has been sitting at the bottom of a steep Milwaukee bungalow basement stair with a low header for a decade because nobody could face bringing it up. Add the wood console versions from the seventies, still in Story Hill and Jackson Park living rooms, and you have a category of object that is simply not going anywhere on its own.

A TV under 42 inches is $62 regardless of how much it weighs and regardless of what floor it is on. That price is doing a lot of work on a CRT.

Free routes that genuinely work

• Retailer take-back. Several electronics retailers in the metro accept certain devices for recycling, often with limits on size, type and quantity, and the terms change. Ring the specific store before you drive out with a car full.
• Collection events. Municipalities and community groups around the metro periodically run electronics collection days, typically in spring and autumn. Watch your municipality's page. They work well if your timing happens to line up and badly if it does not.
• Working equipment. A five-year-old laptop or a functioning monitor has real second-hand value or a refurbishment charity that wants it. A 2006 plasma does not. Be honest about which one you have.

All three share the same catch: you do the carrying and the driving. That is fine for a laptop. It is a different matter for a console TV from a basement.

Wipe your data first

Do this before we arrive, not after we leave. It takes ten minutes and it is the one part of the job nobody else can do for you.

• Computers and laptops: sign out of accounts, then run a factory reset or full wipe. If the drive held anything sensitive and you are genuinely worried, physically remove it and keep it.
• Smart TVs: factory reset. People forget that a smart TV holds your streaming logins, your Wi-Fi password and, on some sets, a linked payment method.
• Phones and tablets: remove the SIM and any memory card, sign out of the account that locks the device, then reset.
• Printers: newer network printers store scanned documents. Reset them too.

Worked example: clearing a basement media pile

A very typical Washington Heights job — the family room got redone and everything from the last twenty years went downstairs.

• TV (under 42", the old CRT) — $62
• TV (42" to 65", the plasma that replaced it) — $68
• Entertainment center / TV stand — $96
• Computer monitor — $58
• Box of electronics (cables, a DVD player, two routers, a games console) — $77

$62 + $68 + $96 + $58 + $77 = $361, up the basement stairs, disposal handled.

If the media pile is the small part of a bigger basement clear-out, compare against volume: a quarter truck is $241, a three-eighths truck is $338, a half truck is $431. The quote page runs both comparisons for you.

Offices and small businesses

The same rules apply to commercial electronics, and the volumes are larger. We clear offices across the Third Ward, Walker's Point, downtown and the suburban business parks in Brookfield and Wauwatosa.

• Copier / printer (commercial) — $97
• Computer monitor — $58
• Box of electronics — $77
• Desk (standard) — $83, or executive / solid wood — $208
• Office chair — $61
• Cubicle / office workstation — $163
• Conference table — $260

For a whole floor, volume pricing is usually the better route — a full truck is $732. Loft and converted-warehouse buildings in the Third Ward have freight elevator booking rules, so reserve the slot before you book us.

Booking

Pick your TV size in the online quote, add the stand and the box of cables, and you have the total before you commit. Wipe the devices, unplug them, and leave them where they are — carrying them out is what the price covers. Same-day and next-day slots are usually available, including through the winter.

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